Jordan Hersom, the 2011 Fitzpatrick Trophy winner, has been chosen as York High’s new football coach, the school announced Thursday.
The high school also has selected Julie Johnson as its new boys’ soccer coach. Johnson, who starred at Lewiston High and played four years at Clemson University, was York’s assistant boys’ soccer coach last season.
“After two very competitive searches, I am excited to announce that the following two finalists will be put forward to the York School Committee,” Andy Wood, York’s athletic director, said in a press release. “If confirmed, they will join our coaching staff this coming fall.”
Hersom was the offensive coordinator at Gardiner High last season. He won the Fitzpatrick Trophy as a quarterback at Leavitt High Area in Turner and then played at Springfield College and Husson University. Hersom is a health and physical education teacher who has served as a basketball and track coach in the Leavitt Area schools.
Hersom’s father, Jim Hersom, is the football coach at Dirigo High in Dixfield and his uncle, John Hersom, is the football coach at Lawrence High in Fairfield, Jordan Hersom’s grandfather, Lawrence “Doc” Hersom, won three state football titles as the coach of Edward Little High in Auburn.
Hersom is slated to replace Randy Small, York’s head football coach for 21 years. Small planned to stop coaching football after last season, and then was dismissed as York’s boys’ basketball coach in November after nine seasons.
Johnson, a 1994 graduate of Lewiston, was an assistant coach under Eric Martens last fall. She played professional soccer before getting into coaching. In North Carolina, she coached both the boys’ and girls’ varsity teams at Parkwood High School. Upon returning to Maine, she was an assistant girls’ coach at Thornton Academy in 2015 and 2016 before being hired as an English teacher at York High. Johnson was enshrined in the Auburn-Lewiston Sports Hall of Fame in 2016.
Julie Johnson makes a move with the ball during a game for Clemson in the mid-1990s.Jordan Hersom looks for daylight as he scrambles out of the pocket during a regular season game against Gardiner.
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