RICHMOND

Going out on top!

Athletes like John Elway, Peyton Manning, Jerome Bettis decided to hang up the cleats and walk away from the game they love after winning the top prize in their sport.

Over recent years, we have seen local coaching legends depart, no longer on the sideline or in the dugout. At Brunswick, Peter Gardner. Mt. Ararat, Rick Renaud. Wiscasset, Sue Shorey.

Recently, longtime Richmond High School softball coach Rick Coughlin announced that he was departing from the Bobcats’ dugout after 29 seasons leading the squad. There were tears shed, from Rick, his wife Debbie, and his former and current players. It will feel strange covering a Richmond softball game this season and not hearing Rick’s infectious laugh, see his smile, watch him coach-up his girls to another victory.

Let’s take a look at this man, 70-years young, married to Debbie for 37 years. They raised their three kids, son Mike, 35, and twins Sean and Sarah, both 34, in Richmond, the only town Rick has lived in during his life. Rick taught at Richmond Middle School and was a substitute teacher for a few years after he retired. He officially retired before this school year.

Rick has coached softball and boys soccer, collectively earning 587 wins, including the playoffs, and 10 state championships over 54 seasons.

“It has been great. They have treated me very well and a lot of great memories and friends. I had a lot of kids who played for me that were just super.”

There have been recent bumps in the road medically. In November, Debbie had a heart attack. She was operated on in Portland shortly after.

Plus, Rick says he has a few medical issues, but ultimately it was the long travel that is required of Richmond sports that pushed him toward this decision. There are the yearly trips to Vinalhaven, requiring a bus and ferry ride to the island. Often, the Bobcats are on the road on back to back days, heading south to Hiram one day, then north to Rangeley or Greenville the next.

“I have diabetes, kidney problems, and I just decided that it was time. Travel here is long. In softball it was great, because one year you would play a doubleheader on the road, then the next year they would come here. You would go to Sacopee one day, then Searsport the next. It makes for a long weekend.

“It wasn’t a quick decision. Late January, early February I started thinking about it. Like in soccer, I left a team that was loaded. I vowed I wouldn’t do the same in softball, but I had to. This softball team is loaded and should have a good chance of winning the state title again, both this year and next.”

With all of this, coming to this decision, to leave Richmond softball, was difficult.

“This was the hardest decision that I have ever had to make. I had only lost one from last year’s softball team (Chika Obi), and I have some talent coming in, like freshman Caitlin Kendrick and a transfer from Boothbay (Mackenzie Abbott). The love of the sport and the kids makes it tough. This group of athletes is just super. That made it real hard to step away.”

Soccer

Rick stepped into coaching at Richmond in the 1984- 85 season. His first boys soccer team went 13-1 before falling in the postseason. The next year, he coached the Bobcats to the state championship game, falling to Piscataquis, 3-1. Richmond returned to the Class D state championship in 1989 (a 3-1 loss to Shead) before Rick won his first state title, a 1- 0 victory in four overtimes over Van Buren in 1991.

After a rough patch in the early 90s, Rick coached his team back into prominence. After falling to Van Buren, 2-0, in the 1994 title game, Richmond returned to the championship in 1995, downing Greenville in three overtimes, 3-2.

Then came the chance to coach his boys. The year was 1998, and after going 13-1 in the regular season, Richmond bounced Machias in the Class D title game, giving Rick three state championships.

“ We are a soccer town, and I was able to coach my sons to a state championship. That was super! We had so many good players, some great athletes.”

Rick compiled a record of 218- 117- 16 as the boys soccer coach at Richmond
before departing in 2005.

Softball

Things started well for Rick, as he led his first Richmond softball team to an 11-5 record and two postseason victories.

The program struggled a bit, posting a 36- 42 mark over five seasons and winning just once in the postseason.

“In softball, at first you only had two or three kids that really loved the game, with others playing a third sport or because their friends played it. Now, a majority of the kids love it. What a difference it makes when you have eight or nine kids loving the sport! There have been so many great softball players here.”

The turnaround began in the 1994 season as Richmond advanced to the state championship before losing to Jonesport- Beal. The teams met again in the 1995 final, with the Bobcats earning a 2-0 win and the first of seven State Class D titles for Rick.

Early on and throughout his career, Rick noticed a difference in coaching the genders.

“Girls care for each other, the sport, they have that ‘team concept.’ The girls will do things together, where the boys will go off this way and that way. Way back, the kids used to do things together. Boys don’t now, but the girls still do.

“ The boys, you had to keep after them constantly. They would get lazy on you. I had a championship team that didn’t want to do what we wanted them to do. We told them to go home. They didn’t want to practice. After that, they got back to it, and we turned around and won it. Once I would get on the girls, they would respond.

“I used to joke with them. I had an April Fools joke, telling them that they were going to do something they didn’t like, but then saying ‘April Fools’ to them. Then there were other times I would want them do something, and they would say ‘it isn’t April Fools!’ I would say, ‘that’s right, now get it done.’”

One of the great Maine softball rivalries kicked up in 2002 and lasted for more than a decade. Rick and Buckfield leader Ken Farrington matched wits until Farrington stepped away from coaching in 2013. From 2002-2012, Richmond and Buckfield met for the Regional title on a neutral field, with Buckfield claiming a 6-5 edge. The Bucks won state titles in 2002, ’03, ‘07 and ‘08, while the Bobcats claimed titles in 2004, ’05 and ’10.

“ He was a great coach, and you knew that he knew the game and that you needed to be ready to be successful. We were fortunate to have talent, and they had talent. It was always the toughest games of the season. It was always a battle. It didn’ t matter who was weaker that year.”

There was the season when pitcher Leandra Martin returned from a pair of severe knee injuries to pitch Richmond to the 2013 state title, downing Penobscot Valley, 3-0.

“I will never forget when Leandra, with braces on both knees, pitched a heck of a game. I never understood why teams didn’t bunt. Not to mean, but I want to win. I would have bunted the death out of us. Leandra couldn’t move. But, every team we played didn’t bunt. If you don’t bunt, then you have trouble defending it when you’re in the field. Teams just don’t know how to defend it.”

Richmond has been to six straight State Class D title games to date and has lifted the championship prize three straight seasons heading into the 2016 campaign.

Coming into the 2014 season, the Bobcats were a question mark. Having lost eight starters to graduation, was this the year the rest of the East-West Conference was going to take Richmond down?

Think again! Richmond went undefeated, riding the legs of senior Danica Hurley, and the pitching of Meranda Martin to a perfect 14-0 season and a 9-4 win over Limestone in the title game.

“ With that team, they loved the sport and had grown up loving the sport. There were two or three kids who played AAU. Our freshman pitcher that year, Meranda Martin, was just so good. That is what we needed. She has gone on to win the states two years in a row. She just keeps getting better and better. I have been very fortunate to always have two lead- off hitters that can fly. Then I had good hitters behind them.

“A lot of it was the parents. The Martins and the Hurleys, their kids played all the time, going down to the batting cages.”

Rick feels the sport has grown during his time on the bench.

“Softball is much better. The pitching is better, the hitting is better because they do a lot more of it. Drills are better, and the game is much, much better. I have kids who have their own pitching tutors. That is what kids are doing now.”

However, Rick is concerned.

“I hate to say it, but the interest in the middle school is gone. There are only two eighth- graders who play softball. The rest play basketball and soccer. I feel that the program may be going down the valley a bit in interest. The kids think it is a slow, boring game. It is a sport that involves a lot of thinking.

“But, I see the players now in the third- and fourthgrades having a lot of talent and interest. I think when this present-day junior class goes, the nine of them, Richmond may not have that number and talent to replace them.”

As is the norm for Rick, he is quick to deflect the success of Richmond softball to the athletes, taking zero credit for what has occurred on the field, where seven state softball titles hang proudly in the trophy case for all to see once entering the high school.

“I don’t do anything. I am proud of the kids and all that they have accomplished. I just tried to do what I could do to make them better.”

After receiving flowers from his team after his announcement, Rick had some advise for his players.

“I told them not to forget their goals and to work hard.”

As for the future, Rick has few ironclad plans.

“I have no idea what I am going to do. I am going to take it easy, cut wood. Basically, anything that I want to do when I want to do it.”

But, his former softball team can take note, Rick will be there, watching from the bleachers when the Bobcats are at home.

“I will be there, but I am not going to Vinalhaven.”

And following that, there was that laugh. Man, that laugh will be missed!

BOB CONN is The Times Record Sports Editor. He can be reached at bconn@timesrecord.com.