BANGOR, Maine — Garth Berenyi has devoted much of his life to soccer in the area, first as a player and later as a referee and coach at both the club and scholastic levels.
Now he’s accepted a new competitive challenge. Berenyi will be returning to his alma mater as the boys head soccer coach at Bangor High School.
Berenyi, who coaches the Seacoast United Blackbear U16 club team, was named recently to replace Billy Shannon, who left after two varsity seasons to become the men’s soccer coach at Maine Maritime Academy in Castine.
It was Shannon, who has worked with Berenyi at Seacoast United Blackbear, who originally encouraged him to apply for the Bangor job.
“Truthfully, initially, I didn’t think I was going to do it because of other commitments,” said Berenyi, a 1989 Bangor High graduate and former halfback for the Rams’ soccer team. “But actually it was the prompting of several players and parents in the Bangor program and from Bangor soccer in general. They came to me like it was a foregone conclusion and said, ‘Of course, you’re going to apply. Of course, you’re going to do that.’
“With their prompting and me really thinking about it, I said OK. I’ve coached a lot of these guys, they’re great kids from great families, and I like what Bangor stands for. I like the tradition,” he said.
Berenyi’s resume includes experience at virtually every level of the sport from junior high through high school and premier travel teams, and he sees differences between coaching at the club and high school ranks.
“You’re really balancing it with the academics on the school side, and it’s a five-day-a-week program, so it’s really intense for a shorter period of time,” he said. “Whereas at the club or premier level it’s a longer season but not as intense. You’re only practicing a couple days a week with games or tournaments on weekends, so I think you have a greater opportunity to develop and work with players during the high school season because of the amount of time you get to spend with them.
“It’s a good fit for me because I’ve got a commitment to really developing players as people and developing people into young men but also really wanting to be successful on the pitch, so to speak,” he added. “I’m pretty competitive by nature, but I’ve been around long enough, too, to see the balance that it’s not just about your wins and losses.”
Berenyi, who is employed as an administrator at Harbor Hill, a retirement community in Belfast,
was an assistant coach at Calvary Chapel in Orrington when his son Stephen starred for the Sabers before going on to a successful college soccer career at Husson University in Bangor.
He’ll have a similar opportunity at Bangor, where twin sons Garth and Jacob will be juniors for the Rams this fall.
“My sons and I are like minded,” he said. “They want to be successful, and they know in order to be successful you’ve got to work hard. I always want my players to trust me, and my kids do because I’ve earned their trust from coaching them and having success on different teams that I’ve coached and played on, so I think it’s actually a really good fit.”
The Berenyi twins will be among the key players back from the 2015 Bangor squad that finished 11-4-1 and reached the Class A regional semifinals.
“We’re a little light on seniors, but we have a handful of good, solid juniors and a couple of seniors who will be good leaders for the team, and we’ve got a really strong group of sophomores and freshmen,” Berenyi said.
“We’ve got a good corps to work with, so I think we’ll do well this year, but I also think it speaks well for the next couple of years as well,” he said.
