MILFORD – Marc Maurais stepped into a difficult situation some 30 years ago when he took over as a young, 25-year-old athletic director at Milford High School.

Who knew that he would establish a Spartan era that will be part of the school and town’s history forever.

Maurais is calling an end to that era at the end of this school year, by the beginning of July. At that time, Milford will have a new athletic director for the first time in 30 years as he’s decided to step down.

Back in the early 1990s, Milford was in transition as Souhegan High School was opening, taking away the students from Amherst and Mont Vernon. Milford Area Senior High School (MASH) was becoming simply Milford High School.

“I think back a lot about those first few years and what a challenge, it was like a mountain to climb,” Maurais said. “There was just so much emotion with that whole split, Milford, Amherst and Mont Vernon. Back in those days, we had a whole lot of teaches who were coaches in the building.

“The people I worked with were the Bill Browns, the Chuck Robersons, the Dana Bourassas, people who were in the building, gave me the history, and we fought together to keep all the programs that MASH offered. There were a lot of questions about cutting back. Our enrollment was cut in half … But what it did was give kids an opportunity here who may not have thought about trying a sport or a different sport.

“Those first few years were like a mountain to climb. But then we hit our stride, started to develop feeder programs and pride. It’s taken off.”

Maurais oversaw all of that. He is in his 30th year on the job, but said he came to the difficult decision in December to step down at the end of the year to take advantage of the district’s early retirement program.

“That was huge,” he said. “The decision to go down this road was made in December. I’ve been keeping it close to the vest for awhile. It’s a very time consuming, stressful at times situation, and I was just ready for a change, and also thinking it’s time for a fresh person to come in with new ideas, the modern skills which I fully would say are not my strong suit. So, I think the time is right.”

The 55-year-old Maurais added he doesn’t know what the future holds and has no immediate plans, but expects to work again, whether it be in education, athletics, or otherwise. As he said, he told very few people of his decision but in the last couple of weeks has gotten word to many of his coaches, especially those who expect to be coaching in the fall, as he has put in for many of them to return. The job, he said, has been officially posted in the last couple of days.

Still, the decision was not easy. Maurais had been the athletic director up north at Pittsburg, where he also coached multiple sports, starting the soccer program there.

When he took the Milford job, he succeeded Bill Dod, who left to become Souhegan High School’s first athletic director. Maurais also succeeded Dod as the head baseball coach for four years at Milford before giving it up to focus solely on his AD job.

Incredibly, he has not had any assistant the entire time, although the school’s office staff has helped with much of the clerical work.

Highly respected, Maurais fought the fight to prevent programs from being cut and not only added programs, but also renovated its small stadium with an outdoor track. And as he leaves there’s a move afoot to try to get field turf installed.

He definitely leaves a legacy.

“It’s hard to know being in it what the perception is,” he said.

And now Maurais can leave with a job well done. Of course there will be speculation as to his successor; one likely in-house candidate may be Milford Middle School AD Don Gutterson, who also coaches the high school varsity boys basketball team.

“I’ve had a lot of very difficult mixed feelings for the past few months,” Maurais said. “Now I’m just trying to juggle with the spring season and trying to do as much as I can before my time is over to get as much done for next year.”

He has no official last day, but expects it to be sometime after the last middle of June.

Did he ever think he’d be at Milford for three decades?

“Never,” he said. “I knew back then MASH, the history of the school in athletics, I just didn’t realize the quality of the kids and the people in general here. It certainly wasn’t the plan all those years ago, but I’ve enjoyed it.”