Freedom native Chris Bryant, who has been an assistant basketball coach for the men’s basketball team at Bangor’s Husson University the past seven years, will be the new head coach for the John Bapst Memorial High School boys basketball team.
He will replace Ed Jones, who stepped down after five seasons to devote more time to his job as the school’s dean of students, according to John Bapst athletic director Danny O’Connell.
Bryant, a graduate of Thorndike’s Mount View High School, will inherit a Bapst boys basketball program that hasn’t had a winning season since the 1998-99 campaign when it went 8-6 in Class A East (now North).
John Bapst has gone 104-281 in regular season play since then and has had only two non-losing seasons: 2005-06 and 2007-08, when the Crusaders went 9-9 each year.
It has been in Class B North most of that time. The team’s average finish in the Heal Point standings has been 14th.
John Bapst was 5-13 this past season and was the 11th seed in the Class B North Heal Point standings. The Crusaders lost their preliminary round game to sixth seed Caribou.
Bryant helped Husson go 120-76 in his seven seasons as the assistant, including the COVID-19 season (2020-21) when the team played just 10 games.
The Eagles won three North Atlantic Conference championships and earned three NCAA Division III Tournament appearances. He has also served as the recruiting coordinator and academic officer at Husson and has served as the director of their summer camps and clinics.
He was previously the head boys basketball coach and baseball coach at Lincoln’s Mattanawcook Academy. During an earlier stint at Mattanawcook, he was the girls junior varsity and assistant varsity coach.
He has also been the junior varsity and assistant varsity coach for the boys at Mount View High School.
Bryant graduated from the University of Connecticut with a degree in diagnostic genetic science in 2005 and earned a master’s in education from the University of Southern Maine in 2012.
“His resume speaks for itself in terms of his experience as a high school coach in the area. He knows the lay of the land,” O’Connell said. “And he spent the last seven years coaching basketball at a high level at Husson, doing recruiting work and working with young players at their summer camps.”
The 39-year-old Bryant called it his “dream job.”
“It’s a job I’ve always had my eye on,” Bryant said. “I’ll be coming in and being with players I’ve coached since they were little [at the Husson clinics] and hoping to build something special with them.”
Bryant, who played baseball, soccer and basketball at Mount View, added that “these kids are going to be successful in life so we will try to bring that onto the court, too.”
He intends to “find cohesion as quickly as possible. We’re going to do team building on and off the court. We will build relationships because if you aren’t playing for each other, it’s not going to work.”
He added that he wants the team to “make things difficult for the other teams in B North.”
He said he has had a nice turnout at summer basketball and is embracing the challenge that goes with a school that has players from dozens of communities.
“It is an obstacle having players from different parts of the state and beyond but it also creates a unique environment. I always enjoyed having people from all over the country and the world on our Husson roster,” said Bryant, who added that his seven years at Husson were extremely beneficial.
Bryant also owns White Lobster Vintage, a store that specializes in sneakers and nostalgic clothing from the 1980s and ’90s and is located at 10 Harlow St. in Bangor. It’s a buy, sell and trade store.
Bryant and wife, Emily, have two children, Miles and Zoey.
O’Connell said the school had more than 10 applicants for the position.
The athletic director praised Jones for getting his team within one win from playing in the Class B North championship game two years ago after his 11th seeded team knocked off No. 6 Houlton and No. 3 Foxcroft Academy in the playoffs before losing to No. 2 Orono in the semis.
