AUGUSTA — Joanna Hall, a teacher and coach at Rockland District High School, and Susan Lougee, a coach and athletic trainer at Presque Isle High School, were among five recipients of “Unsung Heroines in Maine Sports” awards presented during the Mentoring Women in Sports XIII conference hosted this week by the Maine Principals’ Association.
Other recipients were Gwen Bacon, co-principal of Messalonskee High School in Oakland; Anita Murphy, retired teacher and girls tennis coach at Lewiston High School; and Rebecca Hefty, a teacher and track coach at Edward Little High School in Auburn.
Hall, a physical education teacher at Rockland, served last fall as coach of the cooperative field hockey team involving Rockland and neighboring Georges Valley of Thomaston, which are scheduled to consolidate into Oceanside High School in the 2011-12 school year.
“This past fall the two high school field hockey teams, programs that had not experienced a great deal of success in the past few years, began the process of bringing the students together by forming a cooperative field hockey team,” wrote Rockland athletic administrator Jim Leonard in support of Hall’s nomination. “It quickly became apparent that coach Hall would oversee the first interaction between the two schools, one year prior to the actual consolidation. She faced a great deal of skepticism and anxiety from people in both communities, [but she] viewed the task as an opportunity to lay the foundation for a smooth consolidation.
“The young cooperative team won as many games as the schools had previously won but it was her success in getting the students from the two schools to come together, to bond and form alliances that extend outside of sport that is her true measure of success.”
Lougee has been a fixture at Presque Isle High School who has tended to injured student-athletes and served as the intermediary between the athletes and local medical providers.
“She is known by all as a person that places the welfare of the student above all else,” wrote former Presque Isle principal Eric Waddell. “Competition and winning are secondary. She has always held to the belief that a student’s health is forever while the game result is temporary.”
Lougee is retiring this spring after a 49-year career.
“Her legacy of hard work, perseverance, love of family and commitment to healthful living, community and church will live on forever,” wrote Waddell. “She will have made an indelible mark on generations of athletes, especially women, who have benefited from her expertise, kindness, generosity and graciousness.”
Bacon has spent nearly four decades as an educator in a variety of roles, including teacher, athletic director, administrator and a coach of field hockey — where she led Messalonskee to four state championships — basketball, gymnastics and lacrosse.
“Gwen has been the biggest advocate for those students who face challenges in school and on the field,” wrote Jonathan Moody, assistant principal at Messalonskee Middle School. “She has always been a role model for young women, has challenged our female athletes to become leaders within the school and has set a bedrock example of what that can look like in practice.”
Murphy has coached girls tennis at Lewiston for the past 33 years, leading the Blue Devils to 16 conference championships, 13 regional titles and 11 state championships. Her teams have a career record of 391-56.
Murphy has received the Auburn-Lewiston Sports Hall of Fame Presidential Award 11 times and has received the USA Tennis New England Junior Tennis Chapter of the Year award for her work with her youth tennis program.
In 2001 she was selected as the Maine Tennis Coach of the Year and in 2008 was recognized by the National Federation of High Schools as the National Girls’ Tennis Coach of the Year.
When Hefty took over the indoor and outdoor track programs at Edward Little, there were fewer than 15 athletes participating, but she has built both of those programs into perennial contenders for regional and state honors.
Her indoor track team captured a state championship in 2010 and she was selected as the KVAC Indoor Track Coach of the Year. In outdoor track her teams have won five conference championships, finished as state runner-up three times and won a state championship in 2009. She has been named the KVAC outdoor track coach of the year five times as well as being selected as the Maine Track and Cross Country Coach of the Year.
