Casavant switches to coach Vike boys

Caribou High School athletic director Dwight Hunter’s search for a new boys basketball coach didn’t require much travel.

Meet the new coach, same as the old girls coach.

“We hired Chris Casavant. He was our girls basketball coach,” Hunter said. “Now we’re looking for a girls coach.”

Casavant was formally approved for the position Wednesday night by the Caribou school board.

Casavant replaces Jimmy Carter, who coached the Vikings for the past four years. In fact, Hunter said that Casavant is only the fourth Caribou boys basketball coach in the last 35 years.

“We thought he did an excellent job [with the Caribou girls team]. He took over a group of kids that was struggling. You could see the improvement. When you look at coaching, you look at the progress of the kids,” Hunter said.

The 29-year-old Casavant graduated from Presque Isle High School in 1990. He was a Portland Press-Herald second-team all-state pick his senior year. Additionally, Casavant was voted to the Big East Conference all-star team and played in the McDonald’s East-West All-Star Game.

After high school, Casavant spent a postgraduate year at MCI in Pittsfield playing for Max Good. He then moved on the University of Maine-Presque Isle where he met the former Angel Saucier, his wife of four years.

Casavant said he and Good share many of the same on-court philosophies and that he applies many of these traits to both himself and his teams.

“I think if you walk into one of my practices, you see that my kids play hard and with the same intensity that I bring as a coach,” said Casavant.

Casavant takes over a team that reached the 2001 Eastern Maine Class A semifinals before losing to Skowhegan. And despite a move down to Class B, the Vikings will still have longtime rival Presque Isle on their schedule. Next year’s meetings between the schools will take on a different meaning for the Casavant family. Chris will be coaching against his brother Nick, who will be a senior next year for the Wildcats.