You may not know their names, but if you attend the Classes B, C and D North high school basketball tournament every year, you certainly know their faces.
Phil Mateja, Becky Bubar and Paul Soucy are among the dozens of people who work at the tournament each year.
Mateja is the certified athletic trainer, Bubar is one of the public address announcers and Soucy has had a number of different jobs including floor manager, doorway guard, scorekeeper, media coordinator, and organizer for the bands and cheerleaders.
“Another job I did was serve as the athletic trainer when Wes Jordan would be on a spring trip with the University of Maine’s baseball team,” Soucy said. “I was the trainer at Brewer High when I was coaching.
“I wasn’t a certified trainer so I prayed that there wouldn’t be any serious injuries,” Soucy said.
One of Soucy’s favorite memories involved a man who was a custodian at Mattanawcook Academy in Lincoln. Soucy was the floor manager.
“He came down to me and said he would like to sweep the court for the Mattanawcook game,” Soucy said. “I thought he was pulling my leg or someone was setting me up for a joke.
“So I asked him why he wanted to sweep the court,” Soucy said. “He said he loved basketball and always wanted to sweep the floor. He would be honored if he could. He had brothers who played for Stearns in the tournament and he didn’t play basketball, so the only way he was going to get on the court was if he could sweep it.”
His wish was granted, and he swept half the court while a City of Bangor employee swept the other half.
“[He said] it was one of the best things to ever happen to him,” said Soucy, who began working at the tournament in 1973 but did take three years off when he was an athletic director.
Soucy also spent two years as a public address announcer when the opening rounds of the girls tournament were played at Husson University in Bangor.
“I was doing a game involving Wisdom High School [of St. Agatha]. They had a lot of French names, so I spelled their names out phonetically. But I couldn’t find the list. I left the microphone on and I said, ‘Dennis [Kiah], what did you do with my list?’
“I butchered the names my first year,” said Soucy, whose favorite part of going to the tournament is seeing people year after year.
This will be the 19th year for Mateja as the certified athletic trainer.
“I can’t wait,” Mateja said. “It’s a great atmosphere. A group of us [workers] will have meals together and exchange stories and laugh.”
It gives him a chance to renew acquaintances with people he has worked with or students he had in class.
“They’ll come by and say ‘hi.’ It makes you feel good. They still remember the old man,” Mateja said.
The day before the tournament opener, Mateja does inventory to make sure he has all the medical supplies he needs.
“A few years ago, we needed three sets of crutches in the first two days,” said Mateja, who has dealt with all kinds of injuries.
He recalls a boy tearing a knee ligament several years ago and needing subsequent surgery, and a girl dislocating her kneecap last season.
In addition, he is usually pressed into duty taping ankles.
“Some years, I’ll tape quite a few ankles, or maybe you’ll do four or five a day. You never know,” said Mateja, who also treats cuts and bruises.
If a player is bleeding, he or she must come out of the game until the bleeding stops.
He noted that some of the Class B schools now have their own athletic trainers.
Mateja said he prefers the Cross Insurance Center to the Bangor Auditorium, primarily for health reasons.
“After being at the Auditorium for 10 days, I didn’t feel right for a few days after [it ended] because of the dust and the atmosphere there. My health has been better after the Cross Center tournaments,” he said.
One of his fondest game memories is Joe Campbell’s basket at the buzzer as Bangor beat heavily favored Deering 57-56 on St. Patrick’s Day, 2001.
“A guy jumped over my shoulders to get on the floor,” Mateja said.
All three recalled the half-court shot by Brewer’s Jason Leighton that beat Mt. Blue of Farmington in 1995.
“Brewer fans rushed the floor and everyone piled on top of Leighton. He was saying, ‘Get off me, I can’t breathe.’ [Brewer coach] Mark Savage and I were pulling fans and players off him,” Soucy said.
Bubar began working out back at the Bangor Auditorium where the officials and cheerleaders were and eventually took over at the microphone, announcing lineups, substitutions and baskets.
She has done the announcing for more than 20 years and does it for Brewer High games. Sean Stackhouse and Reid Durost are the others who share the announcing duties with her.
“I see so many people from the Blaine-Mars Hill area,” said Bubar, a Blaine native and 1972 graduate of Central Aroostook High School in Mars Hill. “It’s fun to watch the children and grandchildren of people I know out there playing. It’s like old home week. It’s nice to catch up with people.”
She said the North tournament is a unique experience, one that leaves an impression on visitors who haven’t seen a game in Bangor previously.
Last year, the sound system didn’t work for the first half of a game Bubar was working.
“I just sat there, then I realized what [the P.A. system] means to people because they don’t know what’s going on [without] it,” Bubar said. “It’s nice to be able to let the audience know what’s going on.”
Six people work together at the scorer’s table, Burbar said.
There are two people keeping the scorebook and one is a spotter along with the public address announcer, the clock operator and an assistant, she said.
Bubar checks with the coaches before the game to get the proper pronunciations of the players’ names. Table personnel will consult with each other if they are not sure who scored a basket.
The Cross Insurance Center and the Bangor Auditorium each had their charms, according to Bubar.
“The Cross Center is a lot more comfortable and the acoustics are a lot better,” Bubar said. “But there is something about the old Bangor Auditorium and what that place was like when it was jam-packed. It had an aura.
“But the Cross Center is serving its purpose. It’s a nicer, safer, cleaner place and has more locker room space,” Bubar said.