Coach Wing eagerly begins new post at Foxcroft

It’s only been a week or so, but Charlie Wing can already tell the Foxcroft Academy girls basketball team is going to need plenty of work if the Ponies want to return to the Eastern Maine championship game.

FA graduated eight seniors from the 2001 team, which was the Class B runner-up, but Wing was eager to get to work with his new team at summer ball last week.

“We’re in the middle of a crash rebuilding program,” joked Wing, the former Mount View of Thorndike girls basketball coach who was asked to leave this summer after seven seasons of coaching the Mustangs. He will take over at Foxcroft this winter.

“There are great kids here, from what I can tell,” he added. “And the parents are very supportive. It’s a lot like what I had at Mount View.”

Wing said Mount View asked him to leave because he hadn’t won an Eastern Maine or state championship with the team.

“They told me I wasn’t winning enough and I wasn’t hard enough on the girls,” Wing said. “They said that if I had been, we would have won more. … I wasn’t really in agreement with the decision.”

The Mustangs went 97-29 in the regular season under Wing.

The team has made six straight tournament appearances since 1996. Mount View got to the Eastern Maine final in 1997; the next year the Mustangs were ranked No. 1 but lost in the quarterfinals. They won the Eastern Maine Class B sportsmanship award for 2000-01.

Wing, who lives in Hartland and is retired, has been coaching varsity basketball for about 18 years and has another 12 years with middle school and junior varsity programs. He skippered the Nokomis of Newport girls from 1978-84, left the program, and returned for the 1993 and 1994 seasons. Wing said he left that job the second time when he ran up against parents who disagreed with him over a postseason award.

Wing also coached softball at Mount View. Athletic director Ryan Dearborn broke the news to him before a softball practice this year.

“I thought he was talking about softball at first, and I thought he was absolutely right,” Wing said with a laugh. The Mustangs have struggled in softball over the past few years.

Wing said when he took the Mount View position he told the administration he would leave without question if there was ever a problem.

Wing said several of the Mount View players and parents wanted to fight for him, but he told them he wouldn’t go back on his promise to leave gracefully. “I wanted to keep my word,” he said.

Lawrence Coughlin, the SAD 3 superintendent, said he was aware of the situation but wasn’t involved in the decision to release Wing.

“Ryan felt that there were some things that weren’t being done,” Coughlin said. “Ryan told Charlie, I’m sorry, but we don’t think you’re doing the job.”

“I’d like to say that Charlie has been an excellent role model for the kids,” Coughlin added.

Coughlin said the school may have a few candidates in mind for the position, but he isn’t aware of any and hasn’t signed off on any one person. In the school system, the athletic director and principal make their recommendations to the superintendent, who makes the final decision on the hire. The school board does not get involved.

Wing replaces David Carey at Foxcroft, who resigned after the basketball season to spend more time with his family.