Dave Morris has won wherever he has been, and he has compiled a very impressive resume as a football and baseball coach in the Bangor area.
But the current Bangor High School baseball coach will be stepping down after this season and moving to St. Augustine, Florida, with his wife to start a new chapter in his life.
The youngest of their four children, daughters Grace and Lily, live in St. Augustine with their husbands and children.
Morris and his wife, Dana (Billington), have owned a house down there for a couple of years. They have seven grandchildren and an eighth on the way.
He retired as the Bangor High football coach this past fall after leading the Rams to a berth in the Class A North championship game. He had inherited a program in 2018 that had gone winless in its previous two seasons.
As the head coach of the Rams’ baseball team, he has guided them to seven Class A North championship game appearances in eight seasons, four regional championships and two state titles. He was an assistant coach under Jeff Fahey for several years, and they teamed up for three consecutive state titles before Fahey retired.
Morris took over and proceeded to win back-to-back state championships in his first two seasons at the helm, giving Bangor a string of five in a row.
He was formerly the head baseball coach for 12 years at Brewer High after a three-year stint as the Hermon High baseball coach. He also coached the Brewer American Legion baseball team for 11 seasons before taking over the Bangor Legion job.
He was 135-66 at Brewer High and won a regional title.
He led Bangor’s Legion team to back-to-back state championships in 2014 and 2015, its first state championships since 1979, and to another one in 2017.
“I’m going to miss the people,” said the 60-year-old Morris, a former Bangor High football and baseball standout. “I’m going to miss the players in all three communities. Every place I’ve been at has been a great experience. I have been very fortunate.”
Morris, who attended the University of Maine, said he wants to continue coaching baseball and/or football in Florida. “Hopefully, I can land a job,” he said. “Their baseball programs start in January. They also have fall baseball programs.”
The fall programs focus on player development and instruction and feature a number of top-notch tournaments.
“I had such a wonderful experience growing up as a young kid in Bangor. I had a great experience playing sports at Bangor High School,” Morris said. “The coaches I had were second to none. It was unbelievable.”
One of those coaches was current Bangor Athletic Director Steve Vanidestine, who was an assistant coach on Gabby Price’s Bangor High football staff.
“David was one of my favorite players. It was all about the team [first], never about him,” said Vanidestine, who hired Morris for his first coaching job as a football assistant and freshman coach before choosing him again for the head football and baseball jobs.
“He is very unselfish. He is always looking to improve the program,” said Vanidestine. “If you need something done, he always shows up. He always gives everything he has to make his players and teams the best they can be.”
Vanidestine said Morris does an exceptional job developing his players and getting the most out of the teams he has coached.
“He and his staff have helped players get to levels people didn’t think they could get to,” he said. “He has gotten us to championships with very good teams and teams that might have not been the best teams.”
Vanidestine said Morris will be a “very, very hard person to replace.”
“To me, he is a Hall-of-Fame quality coach,” he said. “When you look at what he has accomplished over a long period of time and doing something that is very difficult, it equals excellence. He checks all the boxes.”
Morris said he loves summers and falls in Maine, and he and his wife will be back to spend time at her family camp on Branch Lake.
“I’m not a snow person. I won’t miss that one bit,” he said.