ORONO – Mo Nazmy had a choice to make last spring.

As he completed his junior year at Orono High School, he already had accumulated enough academic credits to graduate and had been accepted to such prestigious universities as Ohio State.

An A-student, he also had decided on his future academic course of study – architecture.

But given the choice of matriculating to college a year early or spending one more year in Orono, the 17-year-old Nazmy opted to stay home – a decision that seemingly pleases everyone with the possible exception of rival football and swimming coaches.

“I thought about it for a while,” said Nazmy, the reigning state Class B swim champion in the 100-yard breaststroke who currently is helping to lead a Red Riots’ football resurgence.

“I wasn’t sure why I should graduate early. I thought to myself, I have a whole other year ahead of me. I like sports. I’m looking forward to swimming in college hopefully, and I thought another year of high school would help me out there. I thought it would help me out in every way – physically, mentally, socially – so I decided to stay.”

Nazmy had such options because he left the area after his sixth-grade year and moved with his family to the United Arab Emirates, where his father took a job as a civil engineering professor. He returned to Maine three years ago with his mother, a civil engineering professor at Maine Maritime Academy.

“When I first went to the Emirates I was supposed to be in seventh grade and they put me into eighth grade,” he said. “It was a British curriculum. I caught up and did a lot of credits there, and when I came back here they placed me in 11th grade when my class before I left was in 10th grade.”

It was only upon his return to Maine that Nazmy took up football, because in the UAE the sport of choice was rugby.

“They didn’t have football over there,” he said. “When I first started here it was new to me, I didn’t really know all the rules. I’d watched it on TV obviously but didn’t understand it completely, but I definitely wanted to try it.

“It’s a lot more exciting than I thought it would be, a lot more hard-hitting, I like it a lot more than rugby.”

The 5-foot-11, 185-pound Nazmy currently ranks among the LTC leaders in rushing (418 yards) as part of a deep Orono backfield that also features Mardy Simon (509 yards), Joe Fullwood (323) and Dusty Thomas (248). He’s also one of the leading tacklers for an Orono team that will take a 4-1 record into Friday night’s game at 3-2 Rockland.

“Mo’s a very quiet leader, but has very good leadership skills and he’s a team player,” said Orono coach Bob Sinclair. “As a football player he’s got a lot of confidence and is very, very intelligent, and that intelligence can never be underestimated.”

Yet Sinclair, who’s also the assistant principal at Orono High, wasn’t sure he’d even have Nazmy on his roster this fall – his diploma was already printed for the Class of 2004.

“I was organizing the diplomas for graduation ceremonies last June,” Sinclair said. “About a week before that, Mo had said he wasn’t going to graduate early, so I knew he was coming back, but as I was going through the diplomas, I looked and saw his there.”

While football is Nazmy’s rite of autumn, swimming is his athletic passion. A competitive swimmer since age 8, Nazmy won the 100 breaststroke at the 2004 state Class B championship meet with a state-best time of 1 minute, 2.51 seconds. He also placed second in the 100 butterfly despite having swam the event only twice before the state meet.

“They’re completely different physically,” Nazmy said of football and swimming. “Right now I’m physically fit for football but not even close for swimming. But I also think swimming really helps for football because it prevents injuries and helps with flexibility, it loosens up your muscles.

“Mo is a kid who pushes himself constantly, he practices as hard as he plays,” added Sinclair, “and I think a very key piece of his success is his approach to practice, it’s always all out.”

Nazmy plans to swim in college after graduating from Orono next spring. In the meantime, he’s getting a head start on college by taking courses in calculus and physics at the University of Maine.

Tymoczko tops 1,000

Bucksport senior tailback Nick Tymoczko became the region’s first 1,000-yard rusher of the season last Saturday night, gaining 187 yards in the Golden Bucks’ 40-0 victory against John Bapst at Cameron Stadium in Bangor.

That performance lifted his total to an LTC Class C-leading 1,041 yards, marking just the fourth time in conference history a rusher has surpassed the 1,000-yard mark five weeks into a season.

The senior tailback also scored five touchdowns in the game, three rushing, one on an interception return and one on a punt return. He now has 16 touchdowns on the season for the 5-0 Golden Bucks, who host Maine Central Institute of Pittsfield on Friday night.

One negative note to Saturday’s win for Bucksport was a broken leg suffered in the first quarter by senior tackle Rick Spohrer.

Spohrer becomes the second Bucksport lineman to suffer a season-ending injury this season. Senior tackle David Harvey suffered a broken leg during Bucksport’s Week 3 victory against Foxcroft Academy.