As a native of the Saint John Valley, Andrew Clavette appreciates the love of basketball in the region.

As the new boys varsity basketball coach at Fort Kent Community High School, he hopes to build upon it.

Clavette replaces Tim Farrar, who recently relocated from the area with his family. Farrar coached the Warriors the last four years, guiding the program through its transition from Class B to Class C in 2006 and to a pair of tournament appearances at the Bangor Auditorium.

“The most important thing for me is to go back to the basics, to really stress the fundamentals,” said Clavette, who said he wants to have an impact not just at the varsity level, but throughout the system starting with the local youth program. “That’s where the passion for the game is created. Tim did a great job with that, and I want to continue with that.”

Clavette, 26, is a 1999 graduate of neighboring Madawaska High School, where he started at guard for three years for the Owls. He then attended the University of Maine at Farmington for a year before returning to the Valley to study at the University of Maine at Fort Kent. Clavette played three years of basketball at UMFK and captained the team for two years, then served as an assistant coach for the Bengals while he completed his studies.

He subsequently spent a year at Saint Joseph’s College in Standish as an admissions counselor and assistant basketball coach. Clavette came back to UMFK last fall as an admissions counselor and assistant to Bengals men’s basketball coach Eric Werntgen.

Clavette remains an admissions counselor at UMFK. He sees being able to coach in a college town as an advantage for his high school program, particularly in such areas as access to the college’s gymnasium and weight room and being able to scrimmage against college players.

“Basketball is ingrained in my blood, and this is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time,” said Clavette, whose dad played high school and college basketball, then played while in the Army before later becoming active in Madawaska’s youth basketball program as his three sons were coming up through the ranks.

“Fort Kent has great community support, and being in a college town the kids have the opportunity to take advantage of that and play with the college players, too.”

Fort Kent advanced to the regional quarterfinals for the second time in three years last winter. The Warriors finished sixth in Eastern Maine Class C with a 6-12 record, then defeated No. 11 George Stevens Academy of Blue Hill 48-40 in the preliminary round before falling to No. 3 Washington Academy 74-65 in the quarterfinals.

Last year’s team graduated five seniors, including standout guard Sam Bard, but the Warriors will return eight players with varsity experience.

“We’ve got a great group of kids coming back with some serious potential, but we want to be practical about it, too,” said Clavette. “There’s still a lot of work to be done, you always want to be improving.”