Dave Cullens got home from Massachusetts after taking in Sunday night’s New England Patriots-Dallas Cowboys football game just in time to embark on a longtime ambition – life as a varsity basketball coach.

“I got back about an hour before our first day of tryouts,” said Cullens, the new boys coach at Penobscot Valley High School in Howland.

Cullens, 34, replaces Jim McCloskey, who coached PVHS for the last five years, including a 5-13 campaign in 2002-03.

“I’ve always wanted to be a high school coach,” said Cullens, who served as the Howlers’ junior varsity coach for the past three years. “I’m living a dream right now.”

That dream was forged during Cullens’ high school days at Mattanawcook Academy in Lincoln, where as a senior he played on a Lynx team that lost to Calais in the 1987 Eastern Maine Class C final.

His goal at PVHS is to guide the Howlers to their first postseason appearance at the Bangor Auditorium since 1987.

“I took a picture of the Bangor Auditorium, and now it’s hanging in the coaches’ room,” said Cullens, who works at Eastern Paper in Lincoln. “I’ve told the kids our goal is to see the inside of the Auditorium, not the outside.”

Cullens said the Howlers will field an athletic team made up largely of seniors and sophomores that will play an uptempo style.

“We’ve got a lot of soccer players who are 6 feet tall and 160 pounds, so we’ll probably do a lot of pressing and trapping,” he said.

Cullens will be assisted by new junior varsity coach Tom Whitney, who coached the PVHS varsity from 1991 through 1998 and also guided the Mattanawcook Academy football team to the 1999 Class C state championship.

“We’re really cracking down on discipline,” said Cullens. “We want to help our kids be better people as well as better players.”

Fitzy a football mecca?

The installation of artificial-surface fields at Husson College in Bangor and Hampden Academy has given rise to hopes that the three state championship football games now being held at Fitzpatrick Stadium in Portland might one year soon be held at a northern locale.

For now, the prospects of playing in the state’s largest city before 5,000 fans with a gold ball on the line has its own appeal, particularly to some who will be making their second straight trip to Fitzpatrick Stadium on Saturday.

“It’s the biggest thing now,” said Foxcroft Academy senior fullback-linebacker Lincoln Robinson. “There was never a mecca for football like the Bangor Auditorium is for basketball. Everybody played on a different field before, but now it’s championship Saturday and you want to go to Portland.

“That’s the place you want to be, where the spotlight’s at. That was our complete goal all season, to get back there, to take the trip back to Portland. It’s just an unreal feeling to be able to go back down to Portland to play there with a chance to bring home the gold ball.”

Foxcroft Academy, like Belfast, suffered a narrow loss in its state final in Portland. FA fell to Boothbay 25-20 in the 2002 Class C final, while Belfast dropped a 14-12 decision to Scarborough in the “B” championship game.

“Portland has turf like this, and it’s special to play on something different,” said Belfast fullback-linebacker Paul Herman as his team practiced Wednesday night on the Hampden Academy field. “It makes you feel good and makes you feel like your game’s special and unique, and for the seniors I’m sure it makes you remember it a little more.”

Track stars meet in Class B final

Saturday’s Class B state final brings together two of the state’s top sprinters.

Juniors Garren Horne of Belfast and Tyson Nason of Gorham battled each other during last spring’s state Class B track meet. Horne was second in the 100 in a time of 11.28 seconds, one one-hundredth of a second faster than third-place Nason. In the 200, Nason finished second in 23.14, compared to 23.37 for third-place Horne.

John Loren of Greely of Cumberland Center won both events.

Ernie Clark may be reached at 990-8045, 1-800-310-8600 or eclark@bangordailynews.net