Greg Marter is the new boys varsity basketball coach at Southern Aroostook Community School in Dyer Brook.
Marter replaces Bill McAvoy, who resigned after last season in anticipation of having back surgery. McAvoy, who was inducted into the Maine Basketball Hall of Fame on Sunday, coached the Warriors for the last six years.
“Billy McAvoy has been a good friend and mentor for a number of years, so I knew the opportunity was there to be able to take over a good program with him getting done,” Marter said.
Marter, a Millinocket resident, has been busy as a basketball and football coach in the region for more than a decade.
He was the junior varsity boys basketball coach at Penobscot Valley High School in Howland from 2005 through 2009 before moving to Stearns High School in Millinocket, where Marter spent one year as the boys JV coach before ascending to the varsity post for six years beginning with the 2010-11 season.
Marter has coached AAU boys basketball with the Maine Select program for the last two years.
“It’s definitely the competition, the relationships with the kids that brings you back,” Marter said. “If you have the opportunity to make a difference in a kid’s life, that’s what it’s all about.”
Marter currently is beginning his second stint as an assistant football coach at Husson University in Bangor, working with the Eagles’ tight ends.
Marter previously coached at Husson from 2004 through 2011, then joined the football coaching staff at Stearns from 2012 to 2015. He spent the last two autumns as offensive and defensive line coach and special teams coordinator at Old Town High School.
“It’s just a great opportunity that coach [Gabby] Price afforded me to come back,” Marter said of his return to the Husson staff. “It’s a special place.”
McAvoy has compiled a 432-229 record during 34 years as a varsity coach at Central Aroostook of Mars Hill, Katahdin of Stacyville and Southern Aroostook of Dyer Brook.
McAvoy guided Southern Aroostook to an 88-36 record with three trips to the Class D North/East championship game and a fourth berth in the regional semifinals during the last six years.
The Warriors are coming off a 6-12 regular-season record good for 10th place in Class D North last winter but then upended No. 7 Easton 70-52 in the preliminary round of tournament play before being ousted by No. 2 Jonesport-Beals 64-55 in the quarterfinals.
Just one senior graduated from that 2017-18 Southern Aroostook team, which also included four junior captains in Steven Rackliff, Johnathan Hardy, Garrett Siltz and Jaydn Burpee along with one sophomore, six freshmen and an eighth-grader.
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