Wolley in Bangor despite his firing> Ex-Bucks coach is radio color man

Peter Wolley would probably rather be coaching in the Eastern Maine schoolboy basketball tournaments than serving as a radio color analyst.

But due to a controversial decision by the Bucksport school committee to fire Wolley as the boys basketball coach at Bucksport High last year, he is spending his Bangor Auditorium time in the booth instead of on the court.

Wolley is a color analyst for WMDI these days but insisted that he not be assigned any Bucksport games, boys or girls.

He hasn’t seen either team play this season.

“I think that’s best,” said Wolley. “Sometimes coaches tend hang on to their players in this situation. I don’t want to do that. It’s easier for everybody this way.”

Wolley is still bitter about the circumstances surrounding his firing as a petition signed by more than 100 people resulted in his firing.

Athletic director Charles Dickey, principal Tom Comiciotto and superintendent Marc Curtis supported Wolley and felt he should have been rehired. But the school committee overruled them.

“I’m still bitter at the (Champion) mill,” said Wolley referring to where several of the signees worked. “The mill is a union shop and what does a union stand for? Worker’s rights. I had no rights.”

Wolley was 53-78 in seven seasons at Bucksport and led the Bucks to four postseason appearances.

Even though he won’t watch the Bucks, he’s still rooting for them.

“The players are a great bunch of kids,” said Wolley. “It’s nice to see Greg Gobel receiving some notoriety. Everybody in Eastern Maine B knows of him but now he’s getting some statewide recognition that he deserves.”

The Eastern Maine basketball tournaments experienced its second “blood break” Tuesday afternoon after a Jonesport-Beals player sustained a minor cut near the team bench.

This delay lasted only about five to 10 minutes, but the first one took up about 25 Monday night after a Woodland player took an elbow to his nose near the Woodland basket.

The long delays are necessitated by Occupational Safety and Health Administration rules. Tournament floor manager Paul Soucy said Bangor Auditorium workers can’t simply spray the blood spots with Formula 409 or wipe them up with towels.

Auditorium maintenance supervisor Jack McClay of Bangor explained he and his workers have to follow detailed OSHA instructions when dealing with blood spills.

First, they have to put on plastic gloves. Then they sprinkle some kind of absorbent, powdery chemical substance on the blood to clot it and dry it up. Next they use two cardboard paddles to scrape up the dried blood and dump it into a brown plastic bag. Next, the bag is sealed and dumped into a red, plastic infectious waste bag along with the paddles and gloves.

Finally, the area is wiped down with an alcohol wipe or sanitary spray before the red bag is sealed and dumped into a courtside can for infectious waste bags.

“We’ve been doing it this way for probably the last six or seven years,” said McClay.

It all started when someone brought it to the City of Bangor’s attention that workers weren’t using gloves or sanitary spray for blood cleanup several years ago.

“I don’t know who brought it up or complained, but it came to the city’s attention and we’ve followed this procedure ever since,” said McClay.

The Shead girls from Eastport were bounced from the tournament sooner than they would have liked, but they didn’t go away without leaving their mark.

That mark was literally made in the Eastern Maine Class D tournament record book as Shead set a new mark for team 3-pointers in a tournament game with seven Monday morning.

Shead hit seven of 24 3-point attempts to break the seven-year old mark of six shared by three teams: Central Aroostook of Mars Hill (in 1990), plus Ashland and Jonesport-Beals (both in 1991).

Starting forward Tina Mattheson and guard Beth Ingersol led the assault on the record book with four and three 3-pointers, respectively.

Jonesport-Beals edged Shead 68-67 in the Eastern quarterfinal.