The University of Maine’s Athletic Department is in the beginning stages of an unprecedented investment in upgrades to athletic facilities. An addition to the Alfond hockey arena, new soccer and track facilities, new field hockey complex, a new softball field, and a new basketball arena are all included in the expansion that will give UMaine some of the best sports facilities in New England. A grant from the Harold Alfond Foundation has provided funding for all these projects along with major donations from two families whose history with the university goes back to a very special time for Maine sports programs. It was a time in which Maine teams
achieved phenomenal levels of success. The new facilities being developed today will be a key to a new era of athletic success.
The estate of Pierre ’62 and Catherine Labat has donated $16 million to the UMaine Athletic Department and Phillip ’64 and Susan Keene Morse ’64 have donated $10 million for the new basketball arena.
Both families attended the university at a time that was truly a golden era for UMaine sports. Pete Labat, as he was known in college, was a lineman on the football team and Phil Morse played baseball. Their memories of the “golden era” may explain the reason they directed their very generous donations to athletics.
The period from 1958 to 1965 was not only a time for athletic success; it was a time of campus camaraderie that involved activities that went beyond sporting events. The Winter Carnival, for example, brought people from all around the area to view the ice sculptures in front of the fraternity houses. There was serious competition among the houses for the best sculpture.
There was also competition for the title of Winter Carnival King and Queen [Susan Morse was
once Winter Carnival Queen]. The Maine Day celebration in the spring brought students
together for a campus-wide barbeque and muddy games.
As memorable as these celebrations were to Maine students at the time, the success of the sports programs took center stage ahead of the other events. Standout high school stars came to UMaine without scholarships to compete in the state’s premier college sports programs. The tremendous success of the teams in this period came predominantly from the efforts of young Mainers competing at the highest level of college competition the state had to offer. “We had a lot of home-grown talent in Maine athletes who hated to lose,” as basketball captain Dick Sturgeon ’60, ’66G put it.
Women’s sports, hockey, and soccer had not yet come into their own, so the major programs of the day were football, basketball, baseball, and track, and the Maine programs in all four areas were on top of their game. All four of these programs were experiencing either new coaches or coaching additions so the players of the day attributed much of the high level of play to the coaching staffs. Wide receiver Dennis Doyle ’67 put it best: “We were fortunate to have an aggressive group of coaches who knew how to win.”
FOOTBALL
Harold Westerman took over as head coach of the football program in 1951 and led his teams to 15 straight years without a losing season. His overall record of 80 wins, 38 losses,and seven ties left a legacy that would be difficult to match. His tenure included two undefeated seasons, four Yankee Conference titles, and two All American selections: Tom Golden ’55 from Augusta, and John Huard ’67 from Waterville, who played on the 1965 team that went on to appear in a Bowl game. Westerman was joined by able assistant coaches during the 1960s like Walter Abbott ’58, ’65G and Jack Butterfield ’53. During the eight-year stretch from ’58 to ’65
Maine went 43 and 20 and included two teams that produced perhaps the greatest seasons in Maine football history.
The 1961 Maine Black Bear football team went undefeated with eight victories, one tie, and a Yankee Conference championship. The final game of the season was a hard fought 10 to 7 victory over perennial conference powerhouse UMass. The roster included a lineman named Pierre Labat, the philanthropist who left a donation to help usher Maine sports into another golden era. As was the case with the teams of the era, the roster also included a bevy of outstanding players from Maine including the co-captains Dave Cloutier ’62 from Gardiner and Dick Kinney ’62 from Lisbon Falls. Other great players with Maine roots included Don Harnum
’62 and Bump Hadley ’63 from Brewer, quarterback Manch Wheeler ’62 from Manchester, and Walter Beaulieu ’62 from Old Town. Manch Wheeler and Dave Cloutier went on to play in the AFL after graduation, Wheeler with the Buffalo Bills and Cloutier playing safety for the New England Patriots.
As great as the 1961 team had been, the 1965 team raised the bar even further. The ’65 season saw a Maine football team win not only the Yankee Conference, but they also added the Lambert Trophy, presented to the best team in the Northeast. The final icing on the cake was the team’s invitation to play in the Tangerine Bowl in Orlando, Florida, against East Carolina. This is the only Maine team ever to compete in a bowl game, a feat that is celebrated with an annual reunion organized by standout lineman Don White ’68 of Auburn.
They opened the ’65 season with a major 10-8 win over UMass, which was the team to beat. Then they crushed other Yankee Conference opponents like New Hampshire 48 to 13, Rhode Island 36 to 0, Vermont 35 to 6, and Connecticut 24 to 6. The team was quarterbacked by two–sport standout, Dick DeVarney ’66, ’72G, who had two talented wide receivers, Dennis Doyle ’67 and John White ’68 [brother of Don], both from Auburn, to work with. Offensive
coordinator Jack Butterfield ’53 introduced the practice of splitting out the receivers in order to take advantage of DeVarney’s passing ability. The result was a potent passing game that complemented the running of Biddeford’s Charlie Belisle ’67, Paul Keany ’68, and all New England running back, Frank Harney ’67. In the trenches the team featured a group of fierce linemen like Don White, Mike Hodges ’67, ’68G, Jerry Perkins ’67 of Orrington, Don Harnum ’62from Brewer, and Ivan Braun ’67, ’68G of Bucksport.
The team was loaded with outstanding talent including All American linebacker John Huard ’67, who went on to a professional career with the Denver Broncos, and co-captains Alan Riley ’67 and Walter Hirst ’67. A coaching staff as talented as the players they put on the field completed the package that made up a tremendous football team. As the unofficial team historian Don White summarized it: “We were always outsized but we were smart, quick, strong up the middle, and well coached.”
BASKETBALL
The 1958-59 basketball season opened with a full-time head coach not burdened with other coaching responsibilities for the first time as the Brian McCall era began. A graduate of Dayton University, McCall came to Maine from a successful high school coaching career and handled the coaching chores throughout the period from 1958 to 1965. Over those eight years
Maine basketball ran up a record of 104 wins against 77 losses including a three-year stretch that can be argued was the greatest three years of men’s basketball at Maine. The team went 52 and 16 including back-to-back seasons that set records for winning percentages that still stand today. The ’59-’60 team’s winning percentage of .876 remains the highest level of any Maine team followed closely by the .783 percent figure for the ’60-’61 team. The 19 and 4 ’59- ’60 season that saw the team ranked sixth in the country generated a Sports Illustrated article in December of 1960 that projected Maine as the team most likely to end the dominance of the University of Connecticut over the Yankee Conference. The article included a picture of Maine’s starting five of Wayne Champeon ’61, Skip Chappelle, Don Sturgeon, Larry Schiner ’61, ’62G, and John Ingalls ’61.
In the write-up Champion and Chappelle were called “the best backcourt in the conference,” Shiner and Sturgeon were described as high scoring forwards, and Ingalls was called “a strong rebounder” at just under 10 rebounds a game. To commemorate the winningest season in Maine basketball, the family of center John Ingalls, who passed away in 2016, established the ‘Winningest Men’s Basketball Team Fund” in 2019. The Fund was established for the “unrestricted support of the UMaine Men’s Basketball program.’’ The winningest season included a 13- game winning streak with the Black Bears ending the season with back-to-back
games against UMass. With a 19 and 2 record the team had a chance to wrap up a Yankee Conference championship with wins in these last two outings. With team captain Dick Sturgeon sidelined with a knee injury Maine lost both games, ending the season with a disappointing second place finish. To this day team members feel that if their captain had been able to play, they would have won the championship.
The era was highlighted by three Old Town athletes who captained the Bears for three straight years; Dick Sturgeon ’59-’60, Don Sturgeon in ’60-’61, and Skip Chappelle in ’61-’62. Chappelle led the Yankee Conference in scoring, and was a first team all-Conference selection all three years of his playing career. After the ’59-’60 campaign Chappelle was named a first team Little All American, becoming the only player in the history of Maine men’s basketball to be named an All American.
The Black Bears followed up the record setting ’59-’60 season with the second-best season in men’s basketball at Maine. The 18 and 5 team also ended the season in second place in the conference. In spite of three outstanding seasons in a row Maine was never able to knock UConn off the top of the conference. Interestingly enough, when the three-year string of winning seasons ended in the ’61-’62 season as Maine went 11 and 13, they defeated UConn twice. It was the first time they had been able to accomplish that feat. As team captain and outstanding forward Don Sturgeon put it: “We were just a group of Maine kids who all knew each other and were used to playing together.”
BASEBALL
From 1958 to 1965 Maine baseball had five winning seasons and an overall record of 98 and 79. They finished the period strong as the ’64 and ’65 teams went 35 and 14. The ’64 team continued the golden era by winning the Yankee Conference and giving Maine baseball its first ever trip to the college World Series. The team finished the regular season at 16 and 6 and went to the regional playoff against Northeastern. To get to the World Series they needed to win two out of three games, all played at Fenway Park in Boston. They wasted no time, sweeping Northeastern two straight and it was off to Omaha. The team was led offensively by right fielder Ron Lanza ’66, short stop Dick DeVarney ’66, third baseman Dave Thompson ’65 of Belfast, and catcher Carl ‘Stump’ Merrill ’66, ’76G of Brunswick. Multi-sport athletes Lanza and DeVarney had the distinction of playing on the World Series team and the Tangerine Bowl football team. The strong offense was backed by a strong pitching staff led by Joe Ferris ’66 of Brewer, Tom Murphy ’65 of South Portland, and Dick Dolloff ’65 of Westbrook.
They entered the World Series knowing that the team to beat was defending national champion Southern California. In the double elimination World Series Maine won three games beating Seton Hall, Arizona State, and Southern California. They lost two to Minnesota and Missouri, finishing third overall. The standout out for Maine in the series was a young pitcher from Brewer, Maine, named Joe Ferris, who was the winning pitcher in two games beating Seton Hall and Southern California, and posting a save in the third win against Arizona. His amazing performance was so impressive that he was chosen the outstanding player of the
series, an honor unmatched by any of the great Maine players who later played in the series. In the 2 to 1 win over powerhouse Southern California Ferris retired 16 straight batters from the second inning to the seventh. In the save against Arizona he struck out future major league star Sal Bando with two outs and two on. Joe Ferris, who went 9 and 0 in the regular season and playoffs combined, made sure that his team gave a good account of themselves on the big stage. As the series ended tournament public address announcer Jack Payne summarized that “No team in tournament history has captured the imagination of local fans in the manner in which this Maine team has done.”
TRACK AND CROSS COUNTRY
In 1956 a new coach, Edmund Styrna, took over the coaching reins for both track and cross country. The track program had a very interesting history including four consecutive New England Championships in the late ’20’s, and over the years placing four track athletes on U.S. Olympic teams. The cross country program had a National Championship in 1915 under their belt to add to the track accomplishments. But the new coach was not intimidated by those accomplishments as during the period from 1958 to 1965 his teams in all three areas, outdoor track, indoor track and cross country won Yankee Conference Championships. Over all in those eight years the three programs went 71 and 25. In fact the outdoor track program matched the team from the late ’20s by winning the Yankee Conference
Championship five years in a row, 1961 to 1965. The five-year championship run has never been matched and is thought of as the golden period of indoor track.
Many records were set over the period by athletes like sprinter Pete MacPhee ’64, who set the pace in the 100-yard dash as well as the 220 and 440. Jim Ballinger ’66, ’69 set records in the hurdles and Joe Dahle of Old Town was an outstanding two miler. Cross-country captain William Daly, Jr. ’60 led his team to a Yankee Conference Championship in 1959 to add to the dominance of Maine teams during the period. A record-setting three-year run for men’s basketball, a Lambert Trophy, and bowl appearance for the football program, a College World Series third place finish for the baseball program, and five consecutive years dominating the Yankee Conference for the track program all combined to make the eight-year period a most memorable time for UMaine sports. As we look to a future with first class athletic facilities, thanks to the generosity of the Harold Alfond Foundation and many Maine alums, perhaps we are headed into another era of extraordinary
achievements in UMaine sports. Only time will tell.