To most of the schoolboy basketball coaches in the Mountain Valley Conference, Corey Guilford looks more like a player than a coach.

That’s because the new coach at Mount Abram High in Salem is less than three years removed from a 1,000-point playing career as a guard at Bucksport High.

At 21, he likely is the youngest boys varsity basketball coach in the state.

“The other coaches don’t treat me like I’m a young guy,” said Guilford, a 2002 Bucksport graduate. “They’re all very talkative with me, and I think they’d treat me the same way if I was 40.”

But forgive those same coaches for any professional jealousy they might have at the moment. Four games into his career, the Roadrunners are 4-0.

“It’s a blast,” said Guilford, whose team hosts Winthrop on Wednesday. “We all know we’re going to lose a game at some point. We’re prepared for it, and it’s all about how we rebound from it. But I love this feeling, and I love knowing the kids are as happy about basketball as they are right now.”

It’s no surprise Guilford turned to coaching. He’s merely following the example set by his father, Don Guilford, who coached for more than two decades before dying suddenly on June 25, 2001, at age 56.

The elder Guilford coached on the varsity level at Fryeburg Academy, Stearns of Millinocket, Rockland and Searsport, and was an assistant at Bucksport at the time of his death.

By that time, Corey Guilford, who was between his junior and senior years at Bucksport, already was considering a coaching career once his playing days ended.

“I was always around basketball, whether it was playing or being with my dad at camps,” he said.

Guilford attended Maine Maritime Academy after graduating from Bucksport, and began his coaching career guiding AAU teams during the summers of 2003 and 2004.

Guilford was coaching a 16-and-under AAU team this year before he interviewed for the Mount Abram vacancy.

After being named to the post July 8, he immediately put together a three-week summer program, with eight games and five practices concentrated over 17 days.

These days, he coaches the Mount Abram varsity throughout the week, then holds clinics for middle-schoolers from the Kingfield-Strong-Carrabassett Valley area on Sundays.

“It’s not just about this season, we’re trying to build a program here,” he said.

But this season is off to a good start, too, especially for a team seeking its first trip to the Western C quarterfinals since 1998-1999. The Roadrunners already are approaching their win total from a year ago, when they finished 6-12.

“The kids have had a couple of long seasons, and when I got here some were a little down on themselves,” Guilford said. “But I’ve told them the past is the past, and we live in the present. I’m really trying to take it one game at a time, and looking at the positives.”

Guilford’s coaching debut came at one of the tougher MVC venues for opposing teams, Jay High, but the Roadrunners whipped the defending Western C champs 70-47.

“After the Jay win, I never felt more proud of anybody than I did this team,” Guilford said. “I didn’t know what it meant to be proud of a team until you coach a team.”

Three more wins have followed, with Guilford invoking many basketball principles used by his father.

“There are a lot of things I do a lot like my father,” Guilford said. “I’m very intense like he was, especially during the games. We both get after it about pressure defense, and we both focus on working as a team, really stressing a team atmosphere.”

Guilford also sees the advantages of youth in working with a team that consists mostly of juniors and seniors.

“I think it’s helped, because being close to their age I know what the players don’t want the coach to do, and what they do want the coach to do,” Guilford said. “I try to really listen to what’s going on. I think I’m strict, but I like to have fun, too, and these kids are well behaved.

“But they know better than to talk back, because if they do, they run.”

OT’s Hintz off to fast start

The 2004-05 indoor track season is in its infancy around the country, to be sure, but Old Town junior Cassie Hintz currently is racing in rarefied territory.

According to The Nike List, a feature of the dyetrack.com Web site that tracks the top high school track and field results nationwide, Hintz’s effort of 10 minutes, 50.92 seconds in the 2-mile run during the opening meet of the Eastern Maine Indoor Track League season Dec. 20 not only is a new EMITL record, but is listed as the best time in the country for that distance this season.

In addition, her converted time of 10:54.92 for 3,200 meters also stands as the national best for that distance.

For comparative purposes, the top schoolgirl time for the indoor 2-mile run during the 2003-04 season was 10:34.78 by Amanda Patterson of Virginia, while the 3,200 best last winter was 10:37.45 by Aislynn Ryan of New York.

Howlers’ Vainio wins 100th

It was a match so important, the local school board adjourned their meeting to watch.

And Chris Vainio didn’t disappoint.

As family, friends, and the SAD 31 board of directors watched, the 189-pound Penobscot Valley High School wrestler earned his 100th career win recently by pinning Woodland’s Todd Dean in 1 minute, 6 seconds during a meet at the Howland school – where the school board was meeting just down the hallway in the library.

“One of my friends’ mom is on the school board and she wanted to see the match,” said Vainio, “and I guess the rest of them wanted to see it, too.”

Vainio, a three-year letterwinner from Enfield, is the reigning Eastern Maine and Class C 189-pound state champion. He rallied in the final period to edge Foxcroft Academy’s James McPhee 9-8 in the 2004 state final, an effort that earned Vainio outstanding wrestler of that meet accolades.

As a sophomore, Vainio placed third in both the Eastern Maine and state Class C meets, also at 189 pounds.

Vainio is the eighth 100-win wrestler to come out of the PVHS program. He also is the second state champion in his family. Older brother David Stenzel was a state champ at 189 pounds in 1997 and 1998.

Vainio, who plans to study nursing at Husson College, hopes to successfully defend his individual state title this season, as well as eclipse the school record of 125 victories set by Matt Lindsay from 1994 to 1998.

And with 108 wins entering Thursday’s meet at Hermon, he is well on his way.

“Chris is very intelligent, and doesn’t make many mistakes,” said Hutchinson. “It’s going to take a good wrestler to beat him.”