Girls Varsity Basketball Coach ready for Season by McKayla Ivey

Nate Pelletier, a math teacher at Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School (OHCHS), has been coaching basketball for 13 years. Before he moved to South Paris 10 years ago, Pelletier grew up in Brunswick, Maine and went to Brunswick High school and there he played 4 years of high school basketball. Pelletier went to Saint Joseph’s College in Maine, where he also played four years of college ball. He explains, “I kind of worked my way up. My senior year in college I coached an 8th grade boys basketball team, and then I coached JV girls at Edward Little for three years and now I’m the varsity coach and it’s my 10th year here.”

As a basketball coach, he states the thing he loves most is, “I love the kids. I mean they work hard every day. I love basketball. And you know you kind of put it together and it’s really one of my passions.” He also states the most difficult thing for himself as a coach, “Sometimes its difficult for me, as being a player, to get across what i’m looking for them to do as a player, and I’m just on the sidelines. Just watching the games a knowing exactly what I want them to do, and sometimes its hard for me to explain what I want them to do. Its definitely a different realm of being a player and a coach, but I’ve gotten there. Its taken a while but I've finally figured it out.”  Pelletier says that nothing really prepared him to be a basketball coach other than the fact that he was a player himself.

To prepare for this season, Pelletier explains, “You know, I think we are in a good situation this year, with a lot of kids coming back. I think it’s just everyday we are just trying to improve on our skills. We have a lot of talent. Were not really in a phase of trying to figure out where we are, its just trying to get better at what we do.”  Last year the OHCHS Girls Varsity basketball team won playoffs, the Eastern Maine Championships and went to the State Championships. There they lost to McColley. This year they have the goal of going to playoffs, and then the goals will continue to get bigger as the season goes on.

“...right now its just day to day. We’re trying to get to playoffs, and I think we have a talented team that could get back to where we were last year. But thats really far out in the realm of what’s going on right now.”