HA’s Ross can only sit, watch Tim Scott coaching Brewer JV

Just about all junior Tanna Ross can do now is help the Hampden girls basketball team with its pregame warmup.

That’s because Ross, the Bronco point guard and the reigning Big East Conference Girls Player of the Year, is about three weeks removed from surgery on her torn knee ligament.

Ross started physical therapy last week and seemed comfortable helping with the team run-though before a recent game at Bangor, but she’s definitely out for the season.

“I’m doing pretty well, but I’m not even gonna try,” she said. “I don’t want to force it. I’ll save it for next year. … It’s very hard to watch but I’ll get through it.”

Ross will have a lot to look forward to next season, especially since she has her eye on making it to an NCAA Division I program. Ross plays AAU basketball for the Crusaders, a New Hampshire-based team that helped produce standout Maine players like McAuley of Portland’s Sarah Marshall, who is now at Boston College, South Portland’s Whitney Morrow, now at Richmond, and former University of Maine standout Melissa Heon.

“I’m interested in a lot of schools, like BC, Villanova, the University of Maine’s one of them, too,” she said. “I haven’t narrowed it down yet.”

Scott now coaching at Brewer

Along with a new head coach for its varsity girls basketball team, Brewer High School also has a new junior varsity coach – and it’s a name many basketball and baseball fans are familiar with.

Former multi-sport Ellsworth High athlete and University of Maine baseball standout Tim Scott is on the bench for the Witches this year.

Scott, who went on to play baseball in the Colorado Rockies system, comes from one of the state’s richest basketball backgrounds. He was twice a member of the All-Maine boys basketball team – first team in 1988, second team in 1986 – while his brother, Dick, was also a two-time All-Mainer and his father, Jack, was voted by NEWS readers in 1981 as Maine’s best schoolboy player ever. He played in 1950-54, before the NEWS began its All-Maine team.

Scott was a second baseman at UMaine and signed a contract with the Rockies in 1992. He spent two years with Colorado before shoulder surgery ended his career.

He has also coached baseball at Brewer, and taught and coached at Piscataquis of Guilford. Scott led the Pirates to an Eastern Maine Class C boys soccer title in 2000 and also coached girls basketball at the school in 1999 and 2000.

Brewer athletic director Dennis Kiah said Scott, a Hampden resident, had wanted to get back into coaching. Scott is now working with new head coach Andy Nickerson.

Most of the Witches’ JV players probably don’t know much about his background, Kiah said.

“I don’t think he talks about his story,” Kiah added. “He’s pretty humble.”