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Don’t look now, but the Brunswick High boys basketball team is making another run at a title.
A quick glance at the Heal Point standings finds the Dragons at the top of the Eastern Maine Class A rankings.
Is Ralph Mims still playing?
No. The one constant in the boys program is head coach Todd Hanson, who has built his program to the Bangor High School-type level through hard work, strong defense, and a consistent professionalism.
Todd’s role model was his father Arthur “Skip” Hanson, a noted school administrator in New Hampshire who cut his own athletic teeth at Foxcroft Academy, and coached the boys varsity basketball squad to state stardom in 1975.
Todd grew up under Skip’s wing, and I have many fond memories of the younger Hanson tagging along after his dad, looking up to him in hero worship.
Skip was a fiery coach, and Todd learned from him his own variety of sideline mannerisms.
I had the good fortune to have Todd on two of my Piscataquis Community High School basketball teams in the early 1980s. Todd was the quintessential point guard.
From day one, nobody threw a better entry pass than the young “Slush Foot,” a nickname coined by Skip for his son because his feet were bigger than he was in the early years, and he ran as if he were in mud.
Todd always demonstrated a love and a passion for basketball. He was a mere freshman when he teamed with a talented group of upperclassmen at PCHS, and by the time he transferred to Waterville to play for coach Ken Lindlof’s Panthers, Todd was a polished point presence. In fact, he led Waterville to a state crown his senior year, no small feat – no pun intended – in the always-tough large school division.
Todd assisted the veteran Lindlof briefly, and I have one fond memory of traversing across the Bangor Auditorium floor to admonish the young assistant coach for trying to coax a well-known referee into a player control call by imitating the offending athlete’s elbow action.
“Don’t do that,” I said. “You’ll never get that call now.”
In typical Todd fashion, he responded, “OK, coach. What would you do?”
“Nothing,” I responded, “until the next throw-in in front of our bench. Then, I’d quietly ask the official if Number 24 was related to him and he didn’t want to embarrass the kid.”
Todd got a kick out of that and learned that sideline theatrics are best kept to a minimum.
Todd inherited a Brunswick program long on losing and short on tradition. All he has done in his nine years there is put the place on the basketball map, and friends and foes alike know the Dragons to be a well-drilled outfit.
This year’s Brunswick team is paced by 3-point shooting whiz kid senior Jordan Kelly, who is tossing in 16.4 points per game – 56 percent behind the arc – and senior Doug Eichinger, who is averaging 13.0 points per game.
Obviously, Skip taught his son well, and by the time old “Slush Foot” got to the Brunswick camp, he had the finer points of the game pretty well in hand.
30-second timeout
From this corner, it is nice to see one of basketball’s good guys, coach Harold Williams of Central High of Corinth, taking his Red Devils to a degree of respectability again in the Eastern Class C rankings.
Harold has toiled in the relative obscurity of such haunts as a Brewer JV post, an Eastern Maine Community College women’s position, with quick stints at Husson College in Bangor and Sumner Memorial High School in East Sullivan.
Coach Williams is one of basketball’s good guys. Always a gentleman, Harold goes the proverbial extra mile for his players. He deserves the recognition this year’s Red Devil squad is giving him.
Harold is a true players’ coach.
NEWS columnist Ron Brown, a retired high school basketball coach, can be reached at bdnsports@bangordailynews.net
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