No matter where he coaches or what he coaches, Jay Kemble wins.
In his three seasons as the Bangor High School girls soccer team coach, Kemble has guided the Rams to three Class A North titles and two state championships.
Prior to taking the soccer job, he spent one season as the field hockey coach and led the Rams to an 8-6 regular season record. They were 4-9 the season before he took over and have gone 3-38-1 since he left to take the girls soccer job.
In six seasons as the Bangor High girls basketball coach, including the COVID year when there weren’t any regional tournaments and teams played opponents from nearby communities, he compiled an 83-33 record.
His three soccer teams have registered an overall record of 49-4-1.
Now he has been entrusted to fix the Bangor High boys basketball team that went 1-17 a year ago and has won just 10 of its last 74 regular season contests.
“I don’t know if I’m going in and fixing anything,” said Kemble. “The key for us is we have a tremendous administration that is supportive of academics and extra curricular activities and we have great kids who love to play and love to compete.
“My job as a coach is to try to find ways for kids to have success and be confident and to put the best team out on whatever playing surface it is we’re playing on,” he added.
Bangor athletic director Steve Vanidestine credited Kemble for his leadership across multiple teams at the school.
“He is a fixture who is willing to step up and fill in when we need somebody,” Vanidestine said.
Kristin Hermanson, who has succeeded Kemble as the girls basketball coach after coaching under him, said Kemble spends time getting to know his players.
“He is committed to the sport and is a real positive guy,” Hermanson said. “He is able to get kids to play hard for him.”
And those players seem to feel the same way about Kemble.
“He is a really good guy and he listens to everybody. If you have a suggestion, he will listen to you,” said Bangor senior soccer and basketball player Avery Clark. “He’s really understanding and he relates well to us. He makes a connection with every single one of us and that’s important.”
Kemble said his wife, Karen, may have uncovered the reason he relates well with his players.
“My wife often says I act like a kid, so maybe that fits,” Kemble quipped.
He said his players are young adults, and he treats them like young adults.
“We have expectations, I let them know the expectations, and we go to work,” Kemble said. “That’s how I see it.”
Gabby Roy is another senior soccer and basketball player who has played for Kemble on multiple teams.
“He cares about our well-being and health,” Roy said. “He always puts us first,”
Senior Dalaney Horr said Kemble checks in on the players to see how they are feeling.
“He understands what we need as players and is very involved in our lives,” said Horr, who also plays both sports.
Kemble credits his success in soccer to University of Maine coach Scott Atherley.
Kemble was a football-basketball-baseball player at Mt. Blue High School in his hometown of Farmington. He went on to play baseball at UMaine.
And when he landed the Bangor soccer job, he attended “40 or 50” of Atherley’s training sessions at UMaine during a two-year span.
“Scott was tremendously supportive of me and helped me acclimate to the game,” Kemble said. “He was open in terms of being willing to talk to me at any time. He helped me grow in understanding the game.”
Kemble wound up coaching Atherley’s two daughters, Teagan and Kyelin.
Teagan graduated last year and earned All-American honors, and she is now playing for her father at UMaine. Kyelin is a junior at Bangor High.
Roy, a captain for the Rams on the soccer team, said all the time and effort Kemble spent learning about the game at UMaine shows how much he cares.
“He went from not really knowing about soccer to winning two state championships,” Roy said.
One of his coaching philosophies is being strong down the middle so you have to make sure you put your best players there.
“That’s where most of the play takes place,” explained Kemble, who also won a state championship coaching the Brewer American Legion baseball team in 1989.
He is also a defensive-minded coach.
“I don’t think you can win a championship without playing good defense,” said Kemble. “If you are having a bad day, offensively, you can’t win unless you defend.”
His soccer team posted 11 shutouts in 18 games this past fall.
The 62-year-old Kemble is a history teacher at Bangor High and got his first taste of coaching when he was a player at Mt. Blue High School. Basketball coach Jim Bessey ran winter recreation programs and the high school players would coach fourth and fifth grade recreation teams, Kemble explained.
He then caught the coaching bug when he was a relief pitcher for the University of Maine.
Kemble said former UMaine baseball coach John Winkin “was great at finding the best players and putting them in the right position to have success and with that success, their confidence grows.”
Kemble also has fond memories of the Black Bears playing in NCAA Regionals and the College World Series.
“We were competing against the best teams in the country. It was an exciting time,” he said. “That’s when I really decided to take a look at coaching in the future.”
In addition to Bessey and Winkin, Kemble said he has had a lot of great mentors like former Mt. Blue football coach Ray Caldwell, former Old Town High athletic director Bob Lahey, former Bangor High and Husson football coach Gabby Price, and Vanidestine.
“Jay understands student-athletes,” said Vanidestine. “He communicates well with me, the families and the kids. He doesn’t make promises on playing time but he communicates so well with the kids, they believe and trust he is doing the right things for the right reasons.”
Vanidestine also called Kemble a “true professional” and pointed to the amount of time he spent getting to know the sport of soccer.
Kemble is looking forward to the challenge of coaching the boys team and said new assistant Jason Grunkemeyer has been a tremendous help in acclimating him to the boys game. Grunkemeyer is a deputy athletic director at UMaine who captained the Miami University in Ohio’s basketball team and was also an assistant coach there.
Kemble said it’s great to have a supportive athletic director like Vanidestine and a principal like Bangor High School’s Paul Butler.
“It’s a great place to coach,” Kemble said. “The administration is the best I have ever coached under.”
