Just over a week ago, Chris Preble was helping out with some odd jobs around Stearns High School while counting down the days left until his second season as the varsity football team’s defensive coordinator began.

Now the 28-year-old middle school physical education teacher would kill for more time, specifically a few extra hours in the day, now that he finds himself as the interim head coach following Tom Bertrand’s surprise resignation late last week.

“I’m not home much, I can tell you that. There’s always something I could be doing. It’s been an interesting offseason,” joked Preble, who will have big shoes to fill in addition to having to deal with heavy graduation losses that leave the Minutemen of Millinocket with just two returning starters on both offense and defense.

Bertrand resigned to take a full-time position as health teacher and assistant football coaching job (quarterbacks and defensive line) at Winslow High.

“My family’s from Pittsfield and I grew up in the Central Maine area. It’s something we’ve talked about that we’d like to get back there and establish a life down in that area,” explained Bertrand. “If we were gonna move, we wanted to do it before Alex got into school.

Bertrand and his wife Angela have two sons: Alex (3) and Adam (1). The Winslow job opened up suddenly last week, prompting Bertrand to make a tough decision.

The two-time LTC Class C coach of the year led Stearns to the LTC title, state championship, and unbeaten record in his first season (1998) and an LTC runnerup season last year. The Minutemen went 30-4 under Bertrand.

“Tom’s obviously going to missed, but you have to move on,” said Preble, an assistant coach for seven seasons at Old Town under Jim Walsh, Garry Spencer, and Ian Braun. He was defensive coordinator for three of those seasons before moving on to Stearns along with Bertrand in 1998.

“I’ve been doing this for awhile, so I’ve been paying attention along the way knowing someday I’d have an opportunity to be head coach,” said Preble, who could also take over Bertrand’s high school physical education-health teaching job.

Stearns’ revamped coaching staff also includes defensive coordinator John Jamo, Steve Waceken, and Bruce Bragdon (offensive-defensive lines). Bertrand’s absence combined with the retirement of freshman coach Dave Trainor leaves the Minutemen with two vacancies.

It won’t be too long before Bertrand visits Stearns again. Winslow’s regular season-opener is at Stearns on Aug. 31.

“Yes, I DO know where the visitors’ locker room is, but I’ll be in the tower, where hopefully I’ll be too high up for anyone to throw anything at me,” Bertrand joked.