Friends, family recall Old Town’s MacKenzie Former coach, AD an ‘institution’ at school

Former Old Town High School principal Don Sturgeon perhaps summed up the legacy of the late Bernard “Mac” MacKenzie best.

“Anyone who knew him, can’t speak highly enough about him. Nobody had a bad word to say about him,” said Sturgeon. “He really took a personal interest in people to the point he would grill you about your mother, father, uncles, aunts, sisters and brothers. He wanted to know how you were doing.”

The former Old Town High School teacher, coach and athletic director and member of the Husson College Hall of Fame died Saturday of complications from a stroke suffered seven days ago.

He was 89 years old.

“He was an institution at Old Town High School,” Sturgeon added. “He had a lot of different capacities and he did a heckuva’ job at whatever capacity he served. Athletics were a huge part of his life. He really loved it and the people around it.”

Retired Bangor High School baseball coach Bob Kelley remembers when he was a player and he went up against MacKenzie’s Old Town teams. Later, Kelley dealt with him when he was refereeing basketball games and MacKenzie was the AD at Old Town.

“He was a very classy person who cared an awful lot about the kids,” said Kelley. “It was always fun to play against his teams because he was a real gentleman.

“He did an awful lot of different things at Old Town High and you knew they would have a solid program if he was involved. He was a pleasure to deal with,” Kelley added.

Sturgeon played varsity baseball and JV basketball for MacKenzie and said “any shortcomings he may have had when it came to X’s and O’s he overcame by the way he dealt with people. He got the most out of people because they wanted to please him.”

MacKenzie coached football, track and cross country at Old Town in addition to baseball and basketball. He won three state championships in cross country and his JV basketball teams rattled off a 63-game winning streak.

The 1931 Danforth High School graduate and three-sports standout played on the first Husson College football team, known then as the Maine School of Commerce, and he also played basketball and baseball at the Bangor-based school.

He graduated from the Maine School of Commerce in 1934 and from the University of Maine in 1952 with a degree in education.

He taught at Merrill High School and Oakfield High School before spending 43 years teaching in Old Town.

“He always saw the best in every student,” said Nancy Nahra, one of MacKenzie’s four children. “He would never put a kid down. If he did something wrong, he would talk to him privately. He made them feel important.

“I would say to him ‘That student could be a problem’. But he would say to me ‘You don’t know what the student’s home life was like or what may have happened to him,” said Nancy Nahra who considered him a “great dad.”

Nancy’s husband, Jim, said his father-in-law had an ability to “help kids.

“He took kids from all kinds of backgrounds and made them into athletes and better people,” said Nahra. “He could take kids who may not have had a good chance to succeed in life and mold them into great kids who did wonderful things. That was a great accomplishment.”

“He got kids to like him and respond to him. He never had any problems, discipline-wise,” said Sturgeon.

When MacKenzie retired from teaching in Old Town in 1976, he was honored by having the gym named MacKenzie Gymnasium. The gym was rededicated last year in a ceremony at which he proudly attended.

MacKenzie was also president of the Old Town Little League and of the Old Town Education Association and the recreation director for summer programs for more than 20 years.

He was a member of the Old Town Rotary Club and Jim Nahra said “he wrote for the sports department at the Penobscot Times for many years but people didn’t know because he never put his name on [his stories]. He did so many things people never knew about.”

Nahra also said his father-in-law was influential as a business teacher and department head at Old Town.

“There are a number of women who went through his business program at Old Town High and became integral parts of their companies because they had been so well trained,” added Nahra.

Nancy Nahra said her dad “never had any money” growing up because his father died when he was young.

“So if one of his athletes didn’t have any money for lunch, he made sure he got some lunch,” said Nancy, who was at his bedside when he died.

“He had a very nice ending to his life. That’s the way he would have wanted it: without any fuss,” said Nancy.