Old Town opens refurbished gym> Namesake MacKenzie honored again

OLD TOWN – The scoreboard read “19:52.” There were no scores for “HOME” or “GUESTS,” and next to “PERIOD” was “0.”

The scene was Old Town High School, the day was Tuesday, and the time was 3 p.m. The occasion was the official rededication of the newly refurbished MacKenzie Gymnasium as the man the facility was named for looked on.

The Indians’ new, improved home court features a brand new floor, public address system, scoreboards and bleachers. On the way is a new scorers’ table.

“I’m amazed how it looks right now,” said Bernard Alexander “Mac” MacKenzie, who served as teacher, coach, and administrator in his 31 years at Old Town High School. “The lighting is the big thing I noticed when I came in. It’s just like a new gym.”

The 86-year-old MacKenzie, who coached the 1956-57 Old Town boys basketball team to a state title and also was a head coach for the baseball and cross country teams as well as a football assistant, has now been honored twice at the gym bearing his name.

The first time was when the “new” gym opened in 1976, the same year MacKenzie retired, although he continued to work as an occasional substitute teacher the following few years. MacKenzie graduated from the Maine School of Commerce (later Husson College) and was named to the Husson Sports Hall of Fame in 1993. He was the head of Old Town High’s business department.

And the significance of the 19:52 on the scoreboard?

“That was the year the school was built,” said athletic director Garry Spencer. “And the ‘0’ just meant we were starting all over.”

That didn’t bother any of the MacKenzie family members or other invitees on hand, including some of MacKenzie’s former players, coaches and colleagues.

“I played JV basketball for Mac. I also played baseball for him,” said Don Sturgeon (class of 1957), who was assistant principal before taking over as principal in 1968 and retiring in 1996. “I’ve known him since I was in junior high and I also worked with him summers when I was in college for the recreation department and that was a great experience. Then of course he was a fellow teacher, so I have some real strong feelings about the type of person he is and what he’s done for kids and the community over the years. He’s just A-1 as far as I’m concerned.”

That pretty much summed up the feelings of everyone on hand, from current principal Terry Kenniston to Spencer to former standout Ed Taylor to current varsity boys basketball coach Marty Clark.

“He was looked at as really a legend to the younger kids and myself,” Clark said. “I remember he came in and subbed for my class one time and said he was Mr. MacKenzie, I remember asking if he was THE Mr. MacKenzie.

“He came to every game, including the early part of my coaching career, and is a big supporter.”

On Tuesday afternoon, it was MacKenzie’s turn to feel supported.

“It means a lot. It makes me feel good to think they’d come back to be here for this,” said MacKenzie, whose health has recently confined him to a wheelchair. “The whole thing’s gonna hit me later on because I never expected this. I thought they might do a little something, but I couldn’t figure out what they were gonna do.”

MacKenzie, was given a commemorative pen made from the wood of the old floor, a framed chunk of the old floor bearing the “M” from “MacKenzie Gym,” and another framed piece, this portion bearing the words “MacKenzie” and “Gym” in cursive and block lettering, respectively.

“Mac is really a unique individual,” Sturgeon said. “One of his prime characteristics is that he made it a point to know every kid by their first name even though he’d see hundreds in a week. He’d also know their brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, grandmothers, and always would inquire about them. I think it made kids feel good about themselves. I can’t think of a better person for this honor.”