Nokomis High School in Newport boys varsity basketball coach Carl Parker has resigned from that post after six seasons.
Parker, a former athletic director at Nokomis, was hired as the Warriors’ head coach in 2009 and inherited a team that was coming off back-to-back, 0-18 seasons.
In his second year at the helm, the 2010-11 Nokomis squad led by first-team Bangor Daily News All-Maine guard Chris Braley earned the program’s first tournament berth in eight years.
Braley transferred to prep school the following year, but Nokomis returned to the Eastern Maine Class B tournament in 2012 and reached the preliminary round again in 2013.
Last winter’s squad, with two leading scorers that were freshmen, finished with a 4-14 record.
“I hope they hire a good guy because they’re good kids,” said Parker.
Parker’s interscholastic basketball coaching career spans more than three decades, with his first varsity job at Bangor High School in 1983 and including a stop at Foxcroft Academy later that decade. He also did stints as an assistant coach with the former Maine Central Institute of Pittsfield postgraduate program and as head coach of the postgrad squad at Lee Academy.
Parker did not rule out a return to the high school basketball ranks in the future, and with his son-in-law the new varsity football coach at Hampden Academy, the Bangor resident may seek to join Scott Flagg’s staff with the Broncos.
Parker is best known for his work in the state’s AAU basketball ranks, where he has been active since helping to establish it in 1991.
Parker has coached numerous teams to AAU national tournament appearances, highlighted by his 17-and-under squads in both 2007 and 2014 playing to 11th-place finishes at the AAU 11th-Grade National Championships.
His AAU success also helped land Parker a berth as an assistant coach at the USA Basketball Men’s Youth Development Festival in 2000 in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
Parker is coaching a ninth-grade AAU team.
