Edward Little’s new girls’ soccer coach, Miles Bisher. (Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal)

Somewhere along the 2,650-mile Pacific Crest Trail, Miles Bisher realized that he belonged 3,000 miles away.

Through the wonders of technology Bisher was able to find a reason to stop his thru-hike, and instead set forth back to his native Maine, and to his new home at Edward Little High School.

Bisher has been named the new EL varsity girls’ soccer coach, in addition to his new job as a social studies teacher at the school.

“I was (thru-hiking the Pacific Crest Trail) with my fiance. I took a year off from teaching,” Bisher said. “I was previously at Windham High School, and I knew I couldn’t take another year off from teaching, so my plan was to apply for jobs on SchoolSpring throughout the hike whenever we were in town and had internet.”

Bisher said he looked “like a homeless person” during a FaceTime interview for the social studies job, but that didn’t prevent him from getting hired. And it was before a second interview that he saw on SchoolSpring that EL was also looking for a new girls’ soccer coach.

“This is a dream job for me. I mean, I’ve wanted to be a teacher and coach at the same school, at the high-school level, for a long, long time, since I was in college. So this is sort of a dream scenario for me,” Bisher said. “And I feel like Edward Little is a really good fit, both philosophically and the community is really passionate about their sports teams.”

“We were fortunate to have a very talented applicant pool,”  EL Athletic Director Todd Sampson said. “Coach Bisher quickly established himself as a great candidate when it was clear that his student-athletes are his priority. Also, he has had quality coaching experiences in two of the best soccer programs in the state — Deering and Windham. The committee was impressed when he spoke of sportsmanship and team-building concepts he plans to put into place.”

Bisher previously was an assistant coach for the Windham girls’ team and Deering boys’ team, as well as coaching the freshmen boys’ team at Deering. He was also a goalkeeping assistant for both the boys’ and girls’ teams at his Alma mater, Bucksport High School.

“I’ve been wanting to be a varsity coach for a long time,” Bisher said. “Felt like I was ready. … Knew that I had what it takes to do it.”

Bisher played goalie at Bucksport, for what he called “a pretty bad Class D team.” But that only gave him more opportunities in net to “fine-tune his skills,” and he was named a first-team All-PVC selection his senior year.

He then attended the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, though with no intention of playing soccer. It wasn’t until he saw the school’s club team playing outside his dorm as a freshman that he got the itch to play again. Bisher joined the team, played all four years, and as a senior — with duties as a captain and player-manager — the team made it to nationals.

His experience as a player-manager lit Bisher’s fire to become a coach.

Bisher replaces Craig Latuscha, who stepped down after eight years as the varsity head coach (including an Eastern Maine title in 2014) after taking an assistant principal position at the school.

“Stepping down was a very difficult decision,” Latuscha said. “Unfortunately, with the new position that I have taken as the assistant principal, it would not have been feasible to continue coaching the girls’ soccer program with the energy and commitment the ladies deserve.”

Sampson said Latuscha was not on the committee to hire the new coach (which he said included “a nice balance of faculty members, other varsity coaches, a parent and a current member of the varsity girls’ team”), but he was “instrumental in formulating many of our questions.”

Bisher said he had a chance to talk with Latuscha during a “transitional meeting” that also included Sampson.

“He’s a relationship-first kind of person, and I share that mindset,” Bisher said. “My focus, and that was his advice, was to focus on the relationships first and then focus on the soccer second.”

“Coach Bisher brings with him a wealth of soccer knowledge, he is passionate about the sport, he realizes that coaching soccer at the high school level is more than just coaching the game of soccer,” Latuscha said. “The fact that he has also been hired as a teacher within the school system will help to strengthen the relationship between his players and himself as he moves through his coaching career. He has high expectations for the girls and looks to continue a lot of the traditions put into place to ensure the continued success of our soccer program.”

Bisher said he hasn’t had a chance to meet his new team yet — he has met JV coach Jess Somers already — but a meeting for players and parents with Bisher has been scheduled for Monday, Aug. 6 at 5 p.m. in the EL library.

wkramlich@sunjournal.com

Edward Little’s new girls’ soccer coach, Miles Bisher. (Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal)

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