BREWER, Maine — The Brewer High School boys basketball program will have a new face in charge next season but not an unfamiliar one.
Ben Goodwin, who guided the Witches for four seasons until giving up the post in 2013 because of a job conflict, was approved Monday evening for a return as the program’s varsity head coach by the Brewer school committee.
“It was always in the back of my mind that if the opportunity ever came back up and it happened to work out that I could get the job again that I’d love to get back into it,” said Goodwin. “I just enjoy working with the kids, I enjoy building a program, and I enjoy being part of something that’s competitive.”
Goodwin compiled a 38-36 record during his first term at Brewer, a run highlighted by the Witches’ trip to the 2010 Eastern Maine Class A championship game in his first winter after moving over from Orono High School.
“Ben is someone we’re pretty familiar with through his prior work with the program,” said Brewer athletic administrator Dave Utterback. “We were excited to put his name forward to the school committee.”
Goodwin’s full-time work as a ranger with the Maine Forest Service previously was based in Brownville and encompassed an area from south-central Piscataquis County up through the Moosehead Lake region, making it problematic to get back and forth to practice each day and prompting him to step away from his basketball duties with the Witches after the 2012-13 season.
Goodwin more recently was transferred to a post much closer to his family’s home near Brewer, which enabled him to seek a return to the high school sidelines once Blood announced his retirement.
“I’m not traveling like I was before, that saves me 3½ or four hours going back and forth each day,” said Goodwin. “Everything is right here now, so that makes a huge difference.”
Before taking the Brewer job for the first time, Goodwin was the varsity coach at Orono for six years beginning with the 2003-04 season. He compiled a 54-58 record and four postseason appearances with the Red Riots and guided that team to a 36-18 record during his final three years there.
Goodwin kept his hand in basketball more recently by coaching at the middle-school level in Dedham and for a local fifth- and sixth-grade travel team that included his son Ryder.
“He hasn’t been working directly with the [high school] kids, but he hasn’t been that far away from the program,” said Utterback. “He’s done some work with the travel program, and he knows a lot of kids coming up through the sending districts, so there’s still some familiarity there with our kids knowing him and him knowing what’s on the horizon for us.”
Blood compiled more than 200 victories during his 20 years as a varsity coach at Brewer, Belfast, the former Mexico High School and Hermon.
Blood first became Brewer’s head coach in the 2008-09 season and guided the Witches to a 14-5 record while earning Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference Class A co-coach of the year honors.
He left the job after one season for family reasons but returned as Brewer’s freshman boys basketball coach for 2012-13.
Blood regained the varsity post a year later after Goodwin’s resignation and guided the Witches to postseason appearances each of the last two seasons with a core group of veterans that included KVAC Class A all-stars Carter Smith and Matt Pushard, the latter also a second-team Bangor Daily News All-Maine selection in 2016.
Blood led the Witches to a 14-4 regular-season record and a berth in the Class A North semifinals this past winter.
