Monday was Chris Bessey’s first official day as University of Maine at Farmington’s baseball coach and he was already diving headlong into the offseason demands of the job.

Bessey attended an All-Star game for Maine high school underclassmen at the University of Southern Maine on Monday night, making his presence known to what he hopes will be some future Beavers.

“It was quite an experience sitting with 25 or 30 college coaches ranging from Division I all the was down to Division III,” said Bessey, who traveled to the game with his good friend and fellow Jay High School alum, Bates baseball coach Edwin Thompson.

“It feels great,” said Bessey, 39. “I’m really excited for the challenge.”

A 1993 UMF graduate with a bachelor’s degree in community health, Bessey played Beaver baseball for Robert Leib. He still holds the program’s career record for triples and is second in stolen bases. He also ranks third on the career scoring list in basketball and will be inducted into the UMF Athletics Hall of Fame in October.

He returns to Farmington after 14 seasons as varsity baseball coach at Jay, where he compiled 141 wins, two Western Class C titles and a state championship in 2002. The Tigers made it as far as the regional semifinals six times under his watch.

“We are very excited to have Chris Bessey join the athletics staff,” UMF director of athletics, fitness and recreation Julie Davis said in a statement released by the school. “He brings a wealth of coaching experience to the program and there is no doubt his passion for baseball and extensive network will serve him well in recruiting top student-athletes to the university.”

“I think I was ready for a new challenge. I think Jay High School might be ready for a new voice,” Bessey said. “I think my connection to high school baseball and the coaches and umpires that are involved makes it a great chance to develop a network for recruiting players.”

“UMF has got some things to offer,” he added. “It’s obviously a very affordable college in-state. I think it’s got some great points to try and recruit kids there. And I think it’s going to be an advantage to the program if they have somebody focused on baseball”

Bessey replaces Dick Meader, who had coached the baseball team since the 1994 season. The school recently announced organizational restructuring that separates the responsibilities for coaching baseball and men’s basketball, which Meader will continue to coach after guiding the Beavers to their first NCAA Division III tournament appearance last winter.

The Beavers have not had a winning record on the diamond since going 12-11 in 1998. They have not reached double figures in wins since posting a 12-17 record in 2003. Last season, they finished 5-22, with a 3-13 mark in the North Eastern Athletic Conference.

Bessey said he hopes to put UMF on the radar for high school baseball players looking to continue playing at the college level.

“Dick has done a great job coaching the kids that have gone there. He’s a great baseball guy and he gave a kid that did go there what he could give them,” he said. “I just think because of the overlapping seasons that he didn’t really have a great opportunity to go recruiting. A lot of the kids that played baseball at UMF weren’t recruited to go play baseball there.”

Another of Bessey’s goals is to make spring trips a fixture in the Beavers’ schedule. Many Maine colleges and universities make annual trips south in February and March to get more games under their belt and expand their recruiting bases.

Expanding the season could jeopardize Bessey’s other coaching job with the Jay varsity girls’ basketball team, which he led to a state title in 2009.

“It’s still up in the air because it still hasn’t been decided how the spring trip is going to work,” he said. “I’ll have a lot of say in that as far as the format and what it’s going to be. I had to miss (summer) basketball (Monday night) to go to the All-Star game, which I think, it was very important for me to go to. It was unfortunate that I had to miss basketball.”

He said he would at least continue coaching the girls through the summer program.

Bessey said he has already started talking to candidates to join his staff at UMF, which will consist of one paid assistant and one fifth-year senior/coaching intern.