CAPE ELIZABETH – Liz Coffin the golfer is standing in the parking lot of the Purpoodock Club after her round here late Tuesday afternoon, joking with her fellow golfers, getting ready to pack up her clubs and head into the lounge for a bite of lunch and maybe a beer.

In the moment, she’s Liz Coffin the golfer. Liz Coffin the golfer shot an 88, a score she’s happy with despite a couple of three-putts, in the first round of the Women’s Maine State Golf Association championship. Liz Coffin the golfer was hoping to shoot 82 at some point this week but carded a 92 Wednesday. Liz Coffin the golfer cops to having a pretty good long game but concedes she struggles from 100 yards in.

It used to be that Liz Coffin the golfer was Liz Coffin the basketball player. Liz Coffin the basketball player was a star at Ashland High School. Liz Coffin the basketball player was the first great star for the University of Maine basketball team, playing center for the Black Bears from 1984-88. Liz Coffin the basketball player spent two years playing professionally for a league in Spain and has since had her number retired and been inducted into UMaine’s Sports Hall of Fame.

Coffin, who turned 40 in April and still looks strong enough to box out for a rebound although at her last doctor’s visit she measured a half-inch shorter than her UMaine height of 6-feet, hasn’t played basketball regularly in 12 years. Golf’s her thing now. She’d prefer you’d think it was her thing, too, although she can’t escape a past which includes being part of the era that sparked the University of Maine’s dominance in women’s basketball.

“I haven’t talked about basketball in years,” she said. “I don’t see myself as a basketball player. I was a basketball player but now I’m into golf and I’ve been into golf for five years.

Coffin is clearly at home in the Purpoodock parking lot with her golfing buddies. She’s lively, funny and eager to talk about her 88. Inside, sitting in an air-conditioned dining room, Coffin shuts down a bit, wondering why anyone would be interested in her when she’s so far from the leaders at this tournament.

The attention that came with University of Maine basketball was something Coffin was never liked, she said. She considers herself to be a shy person. She hated to be razzed by her golfing partners Tuesday as a photographer followed part of her round.

“The game of golf has brought me out a little bit more,” she said. “I’ve always been quiet. I don’t like interviews and I don’t do them well. I’ve never liked the fame of it.”

But she was famous – at least as famous as a basketball star from Portage Lake can get. Coffin still holds UMaine records for most rebounds in a season (380 in 1984-85) and a career (1,351), and her 2,153 career points ranks fourth in team history.

The year before Coffin arrived the Black Bears had a 16-11 record. After her freshman year they were 21-9, a new high in season wins.

“To me, she was one of the people that got that program going,” said Julie Treadwell, who is among the leaders at the WMSGA tournament and played basketball at Maine from 1980-1984. “Cindy [Blodgett] came here and really made the program what it was today, but to me, Liz and Rachel [Bouchard] made the difference. They put the program on a different level.”

Coffin picked up golf about five years ago, in part as a way to quench her thirst for competition. After graduating from Maine Coffin’s only basketball option, as it was for other college stars of the pre-WNBA era, was Europe. She played two years in a Spanish league, one year in Madrid and the other in the Canary Islands. A recurring foot injury made it hard for Coffin to continue.

Once she returned to Maine and moved to Bangor, Coffin did a brief stint in a summer basketball and then turned to women’s slo-pitch softball. But the local slo-pitch league petered out, and when a friend suggested they try golf, Coffin quickly got into it. She’s now a member at Bangor Municipal Golf Course, where she plays several times a week in between her job working nights at the Brewer Motor Inn, where she’s been for more than 15 years.

“I enjoy finding something to give me that competition,” she said. “It’s been a fun adjustment because it’s so different from a team sport. You don’t have any defense in golf. You can’t affect anyone else’s play, it’s just you and the course. So I’ve really enjoyed finding a sport to play.”

Coffin’s even hitting it straight this year, she added, which doesn’t surprise those around her.

“I always admired the way she played [basketball] and she’s gone about golf the same way,” Treadwell said. “She’s trying to learn and she’s just improved. To watch someone like her get better makes me happy.”

Oh, and Liz Coffin the golfer is now also Liz Coffin the basketball fan. Coffin attends games at Alfond Arena when she can. She’s a third cousin to current UMaine guard Bracey Barker and was excited when fellow Aroostook County natives Julie Bradstreet and Tracy Guerrette came down from small-town high schools – Central Aroostook of Mars Hill and Wisdom St. Agatha, respectively – and made the team.

But Coffin sees more of herself in former Black Bear standouts Heather Ernest and Monica Peterson.

Peterson, Coffin said, did so much of the grunt work, the thankless things that don’t show up in record books. In watching Ernest play, Coffin recalled the pounding she took under the basket .

Coffin has also kept the Liz 44 license plate which her father Terry, who died last year, got for her when she was a senior in high school.

She’s still occasionally recognized as Liz Coffin the basketball player, too, although that’s slowly changing.

“I have to say, one day I got recognized as a golfer,” Coffin said, breaking into a smile for the first time since sitting down inside the club. “I went to a course I hadn’t seen and somebody said, don’t you play golf? I was like, yay, finally somebody recognizes me for my golf game.”