EAST MACHIAS, Maine — Chris Gardner’s schedule allows for little free time, which is just how he likes it.
His primary occupation since 2007 is as executive director of the Eastport Port Authority, which provides deep-water berthing for cruise ships, cargo vessels, fishing boats and other vessels along that city’s waterfront.
He also is seeking his fourth four-year term as a Washington County commissioner.
“I like my chances,” Gardner joked recently. “I’m unopposed.”
He serves as a part-time officer with the Eastport Police Department and with his wife, Amanda, owns rental properties among their shared interests in real estate.
“It’s kind of that quintessential life in Washington County,” Gardner said. “No person gets away with one job, you’ve got to have two or three to make it all work.”
But it’s an avocation that serves as a stress reliever of sorts from his other occupations that has many peers taking notice these days.
The former goalkeeper at Shead High School in Eastport and the University of Maine at Machias has served for the last 14 years as boys varsity soccer coach at Washington Academy. His Raiders are pursuing a second-straight Class C state championship and sport a 33-match unbeaten streak heading into Saturday’s 2 p.m. North semifinal at Central of Corinth.
“He demands a lot of the kids, but he’s always very good with them,” said Washington Academy athletic administrator Blaine Steeves. “He has high expectations, but he’s also very, very generous, a very nice coach and who cares about them not only as soccer players but as people.”
A man and his county
Gardner’s many pursuits are rooted in a common cause — working to enhance the Sunrise County.
“I’ve never left,” said the 42-year-old Gardner, who lives with his wife and three school-age children in tiny Edmunds Township, home to Cobscook State Park.
He took some classes at the University of Maine but felt more comfortable at UMaine at Machias.
“You hear so much about brain drain in Washington County and that the state is dying, that more people are dying here than being born,” Gardner said. “Maybe it’s my stubbornness, but I wanted to stay here because I believe we can fix this. That drives what I’ve done over the years.”
One task with the Eastport Port Authority the last two years has been following the reconstruction of the city’s breakwater pier, which partially collapsed in December 2014.
The $15 million project is scheduled to be completed by next summer, Gardner said, and will restore the working waterfront to what he believes should be a place of prominence within Maine’s economy.
“The Port of Eastport is one of the biggest assets in the state, let alone Washington County,” he said. “I have the best job in the world because I have the chance to maximize what I think is the best asset in a county that I think gets a raw shake sometimes.”
He also has been able to put his stamp on the area as county commissioner, and police work represents the continuation of a career in law enforcement he began before he entered politics and port management.
It was about 2000 while working for the Washington County Sheriff’s Office based in Lubec when he began coaching basketball at Lubec High School under longtime coach Charlie Fitzsimmons.
“That man influenced me in ways I still think of today,” said Gardner, who also coached soccer at the school, which closed in 2010. “He taught me the art of coaching in that we are using a child’s game to hopefully teach young men and women lessons in life.”
Gardner coached in Lubec for a few years, then planned to stop as his family began to grow. But when Washington Academy found itself without a boys soccer coach two days before the start of preseason practices in 2003, he couldn’t resist.
Since then Gardner’s teams have totaled more than 150 victories and two state championships. This year’s team is 15-0 and has outscored its opposition 133-9.
“I hadn’t planned on this being a long-term gig,” he said, “but I was like their third coach in four years, and I couldn’t understand why the program hadn’t been more successful than it was.
“Then I realized it was because of the turnover in coaching, so 14 or 15 years later, here I am.”
Washington Academy won its first state title under Gardner and former longtime assistant Tom Brown in 2008, marking the first time an Eastern Maine team won the Class C crown since Penobscot Valley of Howland in 1986.
A second championship came in undefeated fashion last year, and now the Raiders are again within striking distance of Class C supremacy.
“It’s quite amazing that in the span of a few years the East [now designed as North] has gone from not winning a state championship in nearly a quarter of a century to finally breaking the curse, if you will, and then just a few years later having a strong enough squad to do it again,” said Milos Gauthier, who played on Washington Academy’s 2008 team and returned to the program this fall as Gardner’s assistant coach.
Gauthier grew up in Lubec and has known Gardner since his middle-school years when Gardner was still coaching and working there. By the time Gauthier arrived at Washington Academy in 2005, Gardner was the Raiders’ third-year head coach.
“He was intense, and we worked really hard for him, and it’s no different now,” said Gauthier. “I come back, and I’m sort of flooded with nostalgia, but the biggest difference isn’t him so much, he’s been coaching much the same way all the time.
“It’s just that now I’m on the other side remembering things he would say, and now I’m saying those things to these kids who are looking at me like I looked at him seven years ago,” he added.
The melting pot
There is eclectic nature to the Washington Academy boys soccer roster. The independent school is home to nearly 90 international students, and the team includes players from Bermuda, Rwanda, Spain, Russia, South Korea, Taiwan and Denmark as well as several Down East communities.
“You brace yourself anticipating some cultural differences, but at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter where they come from and what their experiences are,” Gardner said. “They’re all just high school kids, and at times I’ve learned more from them than they’ve learned from me. I’ve gotten a chance to learn about other cultures and experience them and see a lot of different things firsthand.”
This year’s squad features three key returning players from a year ago in seniors Dnye-Jha Hayward, Manu Sanchez and Oneko Lowe, whose overtime goal gave Washington Academy a 1-0 overtime victory over Waynflete in the 2015 state final.
“I think the team we’ve got this year is probably just a little bit better,” said Lowe. “We play better as a team, and with the team chemistry we have everybody just does what they’re supposed to do.”
As his other jobs have come to entail more responsibility, Gardner’s ability to keep up with his coaching responsibilities admittedly has been tested at times.
“I don’t think I’ve ever had to leave practice, but I’ve had to step away and maybe deal with things telephonically, so to speak,” he said. “I’ve been late to practice, I’ve had to cancel practice. I’ve had to move practice. I’ve had to ask other coaches at [Washington Academy] to take practices for me occasionally.
“I’m sure I’m not the only coach it happens to because more and more today if you don’t work in the school system it’s tougher and tougher to coach because there’s just so much juggling to do because the world seems to be moving faster and faster,” he said.
The primary reason Gardner says he has no intention of giving up coaching anytime soon as a concession to his many job responsibilities is the competitive rush that comes from this aspect of his personally fast-paced world.
“For me, the biggest part is that while the title is the destination the joy is in the journey,” he said. “When you look back on it, winning the title is almost anti-climactic because then what do you do?
“You don’t want it to end.”
