With just three days left before the fall high school sports season gets underway, Stearns High School may be losing its head football coach.

Stearns principal Paul MacDonald said Thursday coach Tom Bertrand has interviewed with another school and may not return to his football and physical education posts at the Millinocket school.

“My sense is that he will be leaving the community and relocating,” said MacDonald, who did not say with which school Bertrand had interviewed.

Bertrand could not be reached for comment.

MacDonald said Bertrand has applied for a physical education and assistant football post, but was unsure if he had signed a contract as of Wednesday.

“If he does leave, he’ll be sorely missed,” MacDonald said. “That’s for sure. … Our loss, their gain.”

Bertrand, who would be entering his fourth season with the Minutemen, has a 30-4 record as head coach. Stearns went 8-1 in the 2000 regular season and earned the LTC Class C runner-up title. He was named the LTC Class C coach of the year.

The Minutemen went undefeated and won the Class C state title in Bertrand’s first season (1998). He earned top coaching honors that year as well.

Bertrand was a Stearns assistant coach for three years under longtime head coach Art Greenlaw. He taught physical education at Millinocket Middle School for three years before moving up to the high school.

Bertrand graduated from the University of Maine in 1994 and attended Maine Central Institute in Pittsfield.

MacDonald said the school has made some contingency plans if Bertrand does leave. One of Bertrand’s assistants – Chris Preble, Bruce Bragdon, John Jamo and Steve Waceken – would likely step into an interim head coach role. The school would then advertise for two assistant coach positions (assistant coach and biology teacher David Trainor retired last year).

“It’s a veteran staff,” MacDonald said. “If everything works out the way we think it might, at least we’d have an interim coach, someone we’d be very confident could get the job done.”