WALDOBORO, Maine — When Matt Lash attended Medomak Valley High School during the early 1990s, varsity football was something played at other schools.
At Medomak Valley, football may have been of the pickup variety back then, but it will be a varsity reality for the first time beginning next week with the start of preseason practices.
“We’ve been ready for this for a long time,” said Lash, now the school’s athletic administrator. “I remember going through Medomak Valley from ‘89 through ‘93, and even back then we had kids like myself who didn’t play soccer, and we’d be out there playing football.
“People always said, ‘Why doesn’t Medomak have football?’ because it always seemed like it would do well here, and now we can answer it and tell them that we do, and now it’s our opportunity to do it right,” he said.
The establishment of a varsity football program for students from Friendship, Union, Waldoboro, Warren and Washington has been five years in the making, since Naomi and Fritz Miller of Union founded Medomak Youth Football for players in kindergarten through eighth grade.
A club-level program for high school-age players followed a year later, guided by former Brewer High School player and assistant coach Ryan Snell.
Together the high school and youth programs have grown methodically, providing for consistent participation numbers at all age levels. Snell expects 48 high school players to turn out for the first preseason practice, with another 23 seventh- and eighth-graders at the middle-school level and about 20 players for each of the lower two-grade groupings.
“We just made a decision as a group that we wanted to take our time with it,” he said. “We didn’t want to make the mistake of rushing it for the sake of one specific group of kids or something like that and then have it all fall apart. We’ve always said it’s program first and individuals second, and we’ve really stuck to that model.”
That steady growth led to school board approval of varsity football at Medomak Valley last winter and the subsequent hiring of Snell as the Panthers’ first head coach and Jason Stewart, Brandon Brents and Robert Daigle as assistants.
“I was impressed with how the kids responded to him, and certainly being a positive role model and establishing high expectations for the kids,” said Lash.
While still a club team, the Medomak Valley High School club football program adhered to the school’s athletic code, including its disciplinary and eligibility guidelines.
“There were a couple of things that every varsity coach has to deal with that he handled the right way, and the kids look up to him.” said Lash. “I’m very impressed with how he led that program last year, and it’s going to be exciting to see what he can do leading a varsity program.
“I know he’s not afraid to work hard, and he knows how much has to be done. I’m excited for him and eager to work with him,” he said.
The high school program, which will include varsity and junior varsity teams, is funded cooperatively with Medomak Youth Football picking up most of the costs while the school system pays coaching stipends to Snell and two of his three assistants.
“There’s a tremendous amount of excitement here,” said the 33-year-old Snell. “The kids who are going to be juniors and seniors this year started with us as seventh- and eighth-graders the very first year of the program. With the dedication and the work they’ve put in and now knowing that [next week] they’ll be starting the first varsity football practices in the history of Medomak Valley High School is something that’s pretty special for them, a reward for the work they’ve done to make this happen.”
Medomak Valley will play its home games on the school’s multi-purpose field, soon to be adorned with a new scoreboard and combination soccer goals/football goalposts.
The Panthers will play a controlled preseason scrimmage against Orono on Monday, Aug. 24, followed on Aug. 29 by an exhibition game against Camden Hills of Rockport.
Medomak Valley will compete in the LTC Eastern Maine Class D ranks for its first two varsity seasons before moving by enrollment to Eastern Maine Class C in 2017.
The Panthers will play their first varsity game at home against Bucksport at 1 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 5, then play back-to-back road games at Stearns of Millinocket and Washington Academy of East Machias before returning home for a night game — illuminated by rented construction lights — against Houlton on Friday, Sept. 25.
Medomak Valley visits Mount View of Thorndike before home games against defending LTC champion Maine Central Institute of Pittsfield and Ellsworth/Sumner, then concludes the regular season at Camden Hills.
Medomak Valley and Ellsworth/Sumner, two teams that are ineligible for postseason play because they are playing down from their enrollment-designated class, will meet for a second time under the lights in Waldoboro on Oct. 30.
About 1,000 fans turned out for a home game at night against Houlton last fall.
“If the attendance at last year’s under-the-lights game is any indication of whether the people in these communities are ready for football, I think we’re well on our way to a great experience this year,” said Lash.
This year’s squad will benefit from some bonus experience it got last fall when the LTC had an odd number of teams and Medomak Valley played a full schedule of varsity opponents during their regular-season bye weeks.
“It was huge, especially from the kids’ standpoint,” said Snell. “We had some pretty good success the previous year at the club level, and you always tell the kids about the jump there’s going to be in moving to varsity football but that doesn’t always hit home with them.
“By having that opportunity last year, they were able to physically see that difference in the level of competition, and that helped us tremendously as far as this offseason and them knowing the amount of preparation they know they have to put in,” he said.
