AUBURN – Dan Leland missed having a basketball team this summer to prepare for the upcoming season. But he won’t have to worry about having one to lead in the winter.
Leland was named the new boys’ varsity basketball coach at Saint Dominic Regional High School on Tuesday. He replaces Dan DeBruin, who resigned to pursue his studies while working for the admissions office of Central Maine Community College.
The 43-year old Leland has spent his entire coaching career at his alma mater, Lake Region High School. He started as an assistant there in 1992, then became head coach of the girls’ varsity in 2000. He coached that team for four years before taking over the boys’ program last year and leading a team that had been gutted by graduation to a 2-16 mark. He also coached varsity baseball there from 1999 to 2003.
“Leland is an experienced and highly competent basketball and baseball coach who has been in high school athletics for many years and enjoys an excellent reputation among his colleagues,” principal Michael Welch said in a statement released by the school on Tuesday.
Leland originally accepted an assistant coaching position at Thomas College for the upcoming season, but started to have second thoughts because of the travel it would require from his home in Sebago to Waterville. He was immediately interested in the St. Dom’s job when it opened up.
“This one seemed to be a good fit,” said Leland, a St. Joseph’s graduate who manages a woodworking and hardware store in South Portland. “It’s a private school and small, and it’s still in the Western Maine Conference.”
He described himself as a defensive-mined coach with a preference for a quick pace.
“We’re going to play up-tempo and look to push it,” he said. “We’ll get pressure on our makes and get back on defense off our misses.”
The Saints have played a similar style the last few years under DeBruin, and the new coach thinks that can help his new players adapt to him and vice versa.
“It should be a good mix,” said Leland, who plans to meet with the players sometime in the next couple of weeks. “There are going to be a few wrinkles that I’m going to do differently, but it’s not like we’re going to have to start from scratch.”
DeBruin coached the Saints for four years, the first three as a co-coach with Mike Gray before Gray left to become the varsity girls’ coach Gardiner. The pair turned around a moribund program and built it into one of the top Class C teams in the Western Maine Conference. Under DeBruin’s watch, the Saints went 38-32 and went to the Western C tournament the last three years. The 2003-04 team won a school record 15 games and made it to the Western C semifinals.
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