Scott Phelps was an outstanding athlete who later positively impacted thousands of lives and was the father of a remarkable family.
That was the consensus from people who knew Phelps, who died after an extended illness on Saturday night, six days after his 45th birthday. He is survived by his wife, Margie, and their four children.
Phelps was a standout three-sport athlete at Bangor’s John Bapst High School who went on to play basketball at the University of Maine at Machias.
As the sports director at the Harbor House Community Service Center in Southwest Harbor, Phelps coached soccer, football, basketball and baseball to youngsters of all ages.
“This is a big loss. It leaves a great void in the community,” Mount Desert Island High School athletic director Bunky Dow said. “He was an excellent developer of kids when it came to fundamentals and skills. He was very driven to help them improve.”
“He coached my daughter when she was 4 and she always asks about him,” MDI boys basketball coach Justin Norwood said. “She loved him. He was such a positive influence. One of my friends said he was magic with kids.”
Norwood said there has been an outpouring of positive memories on Facebook from the people whose lives Phelps touched.
Bob Cimbollek coached Phelps when he was at John Bapst. He was Phelps’ baseball coach for three seasons and his basketball coach for one.
“There was no question, he was the best athlete Bapst has produced since it went from being a Catholic school to a private school in the 1980s,” Cimbollek said. “He was a 1,000-point scorer in basketball and was chosen to the all-tourney team. He was also an honorable mention all-state.
“He averaged 17.3 points and 7.2 assists per game. He also had 223 rebounds (10.1 per game) and 77 steals (3.5 per game). We went 18-4 and reached the Eastern Maine Class C finals where we lost to Fort Fairfield in overtime.
“He shot 46 percent from the floor and 44 percent from the 3-point line,” Cimbollek added. “He made an excellent adjustment from being the shooting guard to the point guard and that’s not an easy transition.”
As a baseball player, Cimbollek said Phelps was “a good pitcher who could play anywhere in the field.”
He was also an outstanding quarterback on the football team, he said.
Cimbollek recalled the first time he refereed a basketball game Phelps coached.
“I thought I was watching Bapst play,” Cimbollek chuckled. “He took everything we used. He had as good a grasp of it as any player I have ever coached.
“He would have been an outstanding high school coach,” he added .
Phelps passed on his athleticism to his four children.
Oldest child Megan was a 1,000-point scorer at Mount Desert Island and was chosen the Big East Player of the Year twice. She was also an all-state volleyball player. Megan Phelps is a senior at Bowdoin College. She averaged 9.6 points, 6.4 rebounds, 1.7 assists and 1.4 steals per game for the 21-6 Polar Bears last season.
Son Jon Phelps overcame a hearing disorder to be named an Eastern Maine Class B all-tournament point guard at Mount Desert Island, where he also was the starting shortstop on the baseball team and the starting quarterback, safety and punter on the football team.
Sarah Phelps is a senior at MDI and helped lead the Trojans to the Eastern Maine Class B championship a year ago. She is also an outstanding volleyball player.
Youngest son Andrew is a freshman at MDI and also plays multiple sports.
“It is a remarkable family,” Norwood said.
He said in addition to being great athletes, the Phelps children are “the nicest kids I have ever been around.”
Phelps’ popularity has resulted in them moving a celebration of Phelps’ life from the Pemetic Elementary School to the Mount Desert Island High School gym on Wednesday at 6 p.m.