Shawn Smith, a junior quarterback and defensive back from Hampden Academy, is one of 400 high school football players nationwide who have been nominated for the 2009 U.S. Army All-American Bowl.

That game, which will feature 90 of the nation’s top seniors from the Class of 2009, will be held at the Alamo Dome in San Antonio on Jan. 2, 2009. The game will be televised on NBC.

Players were nominated through information received by regional directors for the game as well as two national sports entities, Sportslink and Rivals.com.

Nominated players will be compared to each other and their progress will be monitored next fall during their senior seasons before two 45-player squads will be selected from the nominees, said Marie Keeler of Sportslink.

Smith is a three-year starter at quarterback who helped coach Harry McCluskey’s Broncos qualify for postseason play in both 2005 and 2006. Last fall a young Hampden team finished 3-5 and just missed earning an Eastern Maine Class B playoff berth, but Smith was named to the All-Pine Tree Conference Class B first team as a punter.

Libbey to play at MCI

Derek Libbey of Mattanawcook Academy in Lincoln, a 6-foot-1 guard who earned Bangor Daily News All-Maine second-team honors last winter, will continue his studies and basketball career next season on the postgraduate level at Maine Central Institute in Pittsfield.

A four-year varsity player and three-year starter for coach Rick Sinclair’s MA club, Libbey was named Big East Conference Player of the Year and a Mr. Basketball semifinalist this year.

He led the Big East in both scoring (17.5 points per game) and assists (5.7 per game), while averaging 5.5 rebounds per contest.

Libbey also was named to the Bangor Daily News Eastern Maine Class B All-Tournament Team for the second straight year after leading Mattanawcook to the 2008 regional semifinals. As a junior, he helped the Lynx advance to the Eastern B championship game.

Libbey finished his high school career as the second-leading scorer in school history with 1,269 points.

Williams resigns hoop post

Harold Williams has stepped down after four seasons as the boys basketball coach at Central of Corinth.

Williams had been handling those duties while also serving as the school’s athletic administrator, a post he will retain.

“I’ve done both jobs for the last four years now,” he said, “and I just didn’t feel I had the time to devote to the [basketball] program that it needs.”

Williams also has two daughters, one of whom swims at Bangor High School, and he’d like the chance to watch her compete during the winter.

Due to a spike in school enrollment, Central moved up from Class C to Class B this year, and the Red Devils finished with a 2-16 record. The program will continue to compete in the Big East Conference Class B ranks again next winter, but with its current enrollment under the Class B cutoff of 400, it is possible Central will revert to Class C beginning with the 2009-2010 season.

MCI names three coaches

Frank McGrady, a longtime coach in the Pittsfield basketball community, has been named the new boys varsity coach at MCI.

McGrady replaces Mike Brown, who resigned after the 2007-08 season after leading the Huskies for the last nine years.

McGrady is one of three new varsity coaches recently appointed at the school, along with new boys soccer coach Scott Giallombardo and field hockey coach Nancy Hughes.

McGrady, a standout during his playing days at Medomak Valley of Waldoboro and the University of Maine at Machias, has previous varsity coaching experience with the MCI girls from 1998 to 2002, and followed that as JV boys coach from 2003 to 2008.

He also was an assistant JV and varsity coach at the school from 1992 to 1994, as well as the JV coach and varsity assistant in 1997. McGrady also was the co-director of a local boys and girls peewee basketball program in 1997 and coached the fifth-grade basketball team at Warsaw Middle School in 2002.

Giallombardo is a former soccer, basketball and baseball player at MCI before graduating in 2000, and he went on to play varsity soccer at the University of Maine-Farmington.

Giallombardo coached varsity girls soccer, JV girls basketball and middle school boys basketball from 2004 to 2006 while teaching at Katahdin High School in Stacyville. He also has coached two years of JV boys soccer and one year of freshman boys basketball since returning to MCI in 2006.

Hughes, a 1987 MCI graduate, will be coaching the Huskies field hockey team for the third time, having guided the program from 1991 to 1993 and from 1996 to 1998.

She also was the head coach at Bangor in 1999 before stepping down to raise her family.

Hughes played field hockey under the legendary Tookie Russell at MCI, and was a two-time Class C state champion during outdoor track season in the 400-meter run, an event in which she held the state record for 10 years. Hughes also won a state championship at 800 meters as a senior.

Hughes then went on to attend Bowdoin College in Brunswick, where she played field hockey under coach Sally LaPointe and was a two-time NCAA Division III All-American and the 1990 Maine college player of the year.