BANGOR – It is the goal of every young basketball player in northern, eastern and central Maine to run onto the court at the Bangor Auditorium come tournament time.

For first-time participants, that entrance comes with a myriad of emotions. Anticipation, excitement, even stage fright. The cheers of family, friends and fans with the school song playing in the background is the backdrop to this cherished opportunity, heretofore experienced vicariously through older siblings or local legends from another generation.

Madawaska High School junior Josh Pelletier carried all those sentiments with him Wednesday as he raced onto the hardwood of this aging edifice for the first time, his team preparing to play George Stevens Academy of Blue Hill in an Eastern Maine Class C quarterfinal game.

But Pelletier’s post-season debut represented not only a basketball coming-of-age, but also the completion of a personal comeback none of his peers had ever faced – from a case of food-borne botulism that left him dealing with paralysis and living on a ventilator at tourney time three years ago.

“I was just overwhelmed,” said Pelletier, now a 16-year-old junior. “When we were running out on the court, I just about started to cry, and I’m not someone who cries a lot. Everything just got to me right then.”

Sudden danger

Josh Pelletier was a 13-year-old junior high basketball player when he sat down with his father, David, mother, Elaine, and younger brother Travis for supper on a Friday night in mid-January 2002.

By the next morning, both Josh and his dad were sick, and by Sunday they were so sick they checked into Northern Maine Medical Center in Fort Kent. By Monday, they were listed in critical condition at Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor with what was diagnosed as food-borne botulism.

Food-borne botulism is caused by spores of bacteria found in canned foods, mostly in those canned at home. The bacteria, which grow best in low- or no-oxygen conditions, secrete a toxin that causes the symptom of botulism.

The toxin interferes with nerve transmission, causing paralysis and difficulty with breathing and swallowing. Botulism is rarely fatal, but victims can suffer from the paralysis for weeks, even months. Long-term therapy typically is needed to aid in the recovery process, because some effects of the disease can last for years.

Symptoms usually appear within 18 to 36 hours of consumption of contaminated food.

Tests of food specimens ingested by the Pelletiers ultimately traced the botulism to a single jar of home-canned spaghetti sauce.

A state official said at the time that the last reported case of food-borne botulism in Maine, since records have been kept, occurred before 1950.

“When it first happened, basketball was the furthest thing from anyone’s mind,” said Madawaska basketball coach Matt Rossignol, also a teacher at the high school. “Everybody was just concerned about Joshua and his dad.

“The whole town was behind him and his family from the beginning,” Rossignol said. “At first people when they weren’t sure what caused it, the whole community had to wonder if everybody in town was in danger. But everybody really rallied behind Josh and his family.”

Josh Pelletier spent 59 days in the hospital, 31 days on a ventilator recuperating from the illness.

“It was tough,” said Pelletier, whose dad also suffered paralysis. “I couldn’t move at all for the first two or three weeks. Friends and family would come by and I couldn’t move, I couldn’t talk and I could barely write, which is the only way I had to communicate at the time.”

The recovery process was slow, even for a teen-ager with all the advantages of youth.

“After they took me off the ventilator after 31 days, they started to move me around, and about 15 days before I left the hospital, I started walking around with a walker and with my physical therapist,” he said.

David Pelletier was released from the hospital two weeks before his son, but both got out ahead of schedule for such botulism cases.

“The people at the hospital called us stubborn,” said Pelletier. “Dad got out two weeks earlier than me, but he cheated. They say you have to be eating so many calories a day before they’ll let you out. They thought he was doing a wonderful job eating, but he was throwing some of his food in the garbage.”

The comeback kid

When Josh Pelletier was released from Eastern Maine Medical Center that March, the 6-foot-4 teen weighed just 113 pounds – down from about 160 when he went in two months earlier.

“I lost a lot of weight,” he said. “There wasn’t a lot of me left.”

Pelletier continued his recovery for the next six months with the aid of a physical therapist. By fall he was able to resume his basketball career as a freshman at Madawaska High School, albeit at a subpar level.

“I played on the junior varsity. I was doing good, but I wasn’t starting,” he said. “I was still recuperating and I wasn’t that strong yet. I was probably a 6 or 7 then [on a scale of 1 to 10].”

By his sophomore season, Pelletier was the starting center on the Madawaska varsity, a team that barely missed qualifying for post-season play.

“I still wasn’t quite 100 percent, but I was feeling a lot better,” he said.

This winter, he has played an integral role in leading the Owls to a 14-3 regular-season record and the No. 4 tournament seed in Eastern Maine Class C.

“At the beginning of the season, everything started kind of slow,” said Pelletier. “We had a couple of extra people on the team, and it wasn’t working too well. But some people left, we got down to 10 players, and it started getting better and better and better.”

Now about 6-foot-5 and 185 pounds, Pelletier averaged about eight points per game during the regular season and also has been one of the team’s leading rebounders and shot blockers.

And on Wednesday, Pelletier joined fellow starters Myles Morneault, Alan Campbell and twins Kenny and Mark Sirois to write some history, as the Owls became the first Madawaska team – boys or girls – to win a tournament basketball game at the Bangor Auditorium when they defeated George Stevens Academy 56-47 to advance to a regional semifinal against top-ranked Dexter tonight.

“We were all really nervous,” Pelletier said. “But we also knew that everybody in Madawaska who had been in our shoes before had failed, so it wouldn’t be that bad if we did lose.

“But we wanted to win badly, to get the record for our school and to prove to people who thought we couldn’t do it that we could.”

Pelletier contributed in his typically subtle way, amassing eight points, nine rebounds, three blocked shots and three assists.

“He’s the guy that when our opponents look at us probably see as our least potent threat, and as a result he can be very dangerous,” said Rossignol. “He quietly goes about his business and does a lot of good things for our team. He’s very unselfish, but he knows his role well and just goes out and does whatever it takes.”

Josh Pelletier also has a special appreciation for the opportunity to play basketball, be it in his back yard or the Bangor Auditorium.

“I was just happy to be there,” said Pelletier. “At this time a couple of years ago, I was in the hospital and I didn’t know what was going to happen. I’m just happy to be playing ball again and to be in the tournament. It’s a pretty good feeling.”

And it’s an even better feeling to still be playing in late February, an honor reserved only for the best teams in Classes B, C and D.

“As a basketball family at Madawaska, we’ve used it as a symbol,” said Rossignol. “We’ve talked about looking at what this guy is doing, at what he’s coming back from. He’s working to make the most of his opportunities, and that’s been our motto this year, to make the most of this opportunity.

“For Josh to come from where he was a couple of years ago to where he is now is just a credit to his family, his work ethic, and just believing.”