Lebanon
Two years ago, after the former Dartmouth College men’s hoop coach joined the Raiders as an assistant, Lebanon players sang, “Sixty-eight and feeling great!” Last year, the cheer went, “Sixty-nine and feeling fine!”
“The kids knew about it because my wife put something on Facebook,” Faucher confided in a phone interview on Tuesday. “The kids were all over that.”
Come next February, the chant will probably change to “Seventy is heavenly!” The Raiders will be singing it to their interim head coach this time, with Faucher spelling longtime boss Kieth Matte during a one-year sideline break.
The opportunity extends Faucher’s interesting — and surprisingly Granite State-focused — career arc. Sandwiching a 20-year stint at Dartmouth, the last 13 as head coach, is a tenure that included high school jobs before Hanover along with prep and college opportunities after.
Faucher never planned it that way. Besides: When it’s so much fun, why stop?
“I’m doing this for one reason and one only: I’ve been in a gym every day for the last two years, and I just really love the kids,” Faucher said. “Ability-wise, they’re good because they can pass and catch and dribble, but they definitely have some weaknesses basketball-wise. As people, they’re an enjoyable group to be around. They’re good kids, they love basketball, and they have fun in the gym.”
Matte made his decision to take a year off last March after his second-seeded team endured a surprise first-round exit from the NHIAA Division II state tournament. His daughter, Alexis, is about to start her senior season at Sunapee’s Mount Royal Academy, and his son, K.J., is already into his sophomore campaign at Maine’s Bowdoin College. Heck, he doesn’t get to see his wife, Chris, during her high school refereeing assignments. All are on the table this winter.
“I did not go to a summer league basketball game,” Matte confessed on Tuesday. “We talk all of the time. … He doesn’t need help with the basketball.”
The coaching bug bit Faucher in 1971, when he was a fifth-year senior in the middle of a University of New Hampshire class on basketball theory. A 1967 Somersworth High graduate, Faucher had been active in youth basketball and had taken to the coaching ideas of his hoops hero, Bob Cousy, in the ex-Celtic’s book Basketball Concepts and Techniques.
Faucher’s class was assigned to scout the UNH team — where Gerry Friel was early into his 20-year stretch with the Wildcats — and produce a report.
“He had a double-stack defense, so when I saw UNH play, I knew they were running double stack: two-man game, screen away — I knew all of the terminology,” Faucher recalled. “A couple of weeks later, Friel said most of the students did a great job, but there was one kid that was equal to any college coach in the country, and he wanted to meet after. We went to lunch, and he asked if I wanted to get involved with their program. I said, ‘Yes.’ ”
With the exception of a one-year stint at Merrimack College in North Andover, Mass., everything Faucher has coached ever since has been New Hampshire-based: Newmarket High, Sanborn High, Dartmouth, Kimball Union Academy, Daniel Webster College and, now, Lebanon.
“That was purely coincidental,” Faucher said. “I had no idea that was going to happen.”
Faucher has a better idea of what to expect with the Raiders when practice starts on Monday because he already had two years with them under his belt.
Lebanon will be junior-driven this winter, with the likes of Wade Rainey, Logan Falzarano, Caleb Smith, Jon Willeman and Tommy Berthasavage merging with senior Hunter Bienvenu, the Raiders’ top returning scorer.
It’ll be a typical Raider team: lacking in height, compensating with athleticism.
The fact that Matte favored a systems-based approach to coaching over two-plus decades plays into Faucher’s hands. Those hands have developed strategies that get passed down through Lebanon’s junior varsity and freshman teams, making a varsity coaching transition this winter — if there truly is one — essentially symptom-free.
“There are certain things that we do that are A to Z,” Matte said. “Younger groups play man offense, and we teach man. Dave has had a significant influence on our half-court offense. He’s a well-known entity in terms of half-court man offense; that piece of the system is from him.
“We always say to the kids, ‘We don’t offer three teams here; we offer a basketball program.’ So when we play in the summer, the new kids coming from JV to varsity, they know exactly what’s going on.”
Because of that, Faucher has few worries as he gets his hoops house in order. Come next March, when the season’s done, Matte officially returns and Faucher goes back to being an assistant, nothing substantive should change.
Faucher’s on the floor, ready for more.
“It’s an interesting group,” Faucher said. “I couldn’t tell how we’ll do, but what I can tell you is I will enjoy every day.”
Greg Fennell can be reached at gfennell@vnews.com or 603-727-3226.