Brewer team Class B champ

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They were all there, even if just in spirit. Legends and living links mingled with gridiron ghosts in the stands and on the sidelines of Fitzpatrick Stadium in Portland on a sunny, fall Saturday afternoon.

They watched approvingly as Brewer High School’s football team blew the dust off the school’s championship record book and finished a new chapter with an exclamation point.

For the first time in 35 years, the Witches were state champions in football.

Names such as Perrone, Payne, Campbell, McGlauflin, Strong and Olsen commingled with Ortego, Caldwell, Ecker, Porter, Wilson and Sherry as Brewer took the dramatic ending out of a long-running drama and dismantled Western Maine champion York 33-0 to claim the Class B state championship.

“I’m really happy for coach [Ed] Ortego and the kids as well as the fans,” said Ken Perrone, the coach of Brewer’s 1968 and 1970 title teams who drove up from Massachusetts to watch Saturday’s game. “This is their moment in the sun and something that will bond them together forever. We don’t have too many moments, if any, like this in our lives.”

And so Brewer now has a new, gleaming gold ball trophy to place beside the old, dusty ones from 1957 (Class B) and 1968 and 1970 (Class A). They also have new heroes to remember.

“I was thinking of that today,” said Frank Breau, Brewer native, owner of Captain’s Market seafood, and a member of Brewer’s storied 1970 unbeaten and nationally ranked state championship squad. “It’s time for them to start talking about the new state champions here at Brewer, and that’s the ’05 football team. We’re really proud of them.”

That was apparent from the broad smiles and excitement shown by Perrone and the six players on hand who played for 1970’s 11-0 Class A champion: Mike Henderson, Breau, Scott Lingley, Mike Strang, Bob Fortier and Butch Robichaud.

Three of them not only found their old letter jackets, they were able to wear them to the game – zipped up. Breau’s daughter, Sarah, a senior captain of Brewer’s cheerleading squad, wore her dad’s letter jacket and had his football jacket pin on her necklace.

“We dug that [jacket] out and had to clean it up a little bit. That was a good luck piece, and so was my football pin,” said Frank Breau. “And today’s her 18th birthday, so that was icing on the cake.”

God rest the old king. Long live the new king.

“That’s the way all of us feel. This is a new era and a new generation,” said Fortier, a senior cornerback on the 1970 squad. “There is a tremendous sense of pride in my old school winning another title and seeing that the football program has been rejuvenated. Sitting there watching them play threw me back to when I was playing, too.”

Fortier, Robichaud and Breau all said they felt their teammates who were no longer alive – Donnie McGlauflin, Larry Coolidge, Fred Olsen and Scott Erickson – were there in spirit as well.

“We all wanted to be there, as many as could be,” said Fortier, now a private contractor living in Bangor. “It brought everybody back together to rehash old stories. Now these guys have stories they’ll be rehashing.”

Alumni who were members of Brewer’s 2003 and 2004 football squads, which both made the playoffs, were also on the sidelines and in the stands.

“We had a couple of guys come from my brother’s team two years ago, and I hardly recognized them,” said Ben Caldwell, a senior fullback-linebacker and a tri-captain of this year’s team. “It was good to see them come out for us. Seeing those guys and guys from last year here gave us some extra drive because we wanted to do it for those guys who came close and helped us get here.”

Senior tri-captain Zack Sherry, the Witches’ starting center and defensive tackle, said last year’s seniors helped this year’s players learn to focus better.

“We had problems early on working as a team, but for the last month or so, we haven’t argued, and if we had a bad play, we came out and capitalized on the next one,” said senior offensive guard-defensive tackle Matt Wilson. “We learned we had to keep our heads together, not dwell on mistakes, and keep our cool.”

Although he wasn’t able to attend Saturday’s game because of a family reunion in Arizona, 1970 star running back Ralph Payne did join his teammates to address the 2005 team Friday.

“He came in and gave us a very inspirational speech that motivated us,” said Ricky Porter, senior quarterback and free safety. “He said he had confidence in us since he watched us play in eighth grade, when we were the first team in a long time to go 8-0. He said he expected us to do it last year and was shocked we didn’t.”

That spoke volumes to many current players.

“Most of the guys on this team have been together since eighth grade,” Sherry said. “We knew this was a team that had it in us.”

Now someone else had affirmed that knowledge.

“They believed in us. They told us the way we were playing, there was no one who could touch us,” said senior two-way tackle and tri-captain Jamie Ecker.

The postgame celebration and victory reception at the school were bittersweet for some of the participants with the realization that Ed Ortego would be leaving for his native Louisiana in January and not returning as head coach.

“It’s going to be hard to leave,” Ortego said. “One of the reasons I came back was because it was tough. I said, ‘Let’s finish it up and get that third year in.’ It was a darn good decision.

“I think their toughness is what I’ll remember most about this team. We were never the biggest team, but we were always the toughest team in the second half. They would not back down to anybody.”

That toughness – physical and mental – ended a 35-year drought and stirred the memories of championships past.

“You appreciate it more when you’ve gone such a long time without it,” said the 70-year-old Perrone, who will be entering his 25th season as Salem State College’s baseball coach next spring. “It’s a different era and all, but a state title’s a state title whether it’s Class A, B or C.”