After seven years away from the sport he loves, longtime high school basketball coach Ron Brown is poised to return to the high school hardwood.

The 51-year-old coach, writer and founder of Maine Roundball Magazine, and analyst for Maine Public Broadcasting Company is the recommended finalist to succeed Vinnie MacLean as boys varsity basketball coach at Narraguagus High School in Harrington.

“I have interviewed for the job, I have been offered it, and I have accepted the position, pending the approval of the school board,” Brown said Tuesday night.

Brown, who has coached basketball for 31 seasons, last coached high school basketball at Bangor Christian during the 1994-95 season. He also coached the Eastern Maine Technical College Golden Eagles to the Maine Small College Athletic Conference title in 2000 and served as EMTC’s athletic director.

Brown, who has compiled a 185-116 career record through 18 seasons in the high school ranks, led Machias to the 1992 Eastern Maine Class D title.

Brown had to step away from his job at Bangor Christian due to health complications resulting from his longtime battle with Alport’s syndrome and kidney failure.

Next spring, Brown is scheduled to undergo his second kidney transplant operation, this time with a kidney provided by a living donor. His first transplant from a cadaver kidney was successful, but the kidney started failing after nine years.

“All I’ve done the last year and a half is write four or five articles a week while attached to a kidney machine,” Brown said. “Now I’m energized. This is who I am. I just think this is the right fit.

“I’m sure there will be a lot of adjustments. It’s gonna be fun, I think.”

The school board will meet with Brown and vote on his appointment Sept. 25.

The man famous for his success with the shuffle offense hasn’t made a final determination on what kind of a system he’d like to implement with the Knights.

“When I was at Machias and [John] Bapst, we had kids who were big, but not fast, so we ran the shuffle,” Brown said. “When I was at EMTC, they were fast so we pressed and ran the break. I like halfcourt stuff, but if we have speed, we have to beat other teams up and down the court.”

Brown said he is very comfortable with Narraguagus’ administration.

“I’ve been treated well through the whole interview process,” he said.”I take pride in being able to do this again. The last thing I said to them was I see a lot of things I don’t like out there, and as a bit of a dinosaur who hangs his hat on old style regulations and discipline, and I have a strong impression from my research with that district that that’s what they’re looking for.”

Brown is looking into renting a house in the Harrington area, but will have a former player assist him and drive him back and forth from his home in Bangor to Narraguagus.

Ellsworth joins elite

Over the last 10 years, the Ellsworth Invitational cross country meet has established itself as one of THE premier early-season meets in the state.

Its statewide popularity is obvious after scanning the list of participating teams, which jumped up from 23 teams and 400 runners to 39 teams and about 700 runners this year.

Teams from as far away as Sanford, Falmouth, York, North Yarmouth, Caribou and Presque Isle showed up to race with local teams.

Falmouth made quite a debut as the boys won the team title.

“We’ve been going to the MDI race the last three years, but they moved the date and it conflicted with something we had,” Yachtsmen coach Bob Gilman said. “We’ve thought about coming here because we’ve heard so many good things about the course and the competition. I think this type of course this time of the season is just perfect.

“We wanted our top runners to get up here and face some of the better teams around. That’s why we came here.”

Junior runner Brandon Bonsey won the individual title with a time of 14 minutes, 21 seconds on the 2.96-mile course.

“This is our second race, but I think it’s good because it’s nice to have a little shorter race to get your legs back and this lets us get a chance to see teams we don’t race against normally,” Bonsey said.

“We don’t have many meets like this where I get to check my condition out and see if I need more work, which I do,” Caribou junior Chris Blackistone said with a laugh. “But also I can check how I’m running compared to guys around the state.”

Ellsworth cross country coach Andy Beardsley says the race basically sells and promotes itself. Word-of-mouth advertising by coaches and runners alike have turned the event into a circled date on most coaches’ calendars.

“It’s really unique in that it’s a shorter course, it matches teams from all classes that wouldn’t normally compete against each other, and it mixes teams from east, west, north and south,” Beardsley said. “And best of all, for us anyway, is we don’t have to travel!”

All-Madden schools

As John Madden begins his first season of Monday Night Football on ABC, he is also teaming up with Ace Hardware to host Ace’s All-Madden Sports and Scholastic Bowl.

The scholastic bowl is a contest conducted on the Internet which will honor high schools that exemplify academic and athletic excellence. Applicants (students ages 13-18, teachers, parents, and/or community members) submitted entry forms highlighting prospective schools’ academic and athletic achievement plus community involvement on the acehardware.com Web site last month. Applicants also had to write a short essay elaborating on why their school should be included in the bowl.

As of Sept. 10, the names of the schools selected to participate in the bowl had not yet been announced on the site. The contest will be held during the entire 17-week NFL regular season, through the playoffs and Super Bowl. Two schools face off each week with the winner determined by a weekly public poll on the site. The 17 weekly winners, plus one wild card school selected by Ace representatives, will advance to the finals in January. The overall winner will be announced on Jan. 27.

Site visitors will vote on schools based on the school’s academic/athletic statistics, which will be posted along with a photo of the school along with other information like its location, enrollment, team mascot, and the essay submitted in the application. Online polls will open each Tuesday morning and close Monday nights.

The winning school will receive $5,000 to be used for academic or athletic programs and the runner-up will get $2,000. The other 32 competing schools will get Ace gift certificates and a football signed by Madden.

Andrew Neff can be reached at 990-8205, 1-800-310-8600, or aneff@bangordailynews.net