George “Toogie” McKay has resigned from his position as head football coach at Mount Desert Island.

McKay spent 22 years as MDI’s head coach and served as an assistant at the school before taking over the program.

He said the decision to step down was made mutually with the school.

“I’d still like to coach,” McKay said. “But I think it was time for a change both for me and the school and that’s not a bad thing.”

The 57-year-old McKay had taught high school social studies at MDI until this school year. MDI’s preference is that coaches also teach in the school system. Athletic director Bunky Dow said that McKay asked for one more year as the football coach and the request was granted.

“He didn’t want a big deal made out of it,” Dow said. “We wanted to do something the last game of the year but he didn’t want any attention taken away from the kids.”

McKay graduated from Bar Harbor High School in 1963 and from the University of Maine in 1969.

He is coming off a rough season that left him wanting to continue his work.

“Part of it is always what kind of year was it and how I felt about it. We were 2-7 but the kids worked hard and I thought it was a good year,” McKay said.

McKay said that he would consider an assistant coaching position if it was the “right situation,” but he intends to apply for the head coaching job at John Bapst of Bangor that was vacated when Rob Zartarian stepped down after one year on the job.

John Bapst athletic director Mike Thomas said that Zartarian, who will stay on as the school’s wrestling coach, took the job with the understanding that it wouldn’t be a long-term deal.

“When Rob took it over late last summer, he told me at the time that he didn’t want to do this for a long time.”

John Bapst has had three head football coaches in the last three years. Thomas said part of the problem is that each coach has faced a rebuilding job.

“It’s tough to rebuild a program and it’s tougher when the kids are playing football for the first time when they reach high school,” Thomas said.

John Bapst, a private school, receives many of its students from areas where football isn’t offered in junior high school.

Thomas said the school plans to advertise through the end of March or until a “suitable candidate” is found.

He said that he has five applications in hand thus far and phone calls from “several others” who say they intend to apply.

Thomas hops to complete the interview process at the beginning of April and have a new coach in place by the second week of April.

Dow said that the MDI job is currently being advertised and that there have been three applicants thus far.

“We are going to wait another two weeks and then we’ll start the interview process,” Dow said.

A search committee, made up of Dow and MDI football players, will recommend a candidate to the principal and school board in May.

Don Perryman can be reached at 990-8045, 1-800-310-8600 or dperryman@bangordailynews.net