Donald “Buddy” Wood has resigned from his position as boys basketball coach at Rockland High School.

Rockland athletic director Brian Plourde confirmed Wood has tendered his resignation but will stay on as an assistant coach with the school’s baseball team.

“He just realized it was time to move on. He put three years in. He just wanted to change,” Plourde said.

Attempts to contact Wood were unsuccessful.

Wood’s teams were 19-35 during his three years at Rockland. He was involved in some controversy during the 2001-2002 school year when he resigned from his teaching position at the high school and then attempted to rescind his resignation.

An SAD 5 board member blocked the move. The board member indicated in a published report she did not like Wood because he had cut her son from the basketball team.

Prior to coaching at Rockland, Wood spent 22 years coaching boys basketball and teaching at Washington Academy in East Machias, where he won three Eastern Maine titles. He left the school and landed in Rockland when his physical education teaching position at WA was eliminated following the 1999-2000 school year.

Plourde said the basketball coaching job has not been widely advertised yet but will be and that he’d like to have a new coach approved by the school board by May in time to set up a summer program.

He said he has received an application for the job from Karl Henrickson, the former coach at the University of Maine-Presque Isle and the Maine Central Institute Postgrads in Pittsfield. Henrickson is a teacher at Rockland.

Beal replaces Noyes at ‘Guagus

Don Beal has been hired to replace longtime Narraguagus of Harrington softball coach Elliot Noyes, who retired last year after 27 years on the job.

Beal is a math teacher at the school and has coached the school’s volleyball and girls basketball teams.

“He brings a lot of knowledge from different areas to the job,” Narraguagus athletic director Tracie Martin said.

In addition to coaching, Beal has officiated volleyball, basketball, softball and baseball games.

Noyes leaves big shoes to fill as he compiled a 278-106 record (.724). His teams qualified for postseason 19 times and reached the Eastern Maine Class C finals nine times. Last year’s team beat St. Dominic of Auburn in the state championship game.

“Obviously, Mr. Noyes will be difficult to replace,” Martin said. “The kids love him. Umpires and coaches love him. He’s just a perfect gentleman. We’re hoping for a smooth transition.”

Noyes was honored last Friday during a school assembly.

AAU hoop season approaches

A group of area high school basketball players are working out together as they prepare for the upcoming AAU season.

Bangor resident and former University of Maine basketball player Paul Cook is entering his fourth season coaching the area’s age 16-and-under team, Maine Hoops North.

The team is coming off its best finish ever at last summer’s national tournament when it won two games.

“It’s a great experience for the kids. The level of play is exciting. It’s enjoyable for me to just sit back and watch,” said Cook, who was also an assistant coach at UMaine.

The team is made up of eight returnees in Jordan Heath and Aaron Gallant of Bangor, Matt Carey and Bobby Gilbert of Foxcroft Academy, Isaac Bell of Brewer, Mark Socoby of Houlton, Joshua McNutt of Hampden Academy, and the coach’s son, 6-foot-9 Jordan Cook, also of Hampden.

Coach Cook has also added 6-8 Matt Wheelock of Hall-Dale in Hallowell and the versatile Tim Stammen of Camden Hills.

“It’s a very good team,” Paul Cook said.

The team gets started this weekend when it plays in the State Youth Basketball of America Tournament in Portland.

The following week the team will travel to Yale University in New Haven, Conn., for the Adidas Hoop Challenge. The team will then play in a super regional in Springfield, Mass., the week after that.

Cook said that the state will qualify two teams for the national AAU tourney in Indianapolis. The tournament begins the last week of June and runs through July 4.

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