A big basketball day for Monson

Central Maine well represented at hardwood Hall of Fame ceremony

By Ernie Clark
BDN Staff

The town of Monson has a rich schoolboy basketball tradition, highlighted by state championships won by its Monson Academy Slaters in 1909, 1932 and 1968.

Contributed photo

MAINE BASKETBALL HALL OF FAME — Dean Smith, a 1986 graduate of Foxcroft Academy, is among the members of the Maine Basketball Hall of Fame Class of 2016. Smith, who was a three-sport star for the Ponies, finished his high school career as Foxcroft Academy’s all-time leading scorer with 1,722 points.

But save for those title games and the celebrations that ensued, few other events in the state’s modern basketball history have featured that small community along the shore of Lake Hebron more prominently than Sunday’s Maine Basketball Hall of Fame induction ceremony at the Cross Insurance Center in Bangor.

Two native sons, Kevin Nelson and Dean Smith, were among members of the Hall’s third induction class.

Nelson was a 6-foot-8-inch phenom from the “suburbs” southeast of the town of approximately 700 residents who began attending middle school in Dover-Foxcroft after Monson, Charleston and Sebec joined Dover-Foxcroft in their SAD 68 consolidation.

Nelson went on to start for four years at Foxcroft Academy and led the Ponies to their only basketball state championship in 1975 before going on to a successful career at the University of Maine.

“Going into the Hall of Fame is just a special time for me,” said Nelson, a two-time Bangor Daily News first-team all-state selection who finished his high school career with 1,424 points and 1,156 rebounds. “I’ve known Dean all my life, and what are the chances of two guys from Monson being inducted in the same year? I’m kind of overcome just by the specialness of all this.”

Smith similarly was raised in Monson before moving with his family to Dover-Foxcroft as a middle-schooler. The 6-4 forward went on to start for four years at Foxcroft Academy where he scored a school-record 1,722 points and earned first-team BDN All-Maine honors as a senior.

Smith also went on to star at the University of Maine, where he was a three-time Academic All-American and as a senior not only led Maine’s conference in scoring and earned first-team all league honors but was the recipient of the 1990 Walter Byers Award as the NCAA’s top male student-athlete.

“Kevin was an idol of mine growing up,” said Smith, who was introduced at the Hall of Fame ceremony by his sons Hunter and Hyatt. “He was a kid from Monson, Maine, where I was from who had a great career, and just to have him there and to know there was a pathway out of Monson to actually play basketball and to essentially get paid for that in college [through an athletic scholarship], he was my inspiration.”

Smith and Nelson were among four inductees from former Penquis League schools who were honored Sunday.

They were joined by Tony Hamlin of Milo, who played at both Milo High School and the consolidated Penquis Valley High School before going on to start at point guard for three years at the University of Maine where he captained the Black Bears as a senior.

Hamlin, who was introduced at the induction ceremony by his son Casey, went on to amass 400 victories while coaching for more than three decades with stops at Maine Central Institute of Pittsfield, Morse of Bath, South Portland and Penquis Valley.

His teams produced three state championships, the 1983 Class A crown at South Portland and titles in 2000 and 2013 back at his alma mater, Penquis Valley. The 2013 title marked not only his 400th victory, but it came in the last high school game at the Bangor Auditorium and marked Hamlin’s final game on the sidelines before his retirement.

Also inducted was the late Ed Guiski, a powerhouse player at Winslow High School, Boston University and what is now known as the University of Southern Maine who became a coaching institution at Dexter Regional High School where totaled 329 wins and led the Tigers’ boys basketball team to the 1986 Class B state championship and back-to-back regional titles in 1985 and 1986.

Guiski was introduced to the crowd by current Dexter boys basketball coach Peter Murray.

“Ed came to Dexter when I was in high school and he was larger than life,” said Hamlin. “He was intimidating and forceful and a great coach. He would have really appreciated this honor and I hope his family recognizes that it’s heartfelt and well deserved.

“His teams were always going to play hard and play defense and be well disciplined, all the things great coaches do. They impose their personality and will onto their teams, and that’s what Ed did.”

But the Penquis region’s presence in the Cross Center’s grand ballroom Sunday wasn’t limited to this year’s inductees.

Wayne Champeon, the former Greenville High School and University of Maine multi-sport star and retired Foxcroft Academy teacher who was inducted into the Maine Basketball Hall of Fame in 2015, was on hand, as was Nelson’s high school coach Skip Hanson, who introduced his former big man for induction.

Hanson’s son, Todd, the longtime boys basketball coach at Brunswick High School, also was in attendance. The younger Hanson began his playing career at Piscataquis Community High School in Guilford before moving on to Waterville High School and eventually to the University of Maine where he and Smith were teammates.

“For all of us to come from this area and to see everyone here Sunday speaks well of the hotbed of basketball in central Maine that we all have grown up with,” said Hamlin.

Observer photo/Stuart Hedstrom

BLACK BEAR FOOTBALL RECRUIT — Foxcroft Academy senior Hunter Smith, third from right, signed his National Letter of Intent to join the University of Maine football team in the fall on an athletic scholarship during a ceremony in the school lobby on Feb. 3. There to congratulate Smith is his family, from left, grandfather Jake Smith, younger brother Hyatt Smith, father Dean Smith — who was a basketball standout for the Black Bears, mother Laurie Smith and grandmother Glenda Smith. 

Photo courtesy of Foxcroft Academy

QUITE THE PRESENCE IN THE PAINT — 1975 Foxcroft Academy graduate Kevin Nelson is among the members of the Maine Basketball Hall of Fame Class of 2016. The 6-foot-8 Nelson, who grew up in Monson and today lives in Falmouth, helped the Ponies win the Class B state championship as a senior before playing four years of Div. I basketball at the University of Maine where he scored over 1,000 points and grabbed over 750 rebounds in 93 games for the Black Bears. 

Ed Guiski
Dexter boys basketball coach

     MBHOF/Jeff Kirliny

MAINE BASKETBALL HALL OF FAME INDUCTEE — Fern Masse (left) poses for a photo with Hall of Fame board of directors chairman Tony Hamlin, also a 2016 inductee, during Sunday’s induction ceremony at the Cross Insurance Center in Bangor.