Chris Cameron filled in as a coach during the summer basketball season after Hermon High head girls coach Amanda (Gifford) Cummings stepped down to become the women’s soccer coach at Husson University in Bangor.
Well, he enjoyed it enough he decided to throw his name in the hat to replace Cummings. Cameron landed the job Monday night when the Hermon school board approved him.
“I’m very excited about this opportunity,” the 43-year-old Cameron said. “I kind of coached my way up through the ranks through the [recreation leagues], travel and in AAU ball over the past two or three years.”
Cameron, who played football and basketball at Orono High School before playing basketball at Husson, was one of four applicants for the job, according to Hermon athletic director Steph Biberstein.
“Chris will bring an element of professionalism to the program,” Biberstein said. “He has tremendous basketball knowledge. He is down to earth and when I watched him this summer, he was always teaching throughout the games. He provided the girls with positive and constructive feedback and the girls responded well to him.”
Cameron said he believes in emphasizing the fundamentals and “teaching the girls to play the game the right way.
“I want them to recognize situations and be able to make decisions on their own,” he said. “We will be disciplined on defense. We will have a help [mentality]. You can overcome talent by working hard and playing good defense.
“We will also focus on boxing out and rebounding,” he added.
Cameron will base his specific offensive and defensive strategies on the players’ talents.
“We have a lot of [good] athletes. You can tell by the success the girls soccer and softball teams have had,” Cameron said. “I want to try to turn Hermon into a basketball community again. Amanda did a nice job and we want to capitalize on the momentum they picked up at the end of last year.”
Hermon was the 11th seed in the Eastern Maine Class B Tournament but upset No. 6 John Bapst of Bangor in the preliminary round and No. 3 Medomak Valley of Waldoboro in the quarterfinals before losing to eventual Eastern Maine champ Presque Isle in the semifinals.
Hermon was 20-19 in Cummings’ two seasons on the bench.
Cameron, who played in the first Shrine Lobster Bowl football game in 1990 at Thornton Academy in Saco, began coaching while working summer camps when he was at Husson.
“I really enjoyed it and decided I wanted to get into coaching at some point. Once I had children, that was the step that got me involved. I started coaching my kids and it took off from there,” said Cameron, who graduated from Husson with a degree in sports management in 1996.
He and wife Mary have two children: 10-year-old Allie and 8-year-old Josh.
Cameron is the vice president of Maine Athletic Fundraising, a company that helps youth and high school athletic groups raise funds for their programs with discount products.