I can’t say I was shocked when our Rumford/Dixfield sports bureau chief Bob McPhee tipped us off early Monday evening that Gavin Kane was stepping down as Dirigo girls’ varsity basketball coach.

I had assumed when he took the boys’ job back in 2005 that it wouldn’t be long before he went back to coaching one team, and I figured that if he had some initial success on the boys’ side, he would ultimately choose to stay with them, despite his unprecedented success with the girls.

The physical and emotional toll coaching both teams was clear by each January. I remember him trying to shake some sort of virus, like many of us are that time of year. And by the end of the tournaments, illness and the ups-and-downs of not one, but two seasons had him pretty worn out.

The emotional toll was pretty evident, too. Being on the sidelines for around 50 games – counting preseason, Christmas and post-season tournaments – is a roller-coaster ride from hell as it is. Doing it at the expense of your time at home with a wife and three kids means the roller coaster doesn’t stop when you step off the court.

Kane said consideration for his family was due, and they had sacrificed enough for long enough. That was the major reason for his decision to leave a program that he led to the longest era of dominance in state high school girls’ basketball history.

But it wasn’t the only reason.

Kane and I carried on an e-mail correspondence for much of Monday night shortly after we got the news. He was kind enough to correspond with me even though he was busy completing a report he was going to deliver to the board of directors at Wilson Lake Country Club, which he manages. At the end of the night, he sent me some comments based on questions I had sent him. In addition to the comments he made about spending more time with his family that were in Tuesday’s story on C1, he spelled out what are clearly some frustrations that he and his outstanding coaching staff have felt.

“I would be lying if I said that there weren’t some other factors involved in my decision but I don’t want to come across as if there were a lot of negatives,” he wrote.

“There just seems to be a big change in various things dealing with sports that I don’t care for. Some of those things were creeping into play with our program,” he continued. “Our coaching staff has only known how to do things one way, and we have always had high expectations for what we expected from our players in regards to commitment, effort, etc. As a staff, we have always done everything in our power to try to outwork other coaches, and for a lot of years we felt that our players were willing to outwork our opponents.

“There are a lot more kids today who look at sports as work instead of realizing what kind of life lessons they can really learn, and how great it is to be a part of a team that works hard together to achieve common goals. As a staff, we felt that we were starting to see too many things that go against our philosophy and that played somewhat into our decision. In general, I’m concerned with how quickly these and other changes are occurring in sports and society.”

That’s that. Make of it what you will. I’ve read those paragraphs many times, and the one thing that keeps popping into my head is – It didn’t have to end this way.