Perrone: new football job unlikely

BANGOR – The John Bapst Friends of Football Benefit Dinner honoring Ken Perrone was a bittersweet affair for the former eastern Maine high school coaching legend.

Perrone was the guest of honor at John Bapst Memorial High School Saturday night as former players and coaches joined friends, relatives, and football fans to raise money for the financially strapped Bapst program and honor the man who led both the Crusaders and Brewer High School to football glory in the 1960s and ’70s.

The evening program chronicled the highs and lows of Perrone’s 38-year coaching career.

The highs included leading John Bapst to back-to-back state championships in 1964-65, to coaching Brewer to its first ever state title in 1968 and a No. 5 national ranking – the highest ever by a Maine high school – in 1970.

The lows came more recently, as Perrone’s coaching contract at Salem (Mass.) High wasn’t renewed in the wake of a dispute during a teachers’ strike.

After the 3 1/2-hour program ended, Perrone sounded like he’d resigned himself to ending his football coaching career.

“Yeah… right,” said Perrone, when asked if that was the case. “If I have to walk away from it, this is a good way for me to go out.”

Perrone will still coach baseball at Salem State College and is still employed as a physical education teacher at Salem High, but will go from the field to the broadcast booth this fall.

The 60-year-old Perrone, who seems to have found the same fountain of youth Dick Clark drinks from, will be a football color analyst for Salem radio station WESX. He’ll also do occasional games for a Lynn TV station.

“I’ll be doing games of the week and I’ll be working a little more with my fall (baseball) program,” said Perrone. “But I’ll miss the football. I mean, after 38 years, how the hell can you not miss it?”

Still, Perrone said he has no regrets.

“If the thing happened tomorrow, I’d do the same thing,” he said. “I accomplished what I wanted. I stayed with my teachers – I didn’t cross the picket line – and I didn’t let my kids down.”

“The thing” is Perrone’s ongoing court battle with Salem school administrators after they declined to renew his contract. Perrone defied Salem Schools Superintendent Ed Curtin’s written order to stop coaching football while Perrone was on strike.

Perrone continued coaching, with his teachers union’s blessing, and led Salem to a conference title and berth in the Massachusetts Division 3 Super Bowl, where the Witches lost to Whitman-Hanson.

Last month, a Salem superior court judge ruled Perrone and his assistants were not covered by the teachers’ collective bargaining agreement in their roles as coaches and were not unfairly dismissed from the jobs.

Perrone can appeal, but hasn’t made a final decision yet.

“I feel that it’s going to be settled out of court. There’s already been three settlement offers made,” he said. “I may just take this last one and move on. Most likely, I’m leaning in that direction.”

Perrone said he was thrilled to come back and help out his former school raise money to keep the football program intact.

Fund-raisers appear to be well on the way toward their $14,000 goal as they presented an oversized check for $5,000 to school principal Joe Sekera after the dinner.