KENNEBUNK — John Dube knows teenagers. He’s been employing them for years to sell Blizzards and Dilly Bars at his two ice cream shops.
And he’s been teaching them for two decades about the game of basketball, during his many stops along the coaching trail.
Dube will continue to combine his interests in youth, scoops, and hoops as the new Kennebunk High varsity boys basketball coach.
“I’m very excited,” said Dube, who had served as coach of the Rams’ junior varsity for the past three seasons. “It’s something I’ve wanted to do for 10 years. I’m just ready to roll.”
Dube takes over for Art Giovannageli, who resigned after just one season, during which the Rams struggled to a 3-15 mark.
It’s a job he had hoped to have gotten a year ago after the retirement of Pat Moody, whom he previously coached under.
“Patience is a virtue, I guess,” said Dube.
Dube, who also spent time as an assistant with Kennebunk’s girls program, said he hopes to reverse what has been a decline in enthusiasm for the sport at the school.
“Putting my marketing hat on,” Dube said, “I want to get involved with a lot of the youth, to keep them interested in basketball. To get them excited about the game. In this town, we have a lot of great athletes, and a lot of good kids. But basketball’s not their first sport. I’m going to work hard to try and make sure they stay in it.”
He promises an up-tempo style, tempered by an intelligent approach to the game, one that he hopes will make up for a lack of size on his incoming team.
“We don’t have a lot of 6-6 guys around,” he said. “So there’s going to be a lot of smart basketball played.”
Dube, who played for Sanford High under Bruce MacKinnon, and later for Husson College, likened the workings of basketball program to that of running his Dairy Queen franchises in Kennebunk and Wells.
“Everything I do in life is around a sport,” said Dube, who estimates that he’s hired over 500 teenagers over the years. “I make it a sport, here (at work). This is a team. These are positions. We even evaluate at the end of the night. What we did right. What we could have done better. I spend a lot of time implementing how I coach, at work. I goes hand in hand. I know kids pretty good.”
Dube won’t be the only new face running a basketball bench this winter.
Kyle Hodsdon has been hired by Sanford as its boys varsity coach.
Hodsdon, who is also the athletic director at the Noble Middle School, was formerly the coach of the Noble varsity girls basketball team.
He replaces Redskins interim coach George Pouravelis, who stepped in midway through last season after the abrupt resignation of Shane O’Connell.
— Contact Dan Hickling at 282-1535 ext. 318 or dhickling@gwi.net.
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