OLD TOWN, Maine — After spending winters on a basketball bench for the better part of the last three decades, Tim Thornton stepped away from coaching last season.
It was a transition unsatisfying enough that he has opted to make it temporary, having recently been named the boys varsity basketball coach at Old Town High School.
“I thought I could retire from it, but basketball’s too much a part of me,” said the 56-year-old Thornton, a U.S. history teacher at Brewer High School.
“This job opened up and I figured it was a great opportunity for me to get back into coaching. My wife’s real excited about it and my kids are all up and out of college and they’re in their own lives so now I can focus on other parents’ kids and help them learn how to play a game that I love.”
Thornton replaces Brian McDormand, who earlier this year retired from a 25-year coaching career. McDormand spent seven seasons at Old Town, a tenure highlighted by the Coyotes’ 2014 Class B state championship.
Old Town finished 5-13 last winter.
“We had a great pool of candidates for the position,” said Old Town athletic administrator Brett Hoogterp. “Tim stood out with his enthusiasm and eagerness to take over the program as well as the success he has already had coaching in years past.
“Tim will complement the work coach McDormand has already done to build our program in this area.”
McDormand, who amassed more than 200 varsity coaching victories during his career, went 71-55 at Old Town with two trips to the regional semifinals in addition to leading the Coyotes to their first state crown in 23 years.
“They won the states in 2014 and I was lucky enough to be able to watch that game,” said Thornton. “The kids they had there and the spunk they had, their love of the game and that whole system coach McDormand put together with all the community members just doesn’t go away, that’s going to be there.”
Thornton has state championship coaching experience of his own. In his first season as a varsity basketball coach he guided the Hermon girls team to the 1989 Class B title with a 68-47 victory over Gorham.
“I knew they were going to be good but I didn’t know they were going to be that good,” Thornton recalled. “I had a great group of kids who made me look good my first year.”
Thornton capped off his six-year stay with Hermon by winning another Eastern B crown in 1994, then went on to serve as the varsity girls basketball coach at Brewer from 1999 to 2001.
More recently he had been a steady presence within the Brewer boys basketball program as a junior varsity and assistant varsity coach under head coaches Mark Reed, Clayton Blood and Ben Goodwin.
“We’ve had a really good run there and had a blast actually,” said Thornton. “I thought I could get away from it but there was just no way. It’s too much a part of me and I had to get back into it.”
