Last December, Rus Willette was coaching a basketball team he adored and started a new job that had him excited. It was the best of both worlds.

He soon discovered, however, that those two worlds could not coexist for long.

Willette recently resigned as the girls’ basketball coach at Poland to devote his attention to his full-time role as the Development Director at St. Dominic Regional High School.

“It wasn’t a choice that I was excited to make,” said Willette. “The demands of that position and with the fact that we’re expecting our second child in a few days, makes it kind of tough to continue.”

Poland is now looking for its fourth head coach in the last five years and sixth overall since the program began a decade ago. The Knights have struggled to find consistency in the program, and that was something Willette hoped to alter when he took the job last year.

“That was my hope, but with the job I was in at that time, that didn’t work,” said Willette. “I found myself switching jobs and took this one in early December.”

He said St. Dom’s was cooperative in allowing him to continue coaching this winter, but once the season concluded, he discussed with the administration what his job entailed.

It was obvious to him that he wouldn’t be able to juggle both.

“They were very gracious with me because it was an administrative position, they could have easily said in December that ‘We’re paying you to be here,'” said Willette. “They were very gracious and allowed me to finish out the season. Once the season was done, we sat down and reassessed to see if it was something to continue. As tough as it was, I felt it was time to focus on this.”

The Knights went 5-13 last season in a very difficult Western Maine Conference, matching the program’s best record from the year before. Though Poland reached the prelims a year ago and lost to Lisbon, the Knights fell short of the postseason this year, finishing 13th overall in Western B. Poland now has 10 wins in the last two regular seasons after totaling 15 the previous seven years.

“It is a difficult choice,” said Willette. “Quite frankly, if I could make a full-time wage and coach, I’d stay put because of the kids. The students I worked with this year that were coming back next year, it’s a dream. That job, as far as I’m concerned, is a dream job because you’re working with great kids who are so anxious to learn. They really want to improve, and they really want to know more. That’s how we spent the year. They were learning and learning and learning.”

By the end of the season, Willette saw great strides made by the team and it disappoints him that the Knights have to begin from scratch with a new coach and system next year. The job opening was posted this week.

“There’s a great class coming up,” said Willette, a Gray native and graduate of Gordon College. “This year’s sophomore class is a nice class. They’re great kids. There’s three or four juniors that will make a nice group of senior leaders. Things are starting to come together.”

Poland graduates veterans Dani Belanger, Jenn Dionne, Paige Piper, Krystal Malpass and Chelsey Cooper. Most of them were starters. So a new coach will start anew with a young group.

“It’s a shame because the kids were fantastic kids,” said Willette, who was an assistant coach at Gordon and assisted Mark Karter at Westbrook and Rick Simonds at Bonny Eagle. “I thoroughly loved what was going on. We were moving in a good direction. We were competitive with some very good schools at the end of the season.”