Carter retires as Bucks coach

When Mike Carter first arrived at Bucksport High School, the wrestling program had one mat, no youth or feeder programs, and no regional titles.

That was 282 match wins, 14 years, three Eastern Maine championships, and numerous individual state and regional titlists ago.

Now the coach who has become almost as much of an institution as the Golden Bucks’ wrestling program itself is ready for retirement.

“I’m tired. I don’t think a lot of people realize the amount of time and work that goes into this,” Carter said. “It’s almost a year-round job with kids lifting at 6 a.m. every morning, the traveling clubs and tournaments you do, the youth programs and clinics….It’s a huge commitment.”

Not that Carter resents all the hours and hard work it took to build Bucksport into one of the state’s top wrestling powers, but he feels the time is right to step aside.

“I’ve been here in Bucksport for 14 years, but altogether, I’ve been coaching for 23 years,” said Carter, who also coached high school teams in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Vermont.

Carter also decided to step down to free up more time to see his son Josh wrestle in college next winter and his 16-year-old daughter Jessica participate in basketball, volleyball and band. In fact, the timing of Carter’s retirement was influenced largely by Josh’s graduation in June.

“Sure, I might have gotten done a few years ago if not for Josh coming through here the last four years,” he said. “Having him on the team made it just that much more fun for me to coach. It was fun for us to finish up together.”

On top of that, Carter’s assistant coach and former wrestler Andy Nightingale (Bucksport Class of ’89) is moving away from the area this summer and would not be back with the team next season.

The former Marine, who has been involved with wrestling since he tried out for his junior high team, admitted he’s been thinking about retiring the last few years.

“Even up to a couple years ago, I thought I’d like to coach forever, and I’m dearly going to miss it. The killer is there are some juniors on the team that I’d like to see finish up, but I think I’d feel that way every year,” he said.

The Mineola (Long Island), N.Y. native, who graduated from Valley Stream High School in 1961, came to Maine because he and his wife Mickey were looking for an ideal location to raise a family and they both loved New England.

“We liked living in New England and we were looking for a nice community to raise our kids in,” Carter explained. ” Bucksport offered a lot of things we wanted, not to mention a teaching and coaching position… And we have no regrets.”

If he wasn’t happy with his decision before, a memorable incident early in his first season convinced him he made the right choice.

“We had this really bad snowstorm and I couldn’t even get out of my own driveway, so we were going to cancel practice,” he explained. “I called the kids to let them know about it, and the next thing I know, Al Streeter and Andy Nightingale show up in a plow truck. They plowed me out and said, `Come on coach, let’s go to practice.’ After that, I knew this was the place to be.”

Carter will continue to teach physical education at the middle school and adaptive phys ed at the high school. He winds up his coaching career with a stellar .813 winning percentage and a 282-62-3 record with the Bucks. In addition to three EM titles, the Bucks were state runners-up twice under his tutelage.

Quite a turnaround from an 8-12 rookie season, when the Bucks had one wrestling mat and a small team. Now Bucksport has a junior high program, youth leagues and clinics, eight wrestlers in school history who have won 100 or more matches, three mats and 13 consecutive winning seasons.

Dozen scholar-athletes honored

Twelve Maine football players were honored by the State of Maine Chapter of the National Football Foundation and College Hall of Fame, Inc., last week as recipients of the 13th Scholar-Athlete Awards.

Belfast’s Chris York, Lawrence of Fairfield’s Justin Roderick, and B.L. Lippert from Cony of Augusta were among the 11 high school players honored at a banquet at Bates College last week. The other high school recipients were Sanford’s Kevin Bougie, Cheverus of Portland’s David Cekutis, Biddeford’s Josh Cincotta, Portland’s Scott Derrig, Travis Dube from Livermore Falls, Edward Little of Auburn’s Bryan Lambert Jr. and Paul Eisenstein, and Lisbon’s Eric Roy.

A selection committee annually picks one college and 11 high school players to be honored based on academic excellence and commitment to football. This year’s three-man committee was made up of Bates athletic director emeritus Robert Hatch and director of admissions emeritus Milt Lindholm, and Colby College athletic director emeritus Richard McGee.