Cheverus football head coach John Wolfgram reacts to a play during a 2007 practice in Portland. (Press Herald file photo)

In communities across Maine, the 2025-26 high school sports campaign will be remembered for localized moments. Westbrook football, Gardiner boys basketball and Fort Kent boys basketball brought home state titles for the first time. Other programs, including Cheverus field hockey and Falmouth boys lacrosse, added another championship to an already impressive list.

For those of us with no rooting interest, the past year of high school sports is more about the goodbyes. Before our memories get muddy, let’s remember a few of the coaches who set the tone for their teams for decades, but for a multitude of reasons, will not be back.

It started in August, before the fall teams began practice under the hot summer sun, with the death of John Wolfgram, by whom all high school football coaches in Maine will be measured even though that’s not fair to any of them at all. Wolfgram set the bar high. Absurdly high.

With stints at Madison, Gardiner, South Portland and Cheverus, Wolfgram’s teams won 10 state titles and 309 games. He won more than anyone else because he prepared better than anyone else, and he did things the same way at every stop in his career. Talk to somebody who played for him at Madison in the 1970s and somebody who played for Wolfgram in the 2000s, and you’ll hear similar stories about his passion for teaching and his ability to pull the best out of his student-athletes. Wolfgram’s loss left a shadow over the entire high school football season last fall.

John Hersom will stay involved with high school football this fall, but as an assistant on his son Jack’s staff at Bangor, rather than as head coach at Lawrence. Over 20 seasons at Lawrence, Hersom coached the Bulldogs to five state championship games, 11 regional finals and the Class A title in 2006.

It can’t be overstated how big that state title 20 years ago was. At the time, Maine had three classes for high school football. Since the Maine Principals’ Association went to the regional format for determining state championship game matchups in 1987, only one team from the East had won a Class A crown — Bangor in 2001. The disparity between larger schools in the SMAA and smaller Class A schools in the Pine Tree Conference was growing.

Lawrence’s 14-13 Class A final win over Gorham reignited a football passion that had sagged a little at the school. Hersom’s Bulldogs were perennial contenders for two decades, and he left the program in a good place for Pete Curtis, his successor.

Cindy Goddard and her top assistant coach, Dan Daniels, left the Oxford Hills softball program on their own terms. Goddard coached the Vikings for 36 seasons, and Daniels joined the staff in 1993 as the freshmen coach before becoming a varsity assistant in 2000.

Oxford Hills softball coach Cindy Goddard claps during the Vikings’ 4-0 win over Bangor in a Class A North quarterfinal on Thrusday in South Paris. Goodard and assistant coach Dan Daniels were honored before the game, with the field being named in their honor. (Libby Kamrowski Kenny/Staff Photographer)<?xml version="1.0"?> Purchase this image

They won two state titles and six regional crowns at Oxford Hills. Goddard, who also led the school’s field hockey program for 35 years, and Daniels leave a void in the program but will always be a part of it. Prior to their next to last game, a 4-0 playoff win over Bangor, the Vikings’ home field was named in their honor.

Alex Rotsko didn’t have the longevity of either Wolfgram or Hersom, but he crammed a ton of success into his 13 seasons at Marshwood. The Hawks won six Class B titles, including four straight from 2017 through 2021 (there was no season in 2020 because of the COVID pandemic). Rotsko retired in late June.

And there’s the curious case of Paula Doughty. The longtime Skowhegan field hockey coach will not be returning to the River Hawks this fall, and nobody is saying exactly why. In a meeting with MSAD 54 Superintendent of Schools Jon Moody and Athletic Director Nick Wallace held in early March, players were told Doughty was not returning.

Moody and Wallace won’t comment. Neither will Doughty, who declined numerous requests to go on the record and tell her side of things. So we’re left to let the rumor mill spin as to why the most successful high school coach in state history was unceremoniously relieved of her job.

Doughty coached Skowhegan to 20 Class A championships in her four and a half decades with the team. Skowhegan’s run of 22 straight regional championships is one of those records that may permanently be out of reach. She won 644 games, with just 97 losses and 22 ties.

No school is going to jettison a coach with that resumé for no reason. Maybe someday, somebody will feel comfortable talking about what led to Doughty’s dismissal. Maybe it will be her.