One of Maine high school field hockey’s best-known and highly respected coaching combinations ended an era this season at Belfast when assistant coach Bob Brown retired from that position.

Brown has been working with head coach Allen Holmes for 17 years. In the 16-year history of high school tournament play, the two have taken the Lions to every single tournament, winning three state and eight regional titles.

Holmes and the team honored Brown recently during its annual field hockey sports award night.

“It was hard a couple of times,” Brown admitted, “but it’s not the end of the world, and Allen kept it very positive. It was more like a `thanks’ rather than a `wish-you-weren’t-going’ evening.”

Brown, who coached the junior varsity program while assisting Holmes, received many tributes and plaques thanking him for his years of dedication to the program. He was honored by the team, by Holmes, by the Belfast High School Athletic Department, and coaches of the Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference.

Brown, 43, had open heart surgery in 1989 to repace a defective valve. He is not ill, but just wants to expend his energies in other directions such as sharing with his wife, Carla, the athletic endeavors of their children, Ethan and Molly, at Searport High School.

A graduate of the University of Maine-Presque Isle where he first met Holmes, Brown played basketball at UMPI and was coaching that sport and baseball for eighth-graders when Holmes asked him to help out with a growing field hockey program.

“I said I didn’t know anything about it (field hockey) and he said `Neither do I.’ That’s when I decided it would be all right,” Brown said.

The two agreed their relationship has been a special one. “It’s been just like having a brother; but a brother you never argued or disagreed with,” Holmes said.

Brown’s most special memory is an early one – the year Belfast won Eastern Maine’s first-ever Class B regional championship.

“I remember that first state championship game,” he said. “Belfast lost 2-1 (to Livermore Falls) and, at that time, the coaches could make a little speech when it was all over. Allen made his speech, congratulating the other team on its victory, and then said `We’ll be back for this game next year.’ I was amazed. But he was right.”

Brown and Holmes suspect they may have had one of the longest coaching associations in Maine high school sports.

“He brought an awful lot to the program,” Holmes said. “He brought humor, respect, organization and sportsmanship.”

Holmes had started Belfast field hockey in 1973 and Brown joined him in 1975 when the program reached the point that one coach was not enough.

“I didn’t have a hard time talking him into it,” Holmes siad. “We think a lot the same, and we had helped each other whenever it was needed. We thought we’d have a good time, and we were right.”

Holmes did say it was “tough on the kids” to lose Brown. “You just can’t replace him,”he said. “We’ll find someone else to take over the junior varsity program and be the assistant, but we can’t replace Bob.”