One More Shot? Beloved basketball coach Ordie Alley unsure about a 40th season

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Strange perspective, Ordman Alley had Thursday evening.

He could have been watching the Eastern Maine Class D Boys Basketball Tournament from his usual seat on the floor, as the longtime coach of the Jonesport-Beals High School team.

But this time he was watching from the second tier of bleachers at the Bangor Auditorium. His son and 8-year-old grandson sat with him.

Felt funny, he admitted. Then he paused before taking on The Question.

Coming back for another year, coach?

“I haven’t made up my mind,” Alley said. “I’m just going to leave it open and see what happens.

“They say I’ve paid my dues. I’ve enjoyed it, I’ve seen the good with the bad. Heartbreaks and heaven.”

Alley glanced at his son Troy, as if the two have been through a lot together.

They have. All of Jonesport and Beals, twin towns on the Washington County waterfront, know that. So do most of the 2,000 fans who filled the auditorium Thursday for the tournament’s semifinal game. He couldn’t get to his seat up high without hearing a few times, “You own this place, Ordie.”

Ordie Alley, 62, is one of Maine’s basketball institutions. Banners in Bangor in years past have proclaimed, “Welcome to the Orditorium.”

He has coached for 39 seasons. His teams have appeared in the Eastern Maine tournament 30 or 34 of those years, he said – he can’t recall for certain.

The Jonesport-Beals team that lost big Monday evening to top-ranked Lee Academy in quarterfinal play should have put on a better showing. The players and coach both know that.

Most of Alley’s teams rise to their reputation and thrive when they play in Bangor. The trophy case back in the high school hallway in Jonesport displays the goods from 13 Eastern Maine titles and nine state championships.

But this team cut short its annual opportunity. Coming off some of Alley’s leaner seasons, this team took the floor without a single player who had Bangor tournament experience. The jitters surfaced, and Alley coached through an uneasy game.

This wasn’t one of those teams that, years ago, opposing players and coaches claimed trained in hip-waders just to gain quickness for games.

“That’s an old wives’ tale,” he counters today. “My kids aren’t any different. They’re like every kid around, but they do work hard on the ocean.”

On Monday, “That wasn’t my team out there,” Alley had said sharply to a photographer minutes after his players filed out to the locker room.

Given that he hasn’t made up his mind about returning for his 40th season, Ordie Alley could have coached his final game last Monday – absent of any fanfare.

Then again, 13 of the 15 Jonesport-Beals players come back next year. Alley could, too, as the icing on the cake. Another year. Another chance.

He can’t escape The Question. Everybody is starting to ask, albeit respectfully. “Next year” this, “next year” that. The Question doesn’t even have to be spoken. Everybody’s expectations communicate it.

“They all want me to coach for another 100 years,” Alley confided as yet another colleague or former player sought him out in the stands, eager to commiserate about what happened the other evening.

One thing is clear, so far, for Alley. If he does come back to coach, that would be his 40th and final season. He has figured out that much.

The grade-schoolers in Beals, where Alley has lived his whole life, and Jonesport, play their Pee Wee games with the expectation that, when they reach high school, they, too, will join the hundreds of young men who have played under Alley. The third generation wants its turn, too.

“I’ve been graduated now for eight years, and I wish I was still playing for him,” said Clark Mills, stopping by to greet his old coach.

These days, Alley is torn between his commitment to his community and commitment to his family.

If he weren’t coaching, he figures, he and his wife, Donna, could go to Florida in winter, the way she has wanted to for so long. Or he could add extra days onto excursions to his hunting camp, if he didn’t have to be back for a practice. Or he could keep up his lobstering – “it’s an addiction” – and tend to his 500 traps.

Better still, he could spend more time watching his grandchildren play the game the entire Alley family lives for and loves.

Donna Alley was never far from the court herself, riding the Jonesport-Beals bus through all those bad-weather winters alongside Alley and his players. She spent 25 years as the school’s cheerleading coach.

Sons Ordman Jr., known as “Skipper,” 37, and Troy, 32, spent their high school years playing for their dad. Now Skipper is a Beals school board member and co-owner of a lobster pound with Alley. Troy is the third lobsterman in the family as well as Alley’s key assistant coach the last five years. Alley’s oldest child, Kim, is 42 and resides in Carmel.

Alley’s seven grandchildren take up the rest of his time, off the court.

He wishes others understood just how all-consuming basketball coaching is.

“I’ve coached 40 years [including a debut season on Mount Desert Island], and I’ve never left the game,” he said. “You think about it laying in bed, in the car, on the water. I’d never change that, either.”

But there could be a change ahead for the Royals of Jonesport-Beals. Ordie Alley could call it a career any day now. Or he could be back for one more year. Or, too, Troy Alley could step up in his father’s place. Then again, he’s not giving anything away, either.

“It’s a possibility,” Troy Alley conceded Thursday from the bleachers. “But I’m not saying any more than that.”

Whatever decision the elder Alley reaches, he knows he will make it from a position of strength. Two years ago, that wasn’t the case. He spent the better part of two years with illness – myasthenia gravis, a neuromuscular disease that turned his immune system against him – that left him close to death, he said. Still, with his son by his side, even taking the lead, he coached through it.

His illness struck just at the revival of his teams’ reputation. Although Jonesport-Beals had won five state championships between 1970 and 1974, his teams more recently had made appearances in the state championship games in 1998 and 1999.

Alley says he is 70 percent back to full health, thanks to prayer, and treasures every day. And that new spirituality gives him the ability to make any decisions clear of health issues.

“I am to the point that I can decide one way or another for my own reasons, and not because of my health,” he said.

“I know I’ve been blessed.”