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Justin Bisson has coached football at a variety of levels and locations over the past 27 years, learning a lot along the way.

There was always one destination that Bisson hoped his coaching path would reach: to be the varsity head coach at Lewiston High, from which he graduated in 1997.

On Tuesday, Bisson’s goal was officially achieved when he was able to announce that he had been hired as the Blue Devils’ new coach.

“This was the dream job. This is what I’ve been working for since day one as a coach,” Bisson said. “I hope to be here for 15 years and be successful and continue to reach the kids, and hopefully this is my last stop.”

Bisson, 46, is the paving manager for the city of Lewiston and lives in the city. He is a husband and the father of two children, a 23-year-old son and 17-year-old daughter. While waiting for official approval, Bisson has been running weight room sessions at Lewiston High for the past three weeks, he said.

“The biggest thing is coming into the weight room, bringing energy and having fun. We’re stressing that the work you put in will be what you get out, but we want to make it fun at the same time,” Bisson said. “It’s all about the relationships, and we’re building those. All the coaches in there, we’re talking to each and every guy.”

Bisson replaces Jason Versey, another Lewiston grad, who resigned in December. Versey’s teams went 14-23 over four seasons, with three playoff appearances. After going 5-4 in 2024, the Blue Devils were 0-9 in 2025 and were outscored 352-28.

Prior to Versey’s tenure, Bisson was Lewiston’s interim head coach for the final six games of the 2021 season, going 2-4 over that span. Bisson, an assistant at Lewiston since 2017, applied for the head job after the 2021 season and stayed on Versey’s staff for the 2022 season.

“Super excited to welcome back Coach Bisson to the Blue Devils’ football program,” said athletic director Jason Fuller. “I know he is ready to serve the program and community as its head football coach. His energy and pride in being a Blue Devil will certainly translate to the athletes he is working with.

“It’s going to be fun watching him build this program. He has some wonderful ideas to move the program to the next level.”

The past three seasons, Bisson was the defensive coordinator and offensive line coach under Brendan Scully at Deering High in Portland.

“He’s ready. I’m excited for the Lewiston kids,” Scully said. “He’s a Lewiston guy and looked great in purple, but we knew there was always blue underneath. Played there. Works there. Lives there. He puts kids first ahead of all else. It will be great.”

Bisson’s first order of business will be to get more players on the field. He said Lewiston ended last season “with like 27 kids.” The number of participants at the youth and middle school levels are solid.

“We’ve got a bunch of kids that have told us they’re coming back with the new coaching staff change, and hopefully we can build the freshman and sophomore numbers.”

He added, “I’m excited to be here. I think we’ve got some talent that was underutilized. Our job is to coach them up and we want to play physical.”

A lineman at Lewiston, Bisson’s plan to play college football at Plymouth State in New Hampshire was ended by a slow-to-recover knee injury. He began coaching.

He was a middle school head coach at Gray-New Gloucester, a men’s semi-pro coach with both the Maine Sabers and Southern Maine Raging Bulls. He spent three seasons with the Maine Mayhem women’s team.

Bisson said the adult leagues helped him become a better coach. With the Sabers, he worked with several veteran coaches, including Skip Capone, who coached Bisson at Lewiston and is now the head coach at Cheverus, as well as other young coaches who have become high school head coaches.

“And coaching the women made me a better coach because it taught me to break everything down,” Bisson said. “You had to coach the right way, teach the right way. They would do everything we told them, so if you forgot a step, you noticed it.”