Coaching legend Alley retires End of era after 39 years

The man behind Jonesport-Beals High School’s championship basketball legacy will not be back on the sidelines next winter.

Ordman “Ordie” Alley, who led the Royals to nine state championships, 13 Eastern Maine titles and more than 550 victories during a 39-year high school coaching career, has decided not to return to that post.

“I’ve been very fortunate,” said the 63-year-old Alley. “God has blessed me. I’ve had an awful lot of good times, and some sad times, but I’ve had a lot more good times than bad times. I guess I’m just moving on.

“I’ve always thought one of my strengths was as a motivator, and it’s getting harder and harder every year,” he added. “I don’t think I have anything to prove.”

Rumors that Alley would not return to Jonesport-Beals next winter persisted throughout the offseason, particularly when he opted not to run the school’s summer basketball program.

“I had nothing to do with it [the summer program] at all,” he said. “I just wanted to make up my mind on my own.”

But it was only in recent weeks that he confirmed his intentions.

“In the last few days, it’s been pretty munch on my mind, but I waited because I wanted to see if there was anything that might change my mind,” he said.

A graduate of Beals High School and what is now the University of Maine at Machias, Alley began his teaching and coaching career in Southwest Harbor in 1965 – where he guided the team at Pemetic Grammar School to a winless season – before returning home the next year to coach at Beals High School.

After three years, the Beals and Jonesport high schools merged into Jonesport-Beals – and a Maine basketball institution was born.

In its second year as a combined school in 1970, Jonesport-Beals edged Gould Academy 66-64 for the new school’s first Class S state championship. The next year, Class S became Class D, but the champion was the same. The Royals went on to win five consecutive state titles between 1970 and 1974, a streak unrivaled in Maine schoolboy basketball until another small town school, Valley High of Bingham, won six consecutive Class D gold balls between 1998 and 2003.

That the Jonesport-Beals streak came first made the Royals symbolic of the possibilities of small town basketball in Maine, garnering respect throughout the state and earning attention from around the nation.

And names like Carver, Fagonde, Faulkingham, Peabody, Beal, Kelley and Alley became etched into the Maine basketball lexicon.

Jonesport-Beals nearly made it six in a row, dropping a 57-56 decision to Gould Academy in the 1975 state final.

The Royals added state championships in 1977, 1983, 1985 and 1993, with additional Eastern Maine titles in 1975, 1977, 1978, 1983, 1985, 1993, 1998 and 1999.

Jonesport-Beals finished 12-8 last winter, winning the Downeast Athletic Conference championship and advancing to the Eastern Maine Class D quarterfinals where the Royals fell to Lee Academy 60-43.

“I just want people to know that the credit should go to all the kids over the years who were willing to work so hard for me,” Alley said.

Throughout a coaching career that has spanned five decades, Alley’s teams have been known for uptempo play, a quality that endeared the Royals to casual basketball fans far beyond the Moosabec region.

“I can say in all honesty that our offense was better than our defense,” Alley said, “but our defense has been better than most people think.”

Alley has battled a variety of health issues in recent years, including prostate cancer and myasthenia gravis, a neuromuscular auto-immune disease marked by a weakening of the voluntary muscles.

But he says he’s feeling better these days, save for a nagging case of carpal tunnel syndrome.

“I’m healthier now than I’ve been since I first got sick,” said Alley, who remains an active lobsterman. “I figure now’s a good time to go out and do some of the things I’ve always wanted to do. I didn’t want sickness make me have to stop coaching.”

Among Alley’s plans are to follow the coaching career of his son Troy, his former junior varsity coach who earlier this year was named boys varsity coach at Machias.

He also wants to watch his grandchildren grow up, do some hunting, and he and his wife, Donna, have bought a home in Zephyrhills, Fla., where they plan to spend some time.

And he hasn’t completely ruled out a return to the sidelines some day.

“Maybe in another year I might try to get back into it,” he said, “but for now this is the right thing to do.”