Barnstable High Set to Hire Piemontese as New Boys’ Basketball Coach

HYANNIS – Barnstable High School athletic director Scott Thomas was expected to announce a new boys’ varsity basketball head coach this morning, with the likelihood that it would be former Dennis-Yarmouth Regional High School head coach John Piemontese, now Dean of Students at Cape Cod Tech.

From a field of approximately 15 candidates, a search committee led by Thomas whittled the list down to seven finalists and then earlier this week selected Cape Tech’s Dean of Students John Piemontese who originally hails from Leominster but now makes his home in Brewster, according to a variety of sources.

Former Canton High School Athletic Director and boys' varsity basketball head coach John Piemontese was expected to be named the new Barnstable High boys' basketball coach this morning. Canton High School Photo

Former Canton High School Athletic Director and boys’ varsity basketball head coach John Piemontese was expected to be named the new Barnstable High boys’ basketball coach this morning.
Canton High School Photo

Piemontese, who coached the Dennis-Yarmouth Regional High School boys’ varsity basketball team from 2004 through the end of the 2007 season and for five years was the Canton High School Athletic Director (1999-2004), has been at Cape Tech as an administrator since 2010. Interestingly, Piemontese was a finalist for the Barnstable High athletic director’s position in 2001 when former Red Raider athletic director Steve Francis was hired for the position.

“It was a few years ago. I received a phone call from the Cape Cod Times congratulating me and then Steve Francis was hired,” Piemontese said. “I didn’t get the job. It didn’t pan out.”

Numerous current and former varsity basketball coaches on the Cape applied for the basketball position as well as a handful of former all-time great Red Raider basketball alumni.

Piemontese, however, brings a wealth of coaching experience to the table. A graduate of Dean Junior College in 1983 (school’s name was changed to Dean College in 1994), UMass-Amherst (1985) and UMass-Lowell (1989), Piemontese played high school basketball at Leominster High.

His teaching career began as a teacher’s aide at Whittier Regional Vocational Technical High School in Haverhill in 1991 where he quickly climbed through the ranks first as a US Government and History teacher (1992), Athletic Director (1996-1999) and boys’ varsity basketball head coach from 1997-1999.

In November 1999, Piemontese moved on to Canton High School where he took the reins as Athletic Director and in 2000 added the boys’ varsity basketball head coaching job to his long list of duties which also included teaching political science and physical education.

In July 2004, Piemontese was hired by the Dennis-Yarmouth regional School District as a U.S. History, Leadership, Advanced Leadership and physical education teacher. He also took the job as boys’ varsity basketball head coach and in September 2005 added on the girls’ varsity golf head coaching job.

The Dolphins went 0-20 his first season, but improved to a 9-10 record and postseason berth in 2006-07.

In November 2007, Piemontese left Dennis-Yarmouth and took a teaching position at the Pembroke Community Middle School where he was a 7th grade social studies teacher. He stayed through the end of the 2010 school year and in September of that same year took over as Dean of Students at Cape Cod Tech in Harwich, where he remains to this day.

Thomas indicated Wednesday afternoon that he would be making an announcement today about Piemontese’s hiring, but was cautious about speaking about the hiring of the new coach until his application had been fully vetted by the Town of Barnstable’s Human Resources Department.

If confirmed today, Piemontese takes over for two-year varsity head coach Chuck Kipnes who finished with a 21-21 lifetime record and two postseason appearances. For over a decade in the 1990s, Piemontese helped coordinate and run a popular youth basketball camp in Leominster. According to a March 9, 1997 Sunday Boston Globe article by Bob Monahan, Piemontese was an assistant basketball coach at Bridgewater State University as well as Salem State University and for eight years he “was head basketball coach at Bunker Hill Community College” although immediate confirmation of any of those three positions could not be made.

In a phone call with Piemontese Wednesday afternoon, he said “I’ve not been able to confirm that at this time” in regard to officially being named the new boys’ basketball coach for the Red Raiders.

He did say that he had a telephone conversation with Barnstable High School principal Patrick Clark Wednesday as a “follow up to the interview” on Tuesday with the search committee, but added “nothing’s been confirmed at this time.”

Should Piemontese’s new role as Barnstable boys’ basketball head coach be confirmed today by Barnstable High School,  he will become the 20th head coach since the first paid boys’ basketball head coach at Barnstable High was hired in 1925. The first coach was BHS Hall of Famer William P. “Billy” Bangs who was also the head football coach, baseball coach, founder of BHS tennis and track & field and the school’s first athletic director. The first Barnstable High boys’ basketball season on record was in 1915 but chiefly the team’s captain ran the team in most if not all sports then.

— Sean Walsh is the sports editor for www.capecod.com. His email is [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @coachwalshccbm

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