Rockland hires Wood to coach hoop

Veteran basketball coach Buddy Wood will be back on the court… and in the classroom.

Just 28 days after an 8-6 vote by the Washington Academy board of trustees eliminated Wood’s teaching position at the East Machias high school, Wood was unanimously approved to be a full-time teacher and boys varsity basketball coach by the Rockland school board.

With the loss of his teaching job at WA, Wood was unlikely to continue as the school’s basketball coach, a post he held for 22 seasons.

“We feel it’s a real coup. It looks like Washington Academy’s loss is our gain,” said Rockland athletic director Brian Plourde, who was instrumental in recruiting Wood to join the Tigers.

“It was surprising when I heard from Brian. They were really accomodating to me and really worked into coming up with a full-time job for me…I guess they must not know me very well,” Wood joked.

Wood will teach business law, accounting, physical education and health at Rockland and may also teach an elective course currently under development, according to Plourde.

“Having Buddy come in with his background and experience will add instant credibility to our program, which took a little beating this year with all the distractions,” he said. “His record speaks for itself.”

Plourde said school officials have been looking for a candidate to replace Larry Terrio since the Rockland alumnus resigned after numerous suspensions and other on and off-court distractions fractured the Tigers, who lost in the Eastern Maine Class B quarterfinals last winter.

“We really haven’t had a whole lot of candidates and then all of a sudden, everything started happening at WA and I know [Wood] from when I was coaching at Houlton,” said Plourde, who said SAD 5’s board of directors voted 8-0 in favor of Wood’s hiring. Three members were not present.

Wood, 50, said he doesn’t expect the same distractions to repeat themselves this coming season.

“I don’t see that happening because after running a program for 22 years, I’ll be on top of the kids and there will be some discipline,” he said. “That’s the way I ran things at WA.”

Wood is famous for his run-and-gun, pressing style of offense and defense and will feature the same type of attack at Class B Rockland. In 22 seasons, Wood’s teams won 307 games and three Eastern Maine titles. He also amassed 250 wins as WA’s baseball coach and won one state and three Eastern Maine championships.

“I’ve always wanted to go up to the next level so this is kind of exciting for me to be in Class B now,” Wood said.

Wood said he has been told he will have full control of the program from kindergarten through 12th grade.

“That’s what made this such a great fit for me. I am pretty excited about the job because we really are going to be more uptempo and that should be exciting for the kids,” said Wood. “When I watch the class B schools, I know they have a lot of physically strong kids because a lot of them play football and they should be well-suited physically for a more open style.”

Ironically, Wood hasn’t officially resigned his varsity coaching positions (boys basketball, baseball and golf) at WA yet, but that should be a mere formality.

“I’ve been busy calling my staff tonight to tell them because it’s all happened so fast and then I want to thank the students and my kids, and then clean out my room and move on to Rockland,” said Wood. “I guess I’m going to be pretty busy, aren’t I?”

WA eliminited Wood’s phys ed teaching job last month due to budgetary cuts made necessary by decreasing enrollment.

“My kids were crushed because our family’s based on loyalty and all that stuff and then that happened,” Wood said. “I’ll miss the kids at school, but I’m looking forward to coming to Rockland.”

Wood said he will move to Rockland, at least during the basketball season, but he has no plans to move his family. The distance between Rockland and East Machias is approximately 113 miles.