Why the basketball tournaments are so special to me

DOVER-FOXCROFT — My first experience with high school basketball came back in middle school.

It was the annual Dover Grammar School spelling bee, and I figured I was one of the favorites to move on to the Piscataquis County finals until that dream came to a crashing halt.

I recall having spelled a few words correctly, then came the word “tenant.”

Since my dad and mom had housed my four siblings and myself in the home they purchased in 1954, I had no particular reason to know that word or how to spell it.

My frame of reference for how I thought the word was spelled came from listening to the likes of Eddie Owen, Joe Gould and George Hale broadcast high school games on the radio and reading all the write-ups of the day in the Bangor Daily News.

Through the media I had heard of Tom Tennett, who was playing for Bangor High School at the time.

Guess how I spelled tenant in the spelling bee?

Sit down, Clark.

My bittersweet relationship with high school basketball continued through high school — and what has turned out to be the glory years of the sport at Foxcroft Academy.

Not that I had much to do with it.

Foxcroft was one of the favorites to win the 1975 Class B state championship after falling to Orono in the regional final a year earlier.

The Ponies were led by 6-foot-8 center Kevin Nelson, the pride of Southeast Monson, who went on to play at the University of Maine and is now a member of the Maine Basketball Hall of Fame.

Coach Skip Hanson carried just 11 players on the roster, with Nelson one of the nine seniors along with juniors Kenny Burtchell and Peter Snow.

The 12th spot on the roster went to the best player in each night’s JV game.

This slightly built, left-handed sophomore guard got to play up one evening, but the lingering memory of that experience is of missing a “high-percentage shot” that would have put Foxcroft over the 100-point mark in a game at Central of Corinth.

It wasn’t a big deal in the grand scheme of the season. Foxcroft went on to defeat Medomak Valley of Waldoboro 56-53 in an epic state final as my family and I watched from high inside a sold-out Augusta Civic Center.

But it’s the only basketball state title in school history, and I had missed my chance to make a contribution — albeit a minute one.

Karma came during my next two years on the varsity — bridge years, I call them. We went 6-12 and 4-14 in the aftermath of the state-championship season that sent coach Hanson off to a successful career in school administration and leaving his successor, Rusty Clukey, thinking there was nowhere to go but up.

At least that was true. Clukey and Foxcroft returned to the Eastern B final in 1979 before falling to Keith Ogden and the Bucksport Golden Bucks.

Since then this relationship with high school basketball has been as an observer, and it has been one of the pleasures of this profession.

One of the most impressive teams I’ve seen was the 1985 Class A state championship team from Waterville High School. The Purple Panthers were so deep that reserves from coach Ken Lindlof’s club went on to play collegiately.

Waterville was nearly as dominant the following season, and seemed poised to repeat its 1985 success after ripping rival Lawrence 89-33 at Colby College on the Fairfield school’s senior night.

But the Bulldogs had the final laugh. Guided by first-year head coach Mike McGee, Lawrence stunned Waterville in the EM championship game, getting a last-second shot by freshman Troy “Goose” Scott to force overtime and then controlling the extra period to earn an improbable 56-53 victory that ranks as perhaps the biggest upset I have ever witnessed.

That 1986 Eastern Maine tournament was one of the most memorable not only because of Lawrence’s heroics, but also because of the night the Bangor Auditorium roof leaked.

The Class B girls final between Houlton and Mount View of Thorndike was set to begin at 7:05 p.m., but a leak near center court delayed the proceedings for 75 minutes. By the time the boys game started, it was after 10 p.m. — when the second game of the doubleheader normally would be nearing its end.

That boys final between Dexter and Rockland evolved into one of the more memorable — and perhaps latest-ending — contests in state history.

Twice Rockland extended the game on late shots by John Post, and a third time it was teammate Dan Gargan whose buzzer-beater kept the big Bangor Auditorium crowd in doubt.

Finally Dexter got the last score, a runner by Marty Keaveney in the final seconds, to outlast Rockland 63-61 in five overtimes.

The game ended at 12:18 a.m., and five minutes later my work was done. Finally, a personal basketball victory, at the tournament of all places.

Then there was one memorable contest I sort of witnessed.

I was tasked to cover the 1992 Class A girls state final in Portland that capped off the second of the Cindy Blodgett-led Lawrence Bulldogs’ four straight state titles.

I hung around to watch the highly competitive Bangor-South Portland boys game, but opted at halftime to leave for the 75-mile drive home to central Maine.

There was no radio coverage to speak of between the locations, meaning I would have to wait to find who won on the 11 o’clock news. I timed it just right, arriving home at about 11:15 p.m., just when the late Channel 5 sports report would air.

I turned on the TV, and there they were, highlights of the Bangor-South Portland game — or at least I thought they were just highlights.

It turned out to be the end of Channel 5’s live coverage of the game, in this case the fourth and fifth overtimes of a classic won by John Wassenbergh and South Portland 81-79.

Not all was lost for Bangor. The Rams won the state title the next year, the first of eight gold balls captured by the program under Hall of Fame coach Roger Reed.

There are so many other magical basketball moments I’ve missed over the years, such as Tim Scott’s “miracle minute” that propelled Ellsworth past Mattanawcook Academy of Lincoln in the 1988 Eastern B final and Joe Campbell’s last-second shot that gave Bangor the 2001 Class A state championship over heavily favored Deering of Portland.

But that’s what makes tourney time so special. You never know what you’re going to see next.