Brian Moreau spends his days trimming hair at the Downeast Barber Shop in Calais, which he owns.
This winter, he’ll also be leading the Calais High School girls basketball team as the first-year head coach of the Blue Devils.
Calais went 11-7 during the regular season under second-year head coach Sean Cavanaugh and was the sixth seed in the Class C North tournament before losing to No. 11 Central Aroostook of Mars Hill in the first round, 47-28.
Moreau will be the third head coach in four seasons, succeeding Cavanaugh and Bill McVicar, who also spent two seasons at the helm.
The Augusta native just concluded his third season as the Calais boys soccer coach, leading the Blue Devils to their first winning season since 2011. Calais went 7-3-4 and earned the seventh seed before being ousted by No. 2 Fort Kent 6-1 in the quarterfinals.
“We’ve improved every year in soccer and that’s what I want to try to bring to the girls basketball team as well,” said the 38-year-old Moreau. “And I want to bring them some stability.”
Moreau has had a multi-faceted career.
He began coaching basketball at Buker Middle School in Augusta as a senior at Augusta’s Cony High School.
He spent six years as a basketball referee for the Central Maine board and served three years in the Army, including a tour in Afghanistan.
Then he worked for a firearms manufacturer in New Hampshire before becoming a barber.
He was cutting hair in Portland when he met his current wife, Michelle Boomer, who is a Baileyville native. They got a deal on a house in Baileyville and moved to Washington County.
Moreau played soccer and basketball growing up and said coaching is something he’s “always loved to do.”
He was familiar with the basketball programs at Calais from his days growing up in Augusta.
“I remember going to the Augusta Civic Center and watching their teams win state titles,” Moreau said.
Between 1991 and 2015, the Calais girls played in 12 Class C state championship games and won seven of them, while the boys appeared in seven championship games and captured four titles.
Moreau will have a young team but feels it is capable of making it to the Cross Insurance Center in Bangor for the Class C North tournament after not making it to the quarterfinals last season.
“It’s a building year but not a rebuilding year,” he said. “We have a good solid corps of young players to build around.”
He has a style of play he prefers but said he is going to let the girls play and develop as a team together.
“We will figure out what style works. We aren’t going to force something on them that they aren’t used to. We want things to flow seamlessly,” he said.
