Two of the region’s strongest high school soccer programs have new but familiar leadership.

Rob Grabill, whose annual contract with the Hanover High boys wasn’t renewed after last season, has landed with the Sunapee High girls, replacing Myles Cooney. He’s been replaced by Lucas Richardson, a former Dartmouth College player and assistant who last season led the Kimball Union Academy girls.

“For my own mental health, I need to move on,” said the 73-year old Grabill. Hanover “is going to win two or three championships in the next two or three years. I’d feel bad if I was leaving behind a house of cards or smoking wreckage, but the program is in the best shape it’s ever been.”

Grabill was 290-45-17 for an .824 winning percentage and won seven state titles during 19 years at Hanover. He said he was told in December that he would not be offered another contract because athletic director Megan Sobel and principal Julia Stevens wanted “new directions.”

Further explanation was not forthcoming, the coach said, although Dresden School District Superintendent Jay Badams said Grabill shouldn’t have been surprised by the decision, given that he’d been asked to change his approach for several years. Badams didn’t elaborate on what those alterations were.

“There was nothing horrible, no harm to children or anything like that. But this has been an ongoing process,” Badams said in early January.

Grabill was four times honored as the national United Soccer Coaches organization’s New England regional coach of the year. The first time occurred in 1986 when he was leading New Hampshire College, and the latter three came while guiding Hanover in 2008, 2013 and 2019.

Grabill has coached for the local Lightning Soccer Club longer than he did at Hanover, often guiding teams of young women during the spring and criss-crossing the Twin States in the summer with a team comprised not only of his Bears players but some from other high schools. That squad, too, almost always has female participants.

A gregarious pastor, now retired from that profession, Grabill maintains a busy Sunday schedule delivering sermons as a guest speaker at churches around New England. The sense of community Grabill engenders has always carried onto the soccer pitch, though you’d never know his religious leanings while watching him coach.

“We love Grabill and he did an amazing job with the program, but we have to embrace change because that’s what’s happened,” said junior defender Sam Bagatell, one of the team’s captains for next season and one of two players who interviewed Richardson during the search for Grabill’s successor.

“It will be sad not to have the same experience, but maybe we can make a better experience. Maybe this choice we helped make will last for years and will have a really positive impact.”

At Sunapee, Cooney was ready to retire from the sidelines. Also a school guidance counselor, he had tired of the offseason commitments important to keeping the Lakers at a high level. While at the state coaches postseason meeting last fall, Cooney let his plans be known and asked interested parties to get in touch. Grabill, after it became apparent that Hanover’s administration wouldn’t budge, took him up on the offer.

“Soccer’s important in Sunapee, and the community’s behind the school and its budget,” said Grabill, who plans to move from Hanover to a location closer to his new job. “I’m in this for the long haul. I’m not going to throw down flash powder and make a big show for one year. I told the eighth graders I’ll be there when they graduate from high school.”

Cooney can’t believe his luck. Grabill has even coached a few current Lakers during the summer Granite State Games as the boss of the Monadnock regional team. He’s not a shouter or inflexible, which plays well with today’s teenagers.

“For 19 years, I’d go to state coaches meetings and see Rob and think ‘This guy cares a lot,’ ” Cooney said. “In tactics and teaching, he was so far ahead of the other candidates and even myself. The players trust and believe that he’ll have a good process.”

Richardson’s background is eye-popping, even at Hanover, which has long history of highly qualified coaches.

The 40-year-old graduated from Dartmouth in 2007 after twice being named an All-Ivy League defender and captaining the Big Green as a senior. The team won two league titles and made an NCAA postseason appearance during Richardson’s playing career, and he later served as an assistant coach.

Richardson worked for Norwich’s Grassroots Soccer and coached in Zambia after graduation. He later did the same in England, Denver and Kansas City and taught high school. He and his family moved back to Hanover last year and he currently works for Soccer Without Borders, a company that aids in the integration and development of refugee and immigrant youngsters in the U.S. and Uganda.

Richardson, the father of three children under age 6, has recently helped Lightning Soccer’s youth academy and coached KUA’s girls team last fall. He found, however, that coaching at the boarding school without teaching there created a disconnect, and he was looking to do something else when Grabill was ousted.

Overseeing a program with four teams (varsity, junior varsity, freshmen and reserve) and parents who can often be critical and demanding is not a job for the faint of heart. Richardson, however, seems a perfect fit.

“I want to make sure we can continue to uphold the culture that Rob built,” Richardson said. “Listening to the captains describe the program and how proud they are to represent it, I don’t want to let them down.

“I’ve lived all over the U.S., and there’s something special about soccer in the Upper Valley.”

Tris Wykes can be reached at ctwykes@aol.com.