Jeff Kinney spent much of last summer taking a team of baseball players from the St. John Valley more than 250 miles each weekend to compete in the Midcoast Babe Ruth League.

This summer, he’s still coaching the St. John Valley team – though the coastal teams are making reciprocal trips to Fort Kent – but much of Kinney’s attention remains focused on his native Midcoast region.

Kinney, who coached baseball at Fort Kent Community High School for the last three years and also served as an assistant men’s basketball coach at the University of Maine at Fort Kent, recently accepted a position as girls varsity basketball coach and study hall monitor at Lincoln Academy in Newcastle.

“It’s a great opportunity,” said Kinney, who plans to complete his undergraduate studies at UMFK via distance education. “This school has a rich girls’ basketball tradition, and I’m looking forward to the chance to bring it back.”

This won’t be Kinney’s first foray into girls basketball, as the Waldoboro native served as the girls junior varsity coach at Georges Valley High School in Thomaston during the 2000-01 and 2001-2002 seasons. Before that, he was a boys varsity assistant coach at Georges Valley for three years.

Lincoln Academy, which competes in Western Maine Class B as a member of the largely Eastern Maine Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference, had 20 winning seasons in 22 years from 1975 to 1997, including a state championship in 1982 and a Western Maine crown in 1996.

But the Eagles have had just two winning seasons since then, and have gone a combined 8-47 over the last three years – including 3-16 last winter when the strength of the team’s KVAC schedule landed it a preliminary-round berth despite its record.

“We need to increase the number of kids playing,” said Kinney, who replaces Nick Lyons on the Lincoln Academy bench. “I know the last few years they’ve struggled to field three teams [varsity, junior varsity and freshman]. We need to build a solid feeder program.”

Kinney, a 1996 graduate of Medomak Valley High School in nearby Waldoboro, sees a possibility for growth, in that there is a local YMCA program to draw from as well as several junior high schools in the area from which Lincoln Academy draws its students.

The immediate future will be one of building, too, as the Eagles graduated eight seniors off its 2005-06 team, which finished ninth in Western B.

Kinney sees the challenge as not that different from his approach to coaching baseball at Fort Kent. In his first year, just nine players tried out for the team, which finished 6-10 in Eastern B. The Warriors went 4-12 in 2005, but this spring a move to Class C and improved roster numbers enabled Fort Kent to go 11-5 during the regular season and earn the No. 3 seed in Eastern C before being upset by No. 11 Madawaska 8-6 in the regional quarterfinals.

Hersom steps down at EL

Edward Little High School of Auburn is searching for a new varsity football coach after Jim Hersom recently decided to step down after four seasons.

The 47-year-old Hersom cited health reasons for his decision. He was diagnosed with prostate cancer two years ago and continues to recover from that condition.

Before taking the varsity reins at his alma mater, Hersom served for three years as an assistant at EL. He also was the varsity coach for 12 years at Livermore Falls, and had previous coaching stops at Mount Ararat of Topsham and Brunswick.

Hersom and twin brother John led EL to back-to-back Class A state championships in 1976 and 1977, with Jim playing quarterback and John playing tailback for the Red Eddies, who were coached by their father, “Doc” Hersom.

John Hersom currently is the head coach at Lawrence High School in Fairfield.