ROCKPORT — As the calendar flipped to 2015, the new year brought many a chance to start over with their 2014 resolutions, or make new ones. For football lovers at Camden Hills Regional High School, and Athletic Director Steve Alex, it brought a new head football coach. 

The Windjammers football program will be under new leadership when the team likely begins play in Western Class D for the next two seasons. 

On Wednesday, Jan. 7, the Five Town Community School Board of Directors successfully voted at the night’s school board meeting to hire Thad Chilton to lead the varsity football program in 2015 and beyond. 

“I am excited to have Coach Chilton take over our football program,” said Alex. “He has lots of energy and plenty of local football experience coaching the younger players and lots of experience in the football administration piece.. He is exceptionally well organized and has an incredible passion for football. Coach Chilton is extremely safety conscious.”

The hire comes after Steve Wadsworth resigned as head coach not long after the 2014 season finished in late October. In his three years at the helm, Wadsworth produced a record of 2–22, including a winless 2014 season.

Chilton has been heavily involved as the co-founder, former president, board member and a head coach in the Five Town Football organization. He has also served as the information officer for the Maine Youth Football League. 

In 2011 and 2012, Chilton won the Gold Standard Coaching Award given by Dave Cisar’s Winning Youth Football Organization. To qualify for the award, the head coach of a team must win at least 70 percent of that season’s contests, promote good sportsmanship and fair play and retain at least 90 percent of your players from the first day to the last. 

Chilton graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University and is a native of Chatham, Virginia. “My family and I relocated to Rockport from the Washington, DC Metro area in 1998,” Chilton stated. The high school he graduated from, Chatham High School, is “a rural school the same size as [Camden Hills Regional High School].”

For more comments from Chilton on the new football job, including his take on the future of the program, and more information from Alex, please see below. 

The Windjammers competed as a member of the Eastern Class C conference for the 2013 and 2014 seasons, after winning an appeal to not play in Class B. The school again appealed to play down another classification — this time to Class D — when the proposed conference alignments were announced early December. The assignments are not finalized and although it is expected Camden Hills will move down to Western Class D, it is not official. 

If the Windjammers are allowed to move down to Western Class D, they will be ineligible for the playoffs for both the 2015 and 2016 seasons, in addition to being ineligible for the 2013 and 2014 seasons. Per Maine Principal Association (MPA) rules, a team that appeals to move down a classification, and wins the appeal, is ineligible for the playoffs for that two year classification cycle. 

In the Camden/Rockport area, there was no football program for high school students until 2006 as the school dropped football in 1936. 

In 2006, the program played at the junior varsity level and in 2007 and 2008, the team played as a club varsity program, with exhibition contests, like Medomak Valley did this past season. A club team does not have official varsity status and competes against other school's club teams or junior varsity teams.

In the 2009 season, the team went 0–8 under head coach Linwood Downs as a member of the Class B Pine Tree Conference, its first as a fully accredited varsity program. In 2010, the school improved its record to 4–5 under Downs and even made the playoffs, where they were quickly eliminated by Belfast in the opening round. In 2011, the team dropped again to 0–8 and saw Downs leave the program before the 2012 campaign. Downs ended his career as the Windjammers leader with a 4–21 varsity record.

In April 2012, Wadsworth accepted the position of head football coach at Camden Hills Regional High School. 

Wadsworth was familiar with the area, and the school, as he is a 1991 graduate of then Camden–Rockport High School and at the time the job opening was posted, he was the vice president of football operations for Five Town Football, which organizes youth football in the Five Town area. He also coached at the middle school level within the Five Town Football organization. 

Wadsworth’s Windjammers went 1–7 in both the 2012 and 2013 seasons and 0–8 in 2014. 

If the Windjammers do get its wish granted and are slotted in Western Class D, they will join Boothbay, Dirigo, Lisbon, Maranacook, Oak Hill, Old Orchard Beach, Telstar, Traip Academy and Winthrop-Monmouth in the conference. However, Telstar is currently evaluating whether or not to drop its football team after little success in recent years. 

Opposite of the Windjammers in Eastern Class D will be Bucksport, Dexter, Ellsworth-Sumner, Houlton, Maine Central Institute, Mattanawcook Academy, Medomak Valley, Mount View, Orono, Stearns-Schenck and Washington Academy. Ellsworth-Sumner would also be playing down and are also subject to approval of the classification move and if granted, will also be ineligible for the playoffs. Medomak Valley has been tentatively placed in the conference. 

A Q&A WITH THAD CHILTON, NEW CAMDEN HILLS HEAD FOOTBALL COACH:

PBP: What do you enjoy doing when you’re not coaching football?

TC: “According to my wife Lynda I enjoy watching football, studying football, emailing and talking football with coaching colleagues from across the country, attending football coaching clinics, and so on. The real answer is that I enjoy alpine skiing, my guitars (although I struggle to play well), motorsports, and lacrosse — which I coach as the JV Lacrosse coach at [Camden Hills Regional High School.”

PBP: Did you play football in high school?

TC: “I played on and off in high school. A freshman year off-season collar bone break, and its lingering complications, hampered my high school football ambitions. When I wasn’t trying to make the team I reported on the games for our local newspaper and enjoyed being in the press box with the coaches.”

PBP: What made you want to coach football?

TC: “I’ve always had a passion for football, but I got into coaching football out of necessity — then realized how much I enjoyed working with young athletes and teaching them the life lessons inherent to the game of football. In the fall of 2004 four other football enthusiasts and I founded the local football organization Five Town Football. When we fielded teams in the fall of 2005 it was the first time since 1936 that organized football had been played in the Five Towns region. We founders had to wear all hats, including that of coach. Since 2005 I have coached virtually every grade level including a stint as a volunteer CHRHS assistant coach in 2007. As I progressed to the upper levels as a coach I have become a student of the game attending multiple coaching clinics/seminars each year since 2005. In doing so I have made friends with many talented high school and youth football coaches from across the country, and enjoy seeing them every year.”

PBP: What’s your take on the future of the Camden hills football team, what would you like to see this year?

TC: “Over the years I have coached most of the players currently on the roster. I know them to be winning football players and great guys. I very much look forward to taking the field with them again. As for what I would like to see this year, it will be about improving the program in a multitude of ways— off-season preparation, dedication to the team concept, participation numbers, scholarship, sportsmanship, and development of high personal character. If we are successful in improving in these ways, the wins will come. We will train hard to win easy.”

PBP: The team hasn't won many games these past couple years. What do you think you’ll bring to the team to give them a positive boost and hopefully win some games in the next season?

TC: “First, I tend to over do everything. If it is worth doing, it is worth giving it your all. More specifically, one of the keys to a successful sports program is matching the correct offensive and defensive systems to the pool of available athletes. Years ago it became clear to some of us in the coaching ranks that as a developing football program that we had to research, then install the systems best suited to our specific pool of athletes. At the lower levels – including middle school – we have enjoyed great success with this philosophy. We will install high school level versions of those same systems this season and expect the Windjammers to be very competitive.”

FROM THE DESK OF STEVE ALEX, CAMDEN HILLS ATHLETIC DIRECTOR

(The following is additional information Alex provided to the Penobscot Bay Pilot about Chilton)

Some of the things he accomplished while the middle school coach in regards to improving football safety:

ImPACT Baseline Testing
In February of 2013, while the coach of FTF’s Middle School Jammers, he worked with Dick’s Sporting Goods Community Marketing Manager of New England/Albany, Jeff Toler to obtain a grant for ImPACT Baseline testing.

A month later, in March, FTF was awarded a grant to cover the cost of 300 Baseline Tests with 90 Post Injury Tests from Dick’s Sporting Goods Community Youth Sports Program. At that point an account was opened for FTF. Dr. Kendra Bryant and CHRHS trainer Chris Audet were identified as those persons registered with ImPACT in our area. Dr. Bryant was identified as our local medical professional overseeing ImPACT.

In August of 2013, all members of the FTF Middle School Jammers, and their siblings who played sports, were ImPACT Baseline tested at the offices of Dr. Bryant. Since then Dr. Bryant has been the first stop for any player suspected of having sustained a concussion or other head trauma.

USA Football’s Heads Up Program
In the same month, the coaching staffs at FTF were instructed in the USA Football’s Heads Up safe tackling protocol. USA Football at that time was rolling-out the Heads Up program in conjunction with the NFL. He was instructed in the technique during the July 2013 NFL High School Player Development Camp in Ellsworth, Maine.

Coach Pete Carroll’s Hawk Tackle Technique

Early in 2014, coaching colleagues began a buzz about an instructional video that had been produced by head coach Pete Carroll of the Seattle Seahawks. Different from the Heads Up technique coach Carroll’s technique involves getting the tackler’s headbehind the contact, or at least to the side. The technique is one that has been widely used in the sport of rugby with great success.

This technique had been earlier demonstrated to area coaches at a coaching clinic by head coach Dave Caputi of Bowdoin College. Coach Caputi described the technique as one that college teams have employed for a number of years.

Predictably, the coach Carroll’s Hawk Tackle technique found its way into the NFL HSPD materials circulated to Maine coaches participating in the upcoming Ellsworth NFL HSPD camp in July 2014. The technique was taught to the 200 participating eastern Maine players attending the camp. FTF saw a significant decline in concussions with the use of the Hawk Tackling technique.

This story was originally published at Jan. 8 2:45 p.m. and was updated at 7:45 p.m. on Jan. 8 with more background information on Chilton, at 6:45 a.m. Jan. 9 with comments from Chilton and at 6 p.m Jan. 9 with additional information on Chilton from Camden Hills athletic director Steve Alex and Alex’s thoughts on Chilton.

This story was updated Jan. 11 with the removal of inaccurate information previously published in regards to Five Town Football and USA Football’s Heads Up Program. 

Reach sports reporters George Harvey and Ben McKenna at: sports@penbaypilot.com.