Jarod Richmond has moved up through the coaching ranks rapidly in three sports over the last several years. The latest is basketball.

Richmond is the new girls varsity basketball coach at Hall-Dale High School, pending RSU 2 school board approval, which was expected Thursday night. He takes over for Brandon Terrill, who stepped down in March after six seasons.

Richmond, 30, was an assistant coach for Terrill the last two years and also served as a boys varsity assistant under Chris Ranslow and Jim Patrick for two years. That continuity should be good for the players and for him, he said.

“The familiarity is really going to help get summer basketball off on a good note,” he said. “I’m really excited to work with this group of girls.”

The Bulldogs finished 10-9 last season and lost to Carrabec in the Western C preliminary round. They will graduate three major contributors in seniors Nicole Pelletier, Eva Shepherd and Molly French but return a talented junior class led by guards Dani and Thea Sweet and center Kayla Johnson.

“This is a really special group. I couldn’t ask for a better group of girls to start my varsity coaching career with,” said Richmond, a graduate of the New England School of Communication.

“I have big shoes to fill following Brandon,” Richmond added. “He did a lot during his time as head coach. I learned a lot from him and was really blessed to work with such a great friend.”

Richmond is a 2003 Maine Central Institute graduate, where he played basketball and football and participated in track and field. He is a physical education teacher at Hall-Dale, and has served as head coach of the outdoor track team for the last four years. He also has been an assistant football coach at Winthrop High School for the last four years, serving as defensive coordinator the last two years. He started his coaching career about seven years ago as a football assistant at Monmouth Academy for Norm Thombs.

Richmond said enjoys the time spent with athletes away from the court and field as much as time at practices and games and thrives off players challenging him as much as he challenges them. He said he plans to make development a priority and be more involved in the lower levels of basketball in Hallowell and Farmingdale to maintain a consistently strong program.

“In high school sports, every year is a building year because you never have a kid more than four years,” he said. “That’s why one of my goals is to develop our middle school and youth programs.”

Randy Whitehouse — 621-5638

rwhitehouse@mainetoday.com

Twitter: @RAWmaterial33

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