GARDINER — For the second time this offseason, a head coach is stepping away from the storied Cony-Gardiner high school football rivalry.
Gardiner athletic director Steve Ouellette confirmed early Tuesday afternoon that head coach Matt Burgess will leave the program after four seasons.
“He has resigned,” said Ouellette. “Matt has been offered and accepted an opportunity at Bridgton Academy. It’s very late in the summer season, but he was offered it pretty late and it’s a good opportunity for him with this new position. We posted the position and we’ll wait and hear to determine if we have some candidates. We’ll see where it takes us.”
Burgess addressed a crowd of 50 or so parents and players Tuesday night at Hoch Field. He noted that the “incredible support from the kids and the community” is what he will remember most about his tenure as head coach of the Tigers.
“Gardiner is still a football town,” Burgess said. “I say it every summer when we have camp — despite what the record was the last couple years — that football is alive and well in Gardiner. As the (Class) B East levels out, they’re going to be right in the thick of things.”
The whole process of Burgess’ departure came together rather quickly. He said he received the offer to return to Bridgton — where he spent the 10 years prior to his appointment at Gardiner teaching science and coaching both football and rugby — late last week. He will be an assistant coach on Juwan Jackson’s staff.
“The opportunity to get back there takes care of some logistical things for me personally and some challenges that I wasn’t able to overcome,” Burgess said. “It will take care of those things for us. My wife and I will move up to North Bridgton, which will be nice. I’ve still got friends up there, so I’m really looking forward to it.
“We’re still in the process, but I’ll be recruiting athletes across the northeast, all of northern New England mostly and coaching football.”
On Monday morning Burgess let Ouellette know he would be resigning, and it was not long before some of the players caught wind of the change.
“We didn’t think coach was going to be leaving right now so it hit us pretty hard,” Nate Thibeau, a rising senior lineman with the Tigers, said. “It hit a lot of us. That’s why a lot of us were here (Tuesday).”
“He’s made me a better person, better at what I’m doing and I’ve always looked up to him. He’s a good guy,” added classmate Alexander Thang, who also had Burgess as a teacher. “He’s helped me try new things, try to get into new techniques and everything. It’s just a big loss.”
Burgess’ resignation adds another interesting chapter into the longstanding rivalry between Cony and Gardiner. His counterpart, Robby Vachon, resigned as head coach at Cony in late April, citing personal reasons. In early June, the Rams tabbed offensive coordinator B.L. Lippert as the team’s next head coach.
As a result of Tuesday’s events, it will be the first time both Cony and Gardiner will have new head coaches in the same season since 2000, when Tom Hinds took over the Rams and Matt Brown began with the Tigers.
Lippert was surprised to hear of the change, but does not believe the Tigers will be short on candidates.
“It’s a football town, for sure, so I’m sure people are lining up to take that job,” Lippert said.
Burgess guided the Tigers to a 13-7 record in his first two seasons with the team, including back-to-back Eastern Class B semifinal appearances. The past two seasons, however, have been far less fruitful.
Gardiner has missed the Pine Tree Conference B playoffs in each of the previous two seasons, going 0-8 in 2013 and 2-6 in 2014.
“No coach goes out there planning to lose. You go out planning to win and coaching the kids to win and thinking that way all the time,” Burgess said. “It’s hard. It eats at you. There’s a lot of sleepless nights then and you just keep working harder and grinding and moving forward. It was difficult, there’s no two ways about it, but the kids never lost faith and the folks in the school and the town continued to support those kids, and that’s what matters.”
A 1987 Gardiner graduate, Burgess — whose father, John, coached at the school from the late 1970s to early 1990s — played under former coaches John Wolfgram and Rob Munzing, winning a state championship in 1985. Burgess graduated from Springfield College in 1992.
Ultimately, he landed the job at Bridgton for his first stint at the school and spent 10 years there before moving on to Gardiner. He took over after then-coach Jim Palmer left to become the athletic director at Oak Hill High School and his potential replacement, Rick Lovely, was forced to resign due to a health issue.
As for advice for the next Gardiner coach, Burgess said he hopes they will “continue to be inclusive with all the kids and the community and the school.”
“(Gardiner principal) Chad Kempton and Steve Ouellette do a good job of making sure that education and football are connected, because it’s important that they are,” he added. “The football program has always been part of the school. That school spirit, town spirit, community spirit is important so they’ll have to embrace that. I’m sure they’ll find the right guy to do that.”
Whoever Gardiner hires to replace Burgess will not only be taking over a program that went 2-14 in its previous two seasons, but also graduated 12 seniors — many of whom logged major minutes. That being said, the Tigers do have a number of strong returners coming back. Both Thibeau and Thang noted they have been impressed by the number of players who have committed to working in the weight room in the offseason.
“We’ve all been coming to lifting this summer, so I think we’ll be fine without coach,” Thibeau said. “He knows what we’re capable of and I know what we’re capable of, and I think we’ll have a good turnout, even though he’s leaving.” “We’ll just keep working hard, I guess, and see what the outcome is,” Thang added.
Evan Crawley — 621-5640
ecrawley@mainetoday.com
Twitter: @Evan_Crawley
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