Like any athlete who cherishes the memories of her playing days, Mari Warner still owns a scrapbook containing photographs and articles from her time as a basketball player at Thornton Academy of Saco and the University of Maine.
While those are a great reflection of wins, losses and times spent with teammates, the impact Warner and the 14 others selected to the first Bangor Daily News All-Maine Schoolgirl Basketball Team in 1977 continues to be felt.
“Girls have more opportunities,” said Warner, a physical education teacher at Falmouth High School who became a coach and was on the sidelines with the University at Albany as that program went from Division III to Division I in 1999.
Warner was a third-team selection on the inaugural BDN All-Maine girls team.
Earning nods on the initial first team were Jeanne White of South Portland, Cindy Rand of Hampden Academy, Karen Schwarz of South Portland, Jill Pingree of Mt. Blue in Farmington and the late Shirley Averill of Bangor.
Second-team honorees were Lake Region of Naples’ Kelly Kimball, Monica Martin of Van Buren, Debbie DiConzo of Dirigo of Dixfield, Hermon’s Joan Leavitt and Karen Downes of Bangor.
Joining Warner on the third team were Brenda Beckwith of Lawrence in Fairfield, Kim York of Catherine McAuley in Portland, Wisdom of St. Agatha’s Karen Nadeau and Cathy Swift of South Portland.
Warner played four years at UMaine, spent 10 seasons coaching at Albany and spent 10 years coaching high school ball in Troy, New York, before returning to Maine to lead the at Falmouth girls program for six seasons.
“From what I remember, the game has changed so much as far as the opportunities go,” said Warner, noting the AAU opportunities that players have nowadays, which didn’t exist in the mid to late 1970s.
“I remember our summer league, it was in the back of where the Maine Mall [in South Portland] is now,” said Warner. “Open courts, outdoors. We drove there. That was our summer league.”
Warner also noted that players played 3-on-3 basketball on those outdoor courts.
“[Opportunity] just wasn’t available to us back then,” she said. “It’s obviously a different atmosphere for them now.”
“The [girls], we didn’t have junior high sports, no youth sports, none of that,” echoed Beckwith, who had a successful career coaching high school field hockey and basketball at Winslow and Messalonskee of Oakland.
One of her Winslow field hockey state championship teams was undefeated and unscored upon.
“The first time where you really played on a team was in high school, and it was pretty cool.”
Beckwith and Warner noted that girls often had to battle with boys teams for time in gyms but today, facilities are just as full for girls games as they are for boys contests.
Beckwith believes rivalries are not as heated as they were in her playing days, due in part to present day players’ interactions through travel teams and social media.
“Back when I was playing in high school, I wanted to beat everybody,” said Beckwith, who teaches physical education in Winslow and coaches the girls eighth grade team there. “Kids know each other [now]. We never saw these people until we went to compete against them. You would dislike Mt. Blue or Waterville, not because you had any connection with any of the kids there, [because] you went to Lawrence and you want to beat those kids from neighboring schools.”
Like a lot of players from the 1970s, Beckwith honed her skills on the playgrounds.
“I had to go outside and if I wanted to get better I had to go do it myself,” Beckwith said. “We just loved the game for what it was. We were so excited to play basketball.”
“You just played pickup games in your neighborhood and you practiced on your own,” said Rand, whose married name is Stephenson.
Time honing fundamentals and shooting skills helped the players of the 1970s develop their games, but the evolution of AAU has meant time spent more time playing games and less practice time.
“Kids have set shots but they don’t have jump shots, where they can stop, pop and shoot a jump shot,” said Beckwith, who played basketball at William Penn College.
Stephenson passed down her love of basketball, and sports in general, to her family.
Her daughters, Kim and Michaela, were standout athletes at Hampden Academy and Kim had an outstanding soccer career at UMaine. Michaela played two years of soccer at Bentley University before suffering a knee injury.
Hampden’s most recent regional championship win over Messalonskee also was Beckwith’s final high school basketball game as a coach.
“It was pretty impressive,” said Cindy Stephenson, a dental hygienist at Stillwater Dental in Bangor. “We were pretty pleased with her [Michaela].”
Having followed the careers of both of her daughters as a youth coach and parent, Stephenson has witnessed significant changes.
“Women’s sports in general has just come so far. “The [BDN] has done so much for our area, it’s great,” Cindy Stephenson said of its coverage of girls and women’s athletes.
Stephenson also has kept a scrapbook from her playing days. She still has a tape of the radio broadcast of Hampden’s 1976 state championship game and said the Broncos were offensive-minded.
“We had some games where we almost scored 100 points,” she said.
Stephenson said another career highlight was attending a camp at Husson College at which Dave Cowens of the Boston Celtics and Philadelphia’s Doug Collins served as guest players.
Warner said she owed a lot of her hardwood success to her brother, Bob, who played four years at UMaine in the early 1970s and had his number retired in 2011, and her college coach, Eileen Fox.
“She was a phenomenal practice coach,” Warner said. “I learned a lot about how to run practices from her.”
At UMaine, Warner also developed a close friendship with Martin, who was a team manager. They remain close today.
The members of the inaugural BDN All-Maine girls team helped blaze a basketball trail for future schoolgirl stars such as Cindy Blodgett, Stephanie Carter, Amy Vachon, Nia Irving and Tiana Jo-Carter. Vachon became a coach and guided the UMaine women to the America East title game this season after head coach Richard Barron went on medical leave.
Follow Ryan McLaughlin on Twitter at @rmclaughlin23.
