Longtime Calais coach McShane stepping down Five state titles highlight tenure

BANGOR – Bob McShane has helped make Calais High School synonymous with schoolgirl basketball during more than two decades as the Blue Devils’ head coach.

Five state championships and nine Eastern Maine Class C titles have been the most pronounced signs of that effort, along with 375 coaching victories.

But the atmosphere surrounding coaching the sport has changed for McShane in recent years, to the point that he said Tuesday afternoon that he will not return for a 23rd season on the Calais bench next winter.

“It’s time,” said the 53-year-old McShane after his Blue Devils fell to Washington Academy of East Machias in an Eastern Maine Class C quarterfinal. “The kids have changed, and it’s time for somebody new to step in and try to get things back together again and do things a little differently maybe, give a different look.”

McShane has considered stepping down from the post in the past and said this was not a sudden decision.

“Before the season started I knew this would be the last year,” he said. “We’ve had some different problems with support and parents and stuff, the same things all coaches say. If it were just the kids, it would be one thing, but with all the politics and stuff, it just takes the fun out of it.”

McShane was hired as the school’s girls varsity basketball coach before the 1987 season.

The Blue Devils finished 4-14 and out of the postseason picture during his first year on the sidelines, but McShane and Calais soon became a fixture on the Bangor Auditorium floor come February vacation week.

Calais made 18 consecutive appearances in the regional semifinals – a streak that ended with a quarterfinal loss to Houlton in 2006 – and made 19 trips to the semifinals in his last 21 years.

That run included a stretch of 11 straight trips to the Eastern Maine Class C championship game that ran through 2003, and Calais won regional titles in 1991, 1993, 1994, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2001, and 2002 and state championships in 1993, 1994, 1997, 1999 and 2001.

The 1993 and 1994 teams had back-to-back undefeated seasons.

The Blue Devils made subsequent appearances in the EM final in 2005 and most recently in 2007, when Calais went in seeded eighth and upset No. 1 Washington Academy and No. 5 Penobscot Valley of Howland before falling to No. 2 Dexter in the championship game.

McShane has a career record at Calais of 375-88, including 324-72 in regular-season games and 51-16 in tournament play.

“There’s been a lot of great memories from the beginning,” said McShane. “Jim Frost gave me this job years ago and I’ll always support him for that. Lori Frost was there and all the great kids we’ve had, it’s been a ball, it really has.

“But it gets to the point where the highs aren’t as high as the lows are low now, so I think it will be good to get a new person in to change things up.”

McShane isn’t sure how he will occupy his free time come next winter.

“It’s going to be weird not thinking about basketball 365 days a year,” he said. “It’s going to probably take a year just to get it out of my mind. But I’ve got some property to work on and some trails to make, and I’ll find something to keep me busy.”