When Woodland High School sophomore Shelby Bassett pumped strike three past a Buckfield batter to give the school its first state softball championship, head coach Rick Pullen simply walked out of his dugout, smiled, and raised both arms triumphantly.
That is a memory Woodland boys basketball coach and athletic administrator Troy Cilley will cherish.
“The sense of accomplishment and pride he had on his face was one of the sweetest memories I have of Rick,” said Cilley.
Pullen, whose teaching and coaching career spanned 35 years, died unexpectedly Friday at his home in Bucksport.
He was 57.
Pullen, who was known as “Mr. P” to most of his students, taught sixth grade at Princeton Elementary School from 1974 up until his retirement at the end of this school year while coaching at least one sport during that span.
The Gardiner High School graduate took that post after earning an elementary education degree from the University of Maine at Farmington in 1974.
Pullen, who assisted Cilley in leading the Woodland boys basketball team to its first state title last winter, was already looking ahead to the spring, even during the heat of tournament week.
“All during basketball season I had to listen to softball stories,” Cilley said.
Keith Moody, who taught physical education and health at Princeton Elementary, a kindergarten through eighth grade school, from 1985-98 and currently holds similar posts at Woodland High. He remembers Pullen as a competitive basketball player.
“I can’t answer on Sundays how many times he played in the [local] Rec. league,” he said. “He was very good, very competitive.”
But underneath all that competitiveness was a gentle man who was passionate about teaching and coaching.
“He touched so many lives in such a positive way. I can honestly say I don’t know if I’ve ever heard of one person who didn’t like Rick Pullen,” Cilley said. “The kids meant the world to him.”
Moody noted that Pullen had spent most of the summer beaming with excitement about Woodland entering the Class C softball ranks after winning the state title in Class D this spring, as the team graduated only one senior.
“I know he was looking forward to being with those girls for a number of years,” Moody said. “We were talking about not that long ago how excited he was that a bunch of them were playing softball all summer.”
Woodland’s softball team, which will wear its team uniforms to Pullen’s funeral on Wednesday, will also give its Downeast Athletic Conference championship trophy to Pullen’s family, as that trophy represented one of the coach’s biggest triumphs.
“What really made the year was beating Calais in the DAC game, he had never beaten Calais before,” Cilley said.
In addition to his softball duties, Pullen also coached Woodland’s boys soccer team and junior varsity boys basketball teams, posts he relinquished after retiring from teaching.
His death was felt in a tight-knit community.
“Everyone was just shocked, no one really had any explanation, he hadn’t been sick,” said Cilley. “Friday afternoon, word spread like wildfire, kids calling to see if it was true. Everyone was shocked, truly upset.”
Pullen will be missed.
“It’s quite a loss for our community,” said Moody. “We talked about anything from politics to God to sports.”
“He touched so many lives in such a wide age group,” Cilley added.
Moody, whose sons Aaron and Craig both played soccer for Pullen, said the coach was the epitome of a people person.
“He was more interested in you than himself,” he said. “Talking with him, he wanted to talk about you. He was really interested in you.”
Pullen certainly didn’t panic on the sidelines too often, at least for the most part.
“I know during the [2009 Class D] state game, Rick always wanted to play man-to- man and I like to play some zone, we went man and [Richmond] was starting to come back on us pretty good,” said Cilley. “Rick started to panic a little bit and said ‘Troy, we need to go zone’ and I remember thinking if Rick’s calling to go zone we better go zone.”
Turns out it worked, as the Dragons went on to capture the gold ball.
But the softball championship meant more to Pullen, as the program had been struggling before he took the job, having lost 28 straight games.
“Softball was really his baby at Woodland,” Cilley said. “[When] he took over he created a bunch of interest.”
Cilley added counseling services have not been offered for Woodland students as of yet.
Pullen’s funeral will be held Wednesday at 11 a.m. at Princeton Elementary with Moody, a pastor at Church of the Livingstone in Baileyville, officiating.
Burial services will take place immediately after the funeral at Village Cemetery in Grand Lake Stream, while donations in Pullen’s memory may be sent to Woodland High School’s Athletic Department, 14 First Ave., Baileyville 04694.