HAMPDEN, Maine — Perhaps the happiest person to welcome the start of preseason football workouts in eastern Maine this week wasn’t one of the players, but John Jamo certainly shares their passion for the sport.
That’s even with an 80-mile drive to practice.
“To have this type of an opportunity on the table, if I had to pedal my 10-speed to get there, I could do that,” said Jamo, who began his duties as the new defensive coordinator at Hampden Academy on Monday after nearly two decades as a coach at his alma mater, Stearns High School of Millinocket.
Jamo is one of six assistants on the staff of first-year Hampden head coach Scott Flagg, who welcomed 53 players to the first day of double sessions.
“He’s such a great coach, and the kids love him,” Flagg said. “The way he can see the game is a huge bonus.”
Two months earlier, Jamo struggled to find the words to tell his former boss he couldn’t continue to serve as the head coach at Stearns.
After 18 years as an assistant coach at the school where as a player he helped Stearns win the 1987 Class B state championship, Jamo ascended to the program’s leadership role last fall and guided the Minutemen to a 5-3 record and a berth in the LTC Class D quarterfinals.
But with his entire coaching staff leaving to pursue career changes or educational opportunities and Jamo working as postmaster of the APO Post Office in Patten, he found he would be unable to arrive at school in time each afternoon to organize the players and start film sessions — tasks his assistants undertook last fall.
“It was such a hard thing to even talk about,” said Jamo of his subsequent resignation from the football post. “I coached at Stearns for 18 years as an assistant and my 19th year was the first time as a head coach and all of a sudden things just changed. Realistically I couldn’t get there right after school, I needed assistants to open the gym and get the film sessions started.
“With this being my daughter’s senior year, if I was going to try to juggle my work schedule to be involved with sports then I definitely wanted to do it with her, but then I lost my entire staff.”
Jamo, who lives in Millinocket, was content to focus on watching daughter Lauren’s varsity field hockey games at Stearns this fall before resuming his duties as an assistant girls basketball and assistant softball coach at the school.
But when word of his football resignation began to spread, he was contacted by a former Stearns coaching colleague.
“I ran into Mike Bisson, who’s now the athletic director at Hampden, and when he had heard I put in my resignation at Stearns that ultimately led to some phone calls and text messages with Scott Flagg,” said Jamo.
“It didn’t take me long to really like Scott and I already had known Mike for quite a while. They were pretty excited, and I can’t say I wasn’t excited but I was quite flattered more than anything else.”
The final seal of approval came from Jamo’s daughter, who also plays basketball and softball at Stearns.
“I used take Lauren to every one of my double-session practices from the time she was 5 all the way up to when she started to play varsity sports herself,” he said. “My original plan this year was to be there as much as possible to watch her field hockey games but we had a long, hard talk and she said, ‘Dad, those boys are really going to enjoy having you there, you’ve got to do that to let them feel your emotion and feel your excitement. You’ve got to do it.’
“That brought a tear to my eye and I said, ‘Honey, I’m going to do it.’”
As defensive coordinator, Jamo will serve in a role similar that he filled at Stearns, where he helped the Minutemen reach the 2003 LTC Class C title game and win the 2010 Eastern C championship despite having one of the smallest student enrollments for a football-playing school in the state.
“It’s a great opportunity to jump into something a little bigger and a little more extravagant and to have the chance to match wits with another league,” Jamo said.
Jamo’s commute from Patten to the Weatherbee Complex at Hampden Academy is approximately 80 miles, but nearly all of that drive is on Interstate 95.
“We talked a lot about the commuting that’s going to be involved, but he’s been very committed and has been to all the evening practices,” said Flagg, whose team hosts Mt. Ararat of Topsham in a controlled scrimmage at 5 p.m. Monday before facing Skowhegan in a home exhibition game on Aug. 28.
“During the season he’ll be able to use film and the Hudl program we have to help out in preparation. We’re real excited that he’s going to be with us.”
