To quantify 100 years of University of Maine football is easy.

One hundred Black Bear teams have been manned by more than 1,500 players, led by 33 coaches who participated in 763 games heading into this centennial anniversary season. Those players and coaches have produced a 382-345-36 overall record, good for a .525 winning percentage.

Along the way have come 31 State Series titles between 1895 and 1964 against Colby, Bowdoin and Bates Colleges; eight Yankee Conference titles from 1947 to the present, four mythical New England titles in the 1920’s, two NCAA Division I-AA postseason appearances (1987 and ’89), one bowl-game appearance (Tangerine in ’65), and one Lambert Cup trophy (’65) symbolizing dominance in Eastern College football, college division.

Yes, the numbers are all readily accessible to document the genesis and progress of a century of UM football.

But while numbers may quantify Maine football, they can’t define Maine football. Only the men who played and coached for the Black Bears, the flesh and blood individuals who sweated and froze and blocked and tackled and ran and bled and exulted and cried and sang the Stein Song on all those autumn afternoons and evenings on fields from New England to Hawaii can bring true historical perspective to the 100 years of the Black Bears.

“Playing for Maine has meant everything to me,” said Jim Reid, a Black Bear defensive back from 1970-72 and now the head coach of Yankee Conference rival UMass, a position that enables him to continue observing Maine from a unique perspective.

“There’s something about playing for Maine. I don’t know if it’s the isolation or just the place. It brings the players together. It was true when I was there. From what I’ve seen, it’s still true,” he said.

Most Black Bears, like Reid, have experienced the tug of Maine football for a few years and gone on to other places, other lives. This has been particularly true of Maine’s coaches, whose average stay in Orono has lasted three seasons.

From the program’s first, brief campaign in 1892, when Chesley Johnston led a ragtag UM squad to an 0-2 record, through the next 28 campaigns, 21 different men coached the Black Bears. The trend of Maine coaches springboarding to coaching posts at other schools began in 1902 when Harvard graduate Jack Farley, after leading Maine to a 7-1 record in ’01, was hired by his alma mater, then a national power.

Others would follow the trend.

Dave Nelson, the Michigan graduate who developed the innovative wing-T offense, tried it out first in 1949 and 1950 at Maine before perfecting it at the University of Delaware for 15 seasons, during which his Blue Hens went 84-42-2 and won three National Small College Championships. Nelson has become one of the most influential members of the NCAA Football Rules Committee.

Jack Bicknell spent five seasons in Orono from 1976-80 before jumping to Division I-A Boston College, where he became the only former UM head coach known to have coached a Heisman Trophy winner (Doug Flutie). This year Bicknell coached the Barcelona Dragons of Spain into the championship game in the World League of American Football.

In the 1980s, Maine graduate and former offensive lineman Ron Rogerson (4 seasons), Tim Murphy (2 seasons), and Tom Lichtenberg (1 season) all went on to higher-profile jobs after winning Yankee Conference titles at Maine.

Some Maine coaches along the way, however, have experienced the tug described by UMass’s Reid and chosen to stay awhile. Although all the coaches have contributed to Maine history, three coaches forged lasting reputations as educators and leaders. These three form the foundation of the UM program’s success.

“Foxy” Fred Brice was the first. Arriving in 1921 from Manchester, N.H., the innovative, unpredictable Brice earned his nickname by running every offense then known, single-wing, double-wing, T-formation, sometimes within the same game.

“He gave us everything we needed to win,” recalled Edmund “Rip” Black, an end for Maine from 1926-28 and one of the oldest surviving UM players at age 87. “He was the very best.”

Brice would stay at Maine for 20 seasons, amassing a 79-58-15 mark, 10 State Series titles, and four mythical New England crowns.

After four more coaches came and went between 1941-50, a 33-year-old Michigan graduate by the name of Harold Westerman took over for Dave Nelson and led the Black Bears into their golden age.

In 16 seasons under Westerman, Maine experienced 15 winning campaigns, rolling up an 80-38-7 record. The ’51 and ’61 Bears went undefeated, and the ’65 team went to the Tangerine Bowl and won the Lambert Cup. Two players – guard Tom Golden and linebacker John Huard – were named All-America under Westerman.

Why did Westerman stay when so many of his predecessors left Maine?

“I just felt it was a privilege to be appointed the coach at Maine,” he answered.

During his tenure, Westerman came to appreciate the overachieving nature of the players drawn to the UM program, which offered no scholarships at the time. These players frequently lined up against teams boasting many scholarship athletes.

“I always felt, if you really wanted to play for Maine, you had to love the game,” said Westerman, now retired in Florida. “Certainly you weren’t playing because you were getting a grant. The team approach was our main incentive. If we could stay together as a team, we were going to be successful.”

Eventually, as the football boom of the ’60’s translated into scholarships and recruiting budgets at richer schools, the team approach alone wasn’t enough to keep Maine winning, as Walter Abbott, who took over for Westerman in 1967, found out.

Abbott, who played for Westerman at Maine, would experience only one winning season in the nine campaigns he coached the Bears, yet he is considered the third cornerstone of the program’s history. His 27-53 record doesn’t do justice, in the minds of his players, to the coaching job he did.

“Walt Abbott is one of the great coaches I’ve known,” said Reid, who captained Abbott’s ’72 team. “I don’t know anyone who played for Walt that doesn’t feel that way. Unfortunately, he never had a level playing field. We never had the advantages a lot of the schools we played had.”

Maine began awarding athletic scholarships late in Abbott’s tenure. As fund-raising improved, and the number of scholarships rose, so did Maine’s football fortunes.

The ’80’s saw a renaissance, with Maine winning three Yankee Conference titles and advancing to two Div. I-AA playoffs in the decade, despite continued coaching turnover.

The ’90’s began under a new coach in Kirk Ferentz.

The one constant throughout Maine football history has been the consistent effort of the players. Despite UM’s isolated location in relation to New England’s population centers, the school always seemed to attract enough talented players – both native Mainers and those “from away” – to remain competitive.

From the early days in the century when Tom Shepherd was kicking Maine to wins, connecting on 10 field goals in 1911, and Charles Ruffner was carrying the ball out of the single wing, scoring 11 touchdowns in 1914, to the middle of the century when two-way lineman Jack Zollo was named Little All-America and All-East in ’46, to the modern era of All-America linebacker John Huard in the mid-’60s and, in the 1980s, the “Air-Maine” era of all-time passing leader Mike Buck and all-time receiving leader Sergio Hebra, the players have excelled.

Other greats became household names in Maine, players like Thurlow Cooper, Lorenzo Bouier, Gene Benner, James Buzzell, Mose Nanigian, Roger Ellis, Dave Cloutier, Ed Bogdanovich, Dick DeVarney, Jim and Jack Butterfield, Peter Pocius, Bob Whytock, Woody Carville, Bump Hadley, Gerry Hodge, Manch Wheeler, Henry Dombkowski, Carl Smith, Phil Coulombe, Claude Pettaway, Jamal Williamson and others.

Throughout the years, Maine football has embodied the attributes of the sport as defined by the colleges that began it in the Northeast. Although an important part of a student-athlete’s life, football has never gotten too big at Maine.

The program has played major programs like Army, Harvard, Yale, and Fordham early in the century, Boston College, Hawaii, and Rutgers later. Maine has always played small schools like Bowdoin, Bates, Colby, Norwich, and Springfield, striking a competitive and philosophical balance between big and small.

Saturday’s successes and failures have always been for warm discussion Saturday night and perhaps over brunch on Sunday. By Monday, the game had faded.

Perhaps Westerman best summed up football at the University of Maine.

“I’ve always felt Maine as a state and the University of Maine in particular had a real fine philosophy for the athletic program,” he said. “They kept it in harmony with the total education process. And men that came to Maine during my years, and I’m sure still today, are participating in football because they are dedicated to the game. Maine is a little off the beaten track. It has a lot of unique features. It’s a wonderful place to be a part of.”