A Lesson in Service and Mentorship
When you get to the college level of athletics, coaches are much more than just the ones in charge of the starting lineup. They are trainers. They are recruiters. They are the bus drivers. They are the lifeblood. The heart that keeps the team beating.
The University of Maine at Presque Isle is blessed to have many amazing coaches who are there for their student athletes. It is hard to find an example greater than that of head Women’s Basketball and Golf Coach Gavin Kane.
Gavin is a native of Wilton, Maine. He always knew coaching was in him. “I knew at a very young age I wanted to get into coaching. I actually had two positions before graduating high school,” Gavin said. He had held smaller coaching jobs at the Little League and rec. department levels. Although they weren’t glamorous, he was gaining experience younger than most people do.
His first big break came at the age of 22. He became the head coach of the Rangeley High School Boys’ Basketball Team. Rangeley had one win in the two previous years combined before Gavin took the helm. He would coach there for nine years. It was then that he fell in love with coaching. “I was immersed in my position, and it was the beginning of what has been a 39-year career in coaching.”
Coach Kane enjoyed immense success through the high school ranks. He won one state title while with Rangeley. He made history while coaching the Dirigo Girl’s Basketball Team in Dixfield, Maine. They won six state championships in a 10-year stretch. In the years they didn’t win it, they were state runners-up. An unheard-of level of dominance. This sealed the deal on a hall of fame career.
In 2013, Gavin was inducted into the New England Basketball Hall of Fame. In 2021, he made the Maine Basketball Hall of Fame.
Gavin was hired to coach the UMPI Women’s Basketball Team in 2017. Presque Isle is at the opposite end of the state from where he had done most of his coaching. It was his first head coaching job at the collegiate level, fulfilling a lifelong dream. “I was told up front that it would take some work to get the program headed back in the right direction. I wanted to meet that challenge head on,” Gavin said. And meet it, he did, as he had done with all of his past jobs.
Gavin has enjoyed much success as a coach. But success plays second fiddle to the relationships he has built. UMPI athlete Tim Burns sees Coach Kane as one who always gets the most out of his athletes. “He helps me believe in myself,” Tim said. “He’s very confident in my abilities that I’m not confident in.”
Gavin became the UMPI golf coach in 2019. He has also volunteered his time in the spring helping out the baseball team by driving a van all the way to Florida and making weekend trips for no compensation. This is a true testament to his service to young athletes.
Tim Burns recalled an enormous act of service Coach Kane made on one occasion. “He drove us in a van 12 hours from New York in a (golf) tournament that we got last in, straight through the night,” Tim said. All so that his golfers could be back in Presque Isle in time for their fall baseball games. This enormous act of service speaks volumes about Coach Kane’s love for his players.
“He knows we are all away from home, so he tries to treat us like we are his own kids,” golfer Payton Jones said. He is always there for his athletes, putting them first and winning second. “He took me in as somebody who didn’t really golf, and gave me an opportunity to pursue something different,” golfer Spencer Harman said. “The last two years while we were playing baseball, he doesn’t have to help out coaching, but he does,” Spencer said.
“People often ask me about the years we won state championships at Rangeley and Dirigo,” Gavin says. “But quite honestly, those are very secondary to simply having the chance to work with young people and try to have an impact on their lives.”
It is not the banners that hang in the gym that mean the most. It is all the lives that Gavin has touched in his years coaching. “Don’t get me wrong. I love the competitiveness of games and I love coaching the thousands of practices I’ve been a part of. However, the lifelong relationships I’ve built with many young men and ladies is the most important factor for me,” Gavin said. It is the relationships that trump the success.
As Gavin Kane nears 40 years of coaching experience, it is important to acknowledge what he has done and continues to do for his student athletes. For those who have had Gavin Kane as a coach, they will remember him as a figure who personified putting others first and giving them lessons to take with them for life.
Perhaps we can all take a lesson from Coach Kane in putting others first and keeping things in perspective.
One thing we can take away: Gavin Kane is much more than just a coach.
