By Kevin Mills,Staff Writer

DIXFIELD – Dan Deshaies didn’t just need a coach; he knew he needed the right coach.

The Dirigo girls’ basketball team had struggled for a decade after some early glory years.

As the Dirigo athletic director, Deshaies knew the time was right to turn things around. There was some promising young talent. The future was bright. All that was needed was the right Cougar in charge.

Deshaies had just one candidate in mind – Gavin Kane.

” I gave him a buzz and said If you’re interest in getting closer to home, we have a team here,'” said Deshaies, now the AD at Edward Little. “It’s a state championship caliber team. There’s a lot of talent here. It just needs someone who really knows the game.'”

Kane was reluctant but mulled it over. He called Deshaies back the following day expressing interest.

Little did anyone know what Kane was about to embark upon.

Kane tries not to dwell on the records and the championships but can’t help but be reminded of the memories.

“I keep saying there will be a day when I look back at some of the records that we’ve amassed,” said Kane. “I’ll probably shake my head and say Wow’.

“I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about those things. I do think about all the wonderful kids we’ve had the opportunity to coach and a lot of tremendous experiences we’ve had on and off the basketball court. Those are all very meaningful to me and all of our coaches.”

Modest success

Next month the Dirigo community will honor Kane at a tribute dinner.

He admits he was embarrassed at the idea. Dirigo basketball isn’t about him, he says, it’s about the kids. He’s just the one that revs the engine on the Cougar championship machine.

“It’s an honor to realize some of these people want to do this for me,” he says. “But I really hate having attention brought to me.”

Kane knows when you have such success, people are going to notice. He’s earned praise from many and scorn and jealousy from others. Kane just tries to take it all in stride.

“Some people probably look at me in a different light,” he says. “People may feel I’m cocky in a way, but underneath, I’m very humble.”

On the court, he’s as intense and fiery as they come. Winthrop coach Lonney Steeves says he’s marveled at Kane’s intensity.

“I was like Look at that guy go’,” said Steeves. “It’s part of that persona that he has. He’s different away from the court than he is at the game, but he brings that intensity to every game.”

Kane can be tough and demanding, but he gets results, not in just wins and losses. Lyndsay Clark, now playing at Albany, says playing for Kane was one of the most intense experiences of her life but wouldn’t trade it for anything. Nothing prepared her for college life better, and she admits she misses playing for him.

“He’s got a reputation for being a hard coach” said Lyndsay Clark, who became the school’s all-time leading scorer and earned the first Division I scholarship in school history. “He is a hard coach, but there’s a soft side. We’d have really tough practices, but there’s a lot of fun to the practices. He never made me dread going to practice. I always enjoyed it.”

He’s typically at full boil from tip to the final buzzer, but it is the other end of the spectrum people don’t witness.

“He’s very intense, and he’s very into the game situation while it’s going on, but they don’t know that he’s a fun-loving guy and very laid back, and he’ll do anything for anybody,” said Matt Clark, an assistant coach with the Cougars.

Steeves recalls after last year’s state championship loss at Augusta, he saw Kane sharing a tender moment with his wife, Carole, and three young children Connor, Caitlin and Chelsea.

“He’s a hell of a family man,” said Steeves. “He has a great wife and kids. He really cares about them, and he cares about any kid that plays basketball. He knows the players on the others teams and cares about those kids. That’s certainly a side of him that other people don’t see.”

Hoop dreams

Kane grew up around basketball. His father, Arthur Kane, a teacher at Wilton Academy, often took his sons to the gym.

“That’s where my drive for basketball began, back in third and fourth grade,” said Kane, who played at Mt. Blue in high school. “To this day, I still remember Dad taking me to Edward Little High School for the Western Maine tournament and the Bangor Auditorium year after year after year. I can remember as a 10, 11 or 12-year old getting caught up in that excitement at that point, just dreaming about playing in an atmosphere like this.”

It wasn’t until he was the recreational director in Wilton that Kane got hooked on coaching. He coached boys’ travel teams, and subsequently took the boys’ job at Rangeley.

“I really jumped into the fire as far as high school basketball and was learning on the fly,” said Kane.

In his second year at Rangeley, Kane attended a coaching clinic in Rhode Island, which included Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski and Indiana’s Bobby Knight.

“I saw how detailed they were with everything they did,” he said. “I remember it came across to me how important being very detailed was in everything you do as a basketball coach. I learned from those two coaches, the importance of very detailed practice schedules and that your practices were much more important than the actual games.”

He won the state championship with the Lakers in 1989, but the 100 miles per day commute from Wilton was getting harder.

Then came a call from Deshaies.

A new era

It didn’t take long for Kane to wonder what kind of blunder he had committed. The Cougars were 2-2 by Christmas, the defensive game was lagging and frustration was rising for all. Rebecca Fletcher, a junior on that team and now an assistant at Dirigo, recalls thinking “He’s not going to be here very long.”

“It took a period of time for those girls to understand where I was coming from and what my expectations were,” said Kane. “It wasn’t until that Christmas break and our Christmas tournament that we started to come together. That was the beginning of what we’ve got going now.”

When Kane raised his voice to make a point, it prompted tears from one player. It made Kane leery of being tough on the girls but former player, Amy Chaisson, the aunt of current Cougar Katie Hutchinson, told him he needed to coach the girls as he had coached the boys in Rangeley.

“It was during that Christmas time period that I decided I wasn’t going to change my coaching philosophy, my coaching style,” he said. “I was going to go for it. It took awhile to adjust but eventually, they all bought into my philosophy.”

Part of that change was a new mindset. The Cougars adopted its “refuse to lose” mantra.

“As a player and as a coach, even though we lost games, I never felt like we were going to lose,” said Fletcher. “With other coaches I had, both in college and in high school, there were times, even before games, they already knew we were going to lose. We used to know which teams we would lose to before the season even started. I would already have that in my head. When he came, it was a shock to that. We were going to win every game or feel like you’re going to.”

Dirigo finished 14-2 that year and won the regional title before losing in the state game. The Cougars won it all the following year and have roared ever since.

The Dirigo dynasty became a generational thing. One group of Cougars was simply replaced by another every few years.

“I couldn’t wait to play for him,” said Lyndsay Clark, whose two cousins, Tara and Michele Gagnon played before her. “He always knew what everyone could do. He had high expectations for everyone. So if he wasn’t getting the best out of you, you wouldn’t play. So you knew you’d have to go give him a 100 percent effort.”

Kane is a tireless worker. He scouts constantly and finds ways to make his team better. He recently drove to Calais to scout the Blue Devils, even though Dexter was a clear favorite to win in Eastern C. He doesn’t ask any more of his team than he does himself.

“He’s tough,” said Steeves. “He’s tough on his kids, and he’s tough on officials, but those are his expectations. That’s the level they play at, if you’re going to wear that uniform. The kids have gotten that intensity from him. They know the coach is going to be fired up, and if they don’t perform, they’re going to hear about it. I think his kids feed off that too.”

There won’t be many teams more prepared or ready to work harder than the Cougars.

Last year, after losing eight seniors from a two-time defending state championship team, Kane had just two regulars left. Still, Dirigo went 18-0 and won the regional final before losing to Dexter.

“He’s very dedicated in what he does with the kids,” said Matt Clark. “He’s very much into the basics. On defense, the footwork has to be right. The shooting form has to be right. Everything has to be done as it should be. He pays particular attention to detail, and that’s made every kid that I’ve ever seen better.”

As tough as he’s helped make his girls, they may have helped softened his edges. He loves spending time with his team and relishes in the fun and experiences they share. He’s learned not to take coaching so seriously and embrace the nonsense that comes with teenagers.

Even when he had the chance to make the jump to Class A to coach Skowhegan, he couldn’t pry himself away from his Cougars.

“”I really battled with that,” he said. “I looked at some of the new challenges that job could present, but the bottom line was that I just loved our kids so much I said that this wasn’t the time.”

Kane has always dreamed of being a college coach, but has come to appreciate the role he can have in young players lives at this level. There may be other challenges that entice him, but for now, Kane says he loves it at Dirigo and is committed to continuing the success the Cougars have had. He’ll continue to push himself and his players to reach above and beyond.

“I want to be the best possible coach I can for these kids,” he said. “I have a goal, even though I’ll probably never achieve it, that’s being the best coach in the state of Maine. That’s a personal goal for myself, even though I probably won’t get there. I’m going to strive to attain that goal and by doing that, I’m going to offer the best I can as a coach to our players.”