Two years after being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, doctors advised Jim Poulin to give up teaching and stop coaching.
The longtime Winslow coach looked at his doctor and nodded in agreement.
Then, he continued teaching, and kept on coaching.
“He suggested I teach no more than half a day,” Poulin said. “I’d say, ‘OK, no problem.’ I never changed it. He said that coaching was getting too much for me. I listened to him, said, ‘Fine. Good.’ Then I continued to coach.”
That was in 1997, two years after his initial diagnosis. He kept going, but continued to live with the fear that he’d one day have to step away from coaching.
“I still have it to this day,” Poulin said, comparing stepping away from coaching football to addiction withdrawal. “The big thing was having access to talk to the kids and talk to them more than just about football.”
Poulin eventually did stop teaching in 2005 — he retired, kicking and screaming all the way. But he continued coaching, eventually stepping down from his football position in 2013.
But he’s still a volunteer assistant with the boys’ varsity basketball team, and he had the joy of basketball in his heart and a nearly permanent smile on his face this winter when basketball season began.
Poulin began teaching and coaching at his alma mater in the mid-70s. He was hired to teach first. He had an interest in coaching but nothing was available his first year.
“I would have applied for anything right out of college in Winslow,” Poulin said. “There was nothing available, and it was the best thing in the world for me because I ended up getting my feet under me academically.”
The following year he began coaching freshman football and also coaching JV boys’ basketball. He stayed at the freshman football level for 13 years before jumping to varsity in 1988. It was a steep learning curve at first, he said, but in time he learned and grew as a coach and realized it was something he loved doing.
“I love being with the kids,” said Poulin, who also coached track and field and softball. “You’re in a totally different capacity in coaching than you are teaching. In teaching, they have to be there. In coaching, they’re volunteers. They want to be part of that experience. I had such a great experience playing in high school that I wanted to pass on to the kids that same joy that I felt about football, basketball and baseball. It was such a great learning and growing experience to play sports.”
In 1995, his body began to weaken. He began doing research on his own and concluded that it might be MS in August. In October, his doctor confirmed his suspicions.
“His phone call on the 31st, I’ll never forget it,” said Poulin, recalling the game his football team was preparing for the next day. “He said, ‘Jim, you were right. You do have MS.’ I wasn’t upset at all because I knew I had that.”
In August 2002, he went for an operation that he hoped would help make walking easier.
The operation didn’t work.
“I walked into the hospital and came out in a wheelchair,” Poulin said. “I haven’t walked since. The operation wasn’t successful, but we tried. We tried to improve the quality of life and it didn’t work.”
Poulin said that’s a lesson he wants kids to know. Sometimes, what you attempt to do doesn’t work, but you change things up and keep trying.
“There’s no promise to anybody that life is going to give you exactly what you want every single day,” Poulin said. “These kinds of lessons are hard to get in the classroom. Those classes are necessary and part of our education, but they don’t teach kids how to deal with adversity. That is one of the biggest things that I love about sports.”
And it’s one of the reasons Poulin never wanted to stop being involved. As a coach and a teacher, he still has plenty of lessons to share.
“Life is still good,” Poulin said. “God has been very good to me. God has blessed me. I’ve been very fortunate with everything that’s happened in my life, including this MS. If it’s going to be used for good, then so be it.
“If a kid says, ‘If coach isn’t going to give up on coaching us, then I’m not going to give up when I’m playing or as an adult, I’m not going to give up no matter the difficulties in my life.’
“So whatever good may come of it, I have been very, very blessed.”
kmills@sunjournal.com
Capable coaching
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- Winslow boys’ basketball volunteer assistant coach Jim Poulin, right, watches Wednesday’s game in Turner against Leavitt. Poulin has been a basketball coach at Winslow for a couple of decades and was also the defensive coordinator on the football team. In recent years, he’s been using a wheelchair because of Multiple Sclerosis.
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