Twenty-five years and six broadcasting partners after he first sat down courtside at the Bangor Auditorium to call his first high school basketball tournament game, Joe Gould has called it a career.

Actually, the Bangor native’s broadcasting career spans 38 total years as he first broke into the business on Lincoln radio station WLKN with the late Dale Curry as his broadcast partner.

“I asked if I could do some games and they told me they couldn’t pay me much, just $5 a game, but I just wanted the experience,” Gould recalled Thursday. “I started with Dale in 1968.”

Gould has been thinking about retirement ever since the conclusion of the 2005 tournament.

“I made up my mind after last year and kept thinking about it and thinking about it,” Gould explained.

Unlike many of the coaches he’s interviewed over the years, Gould’s primary reasons for retirement are not to spend more time with his family. As a part-time/full-time resident adjustor for McKenzie/Mosley Adjustment Services, Gould has plenty of scheduling flexibility.

No, his decision was borne more from personal opinion and conviction.

“The purity and the integrity of the game have gone. It’s just not there anymore and it hurts the game,” the 71-year-old Gould said flatly. “I’m a purist and that’s a problem. It got to the point where this wasn’t the game I grew up with.”

“All of the tattooos, long pants, kids never tucking their shirts in, the pregame ceremonies with kids bumping chests, the chest thumping … All that stuff really kind of sours me on the game.”

“I don’t think you have as many great coaches around anymore like the George Wentworths and Bunny Paradis’ and that’s part of it too, I think,” he added. “And there are some good players nowadays, but there aren’t any great players.”

Gould decided the timing was right for calling it quits after the Hampden Academy boys’ storybook run to their first Class A state championship in his 25th year with Maine Public Broadcasting Network.

“Last year was the crescendo for me with Hampden winning it after having to play a prelim game just to get in,” explained Gould, who added that he hasn’t missed being at the Auditorium this year at all.

Gould isn’t all about complaints regarding the way the game is today. He also has some ideas for solutions.

“I think the dunks should be taken out of the game entirely and I think the 3-point line should be moved back to make them earn it,” he said.

Gould became a constant for a network which was used to a lot of changes when it came to its stable of broadcasters, especially early on. His broadcast partners have been Bill McManus, John Giffin, Bob Lahey, Ron Brown, Ernie Clark and Ken Lindloff.

“Joe came on board at a time when we were at an infancy stage of doing games,” said MPBN producer Ed Fowler, who has worked the tournament for 27 years. “I was looking for folks and he called to tell me he was interested and I knew he had experience with WLBZ radio and he was ready to go from the first game we did.”

Gould, who has been working for a year on a book about the New England Basketball Tournament that Maine high school teams used to participate in, worked at WLKN for two years before moving over to WLBZ radio (620 AM) for the next 11.

Gould will continue to work on his book while enjoying time with his family: wife Marilyn, son Jason, daughters Aimee and Suzanne, and his six grandchildren.

“I had a lot of fun and got to work with a lot of great people and great announcers, so I’m pretty happy with how things went,” he said.

Gould has been replaced by Brent Slowikowski, who ironically first expressed interest in doing games for MPBN quite awhile ago.

“I joked with Brent because about 15 years ago, we were standing out back and he said if I ever had an opening, he’d be interested in working with me, so I said ‘Well, this is an opening’ and I called him,” Fowlers said with a chuckle.

Slowikowski and Rich Kimball are doing play-by-play for boys games and teaming up with color analysts Lindloff and fill-in announcer Bruce Anderson. Joe Carr is calling girls game action with longtime analyst Lisa Richards.

Andrew Neff can be reached at 990-8205, 1-800-310-8600 or at aneff@bangordailynews.net