How does a coach approaching his third decade in the dugout and entering his seventh decade on Earth keep swinging the fungo bat with the same enthusiasm he had when Ronald Reagan was president?

Love of the game, explains Richmond High School coach Rick Coughlin.

Winning doesn’t hurt either.

Coughlin’s dedication to the game and success in leading the Bobcats to their third consecutive Class D state championship have earned him the Kennebec Journal’s Softball Coach of the Year.

The 70-year-old Coughlin added a seventh state title to Richmond’s trophy case and extended the Bobcats’ winning streak to 52 games with a still young and extremely competitive team that scored nearly 14 runs per game.

The Bobcats were so dominant many of their games were over after the first inning. But they didn’t get complacent or lose their focus on the playing or practice field because of the synergy between the players and their venerable leader.

“The group I’ve had the last three or four years, they love the game,” Coughlin said. “The kids and I love the game, and that love of the game makes it worth coming back.”

Keeping the players coming back as hungry for success as they were the year before is a problem all other coaches would love to have. But it isn’t really a problem for Coughlin, even though a trip to the state championship game (the Bobcats have won Western D titles in a row) has almost become a given at Richmond during this decade.

Success breeds success, and that builds a winning tradition. Coughlin has built that at Richmond, and that gives the players incentive to not only meet his high expectations, but set high standards for themselves.

“They’ve seen what the teams before have accomplished and they want to equal them or better them,” he said. “The kids come in as freshmen and see this and want to be part of it.”

Of course, Coughlin won’t allow his players to lose that edge. He constantly keeps the Bobcats on their toes, no matter how easy they make it look on the field.

“He’s always on us,” senior first baseman Kelsie Obi said. “You can’t have a letdown, because he’s always there to make sure you do your best.”

Coughlin balances that intensity with a hearty laugh and a feel for the pulse of his team. As the winning streak lengthened, he recognized the pressure on his team mounted and made sure it was prepared for the adversity every championship team eventually must overcome.

That was apparent in the state championship game against Stearns. The Minutemen scored two runs in the top of the first to put the Bobcats in the unfamiliar position of having to come from behind. The Bobcats responded with four runs in the bottom of the frame and never looked back in their 9-4 season-capping win.

“It was very rewarding. As every game went on the kids in the back of their mind thought of the streak and they believed in themselves,” he said. “They knew they could do it, no matter what the circumstances were.”

The circumstances may not change much for his team these days, but Coughlin isn’t stuck in his coaching ways. He’ll spend the off-season researching online coaching clinics, looking for tips — such as new drills — to help him keep practices fresh for his players.

“I just try to get different things,” he said. “You have to do something different to keep their interest, not do the same thing all of the time.”

That’s about all of the repetition Coughlin won’t tolerate.

Randy Whitehouse — 621-5638

rwhitehouse@mainetoday.com

Twitter: @RAWmaterial33

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