BRUNSWICK – For 26 years, Gene Keene has been a teacher and a coach. Now he intends to do a little bit of both but in a very different capacity.

Keene is the new director of student services at Maranacook Community School. He’ll direct the athletic department as well as manage co-curricular activities.

After two years as a mathematics teacher at Brunswick and 10 years as the softball coach at Edward Little, Keene had to leave both jobs in pursuit of this opportunity.

“I knew going in that if I secured one of these positions, my coaching would be done,” said Keene, who taught for 12 years at Edward Little before going to Brunswick. “I came to a point in my career where my role needed to change. I’ve enjoyed teaching for 26 years, but I’m at a point where I wanted to be the guy that runs around and puts out fires and does things like that.”

Keene signed the contract with Maranacook on Tuesday and begins work there in July. He also submitted his resignation as EL softball coach earlier this week.

“I’ve been coaching two or three sports a year for 26 years,” said Keene. “It’s been a lot of fun. Particularly, I’m going to miss softball. That’s probably my most cherished of coaching experiences. All along during my coaching career, I was focused on being a head football coach, and I achieved that, but the softball team is something I enjoyed above and beyond everything else.”

After getting out of football two years ago, Keene began to concentrate on the coursework needed to pursue an athletic director’s job. He had enrolled in the administrative program at the University of Southern Maine. With that work complete and the opening at Maranacook, the time was right. Keene’s youngest daughter, Aly, a catcher on his softball team, was a senior this year, making the timing even better.

“I’ve done this for 26 years, and I felt it was time to change my role as an educator,” said Keene. “I felt this would be a good thing.”

Between a variety of coaching experiences, he brings a solid background to the job. He hopes to serve not only as an administrator but as a leader, teacher and adviser.

“I told them I’m not going to forget where I came from,” said Keene. “I was a coach for a long time, and I know there are issues. I think I’m going to be receptive to their needs and desires.”

Having worked for ADs like Jeff Benson and John White, who Keene calls, “two of the best”, he knows how the should be done.

“If I can live up to half of what they were able to do, Maranacook will get their money’s worth out of me,” said Keene. “They were outstanding. It was easy to be a coach working with those two guys.”

Leaving coaching is a sacrifice he knew was inevitable. In retrospect, he admits he couldn’t have done it without the support of his wife, Kathy. His assistant Norm Ford also helped make coaching a treat. Most of all, though, it was the kids that made softball one of his greatest experiences.

“They’re the ones that made it enjoyable,” said Keene. “All the kids that bought into what we were trying to do made it the most cherished experience that I had.”

Keene won the Class A state title back-to-back in 1996 and 1997. His club’s come-from-behind win against Messalonskee in the 1997 game ranks up there among the highlights as does the 1-0 playoff win over Biddeford in 2001. Biddeford’s Sarah Conroy struck out 21 batters, including 17 straight, but EL still managed to win in nine innings.

“The kids hung in there,” said Keene. “That kind of typified what I thought our program was all about. They had the better player, but I think we had the better team. Our kids hung in there and worked hard that whole game. We persevered and came out with a big win.”

Keene missed the playoffs just once in 10 years. His team went 100-61 during the regular season and 12-7 in nine years of tournament play.

“I’m proud of some of the things we accomplished,” he said. “Obviously we won a couple of state championships, but I’m not so much proud that we accomplished those things but in the way we did that. I tried to have a program where we taught them not only about athletics but also about life and how teamwork can help people achieve.”