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Rich Henry has been named the new boys basketball coach at Deering High in Portland.

Henry spent the past 21 seasons as Waynflete’s coach, compiling a 263-132 record that included Class C South championships in 2014 and 2016.

“I’m very appreciative of my time at Waynflete. I wouldn’t leave except for an extraordinary opportunity and I think there is one at Deering, and I hope I’m up for the challenge,” Henry said Friday afternoon, a few hours after the school announced his hiring on social media.

Henry, 61, a former University of Maine co-captain and 1,000-point scorer, replaces Todd Wing, who resigned earlier this spring after 17 seasons with the program, the last 12 as the varsity coach.

Henry said the switch from Waynflete, a small private school in Portland, to nearly 1,000-student Deering, one of the city’s two public high schools, excites him — in part because it is a school with a football program on the rise under coach Brendan Scully. Henry played both sports at John Marshall High in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, then a 2,500-student school. He was recruited to play football for North Dakota State, where he ended up playing only basketball as a freshman before transferring to Maine.

“I had often thought about what it would be like coaching at a school with a larger population, and in particular, having played high school football myself, I thought it would be great with the cross-over athlete that you would find,” Henry said. “When the Deering position opened up, it was a larger school, I used to live down the street, the football coach there has done a nice job.”

In addition, Henry retired from his vice president role with Lincoln Financial Group (he’d held a similar position for several years at Unum) in the summer of 2024, providing more free time to devote to the type of program building he believes is required at a public school.

“That came out clear in the interview process, that not only was he up for the challenge, but that he was excited about the challenge and that’s why he applied for the job,” said Michael Daly, Deering’s athletic director. “There’s a little more opportunity to build an integrated program from first team to varsity, and maybe work at the city level.”

Deering went 8-10 last season, finishing sixth in the seven-team Class AA South Heal point standings before losing its playoff opener to No. 3 Scarborough. Seven of the 13 players on the varsity roster were seniors. Over Wing’s 12 seasons, the Rams were 123-102 and reach the AA North final in 2016 and 2020. Next year, the Rams will be part of a 16-team Class A South, which will include city rivals Portland and Cheverus, two-time defending Class AA champion Windham, and perennial toughies like South Portland, Thornton Academy and 2025 Class A champion Falmouth.

Henry said he met three of his future players who were part of Deering’s selection committee. He intends to meet the rest of the players next week and will direct the summer program. Henry said he’ll lay out “straightforward” goals to both players and parents.

“I try to coach a fundamentally sound approach to the game,” Henry said. “The quality and quantity of the athletes I would expect to be coaching, we should be fundamentally sound.”

He added, “We’ll talk about commitment and how every successful team I’ve had, it’s been the players driving the value system and the culture and holding each other accountable. Coaches set the stage for that, but if the players are able to drive the way we’re going to play, and stay true to it, and then have the commitment piece, that’s when we are able to kick into a different gear.”