Normally at this time of year, Bob Marquis would be preparing for summer basketball camp.

But these are more relaxed times for the veteran coach, teacher and administrator, who recently retired after a 30-year career in education, 29 at East Millinocket schools.

Most recently, Marquis was a social studies teacher, girls varsity basketball coach and athletic administrator at Schenck High School.

“It was very challenging, but a lot of fun,” said the 52-year-old Marquis of his athletic administrator’s duties. “The ADs are real good people, and they tend to help each other a lot. They’re all in it for the betterment of the student-athletes.”

Much has changed for those student-athletes during the last 30 years, and even more has changed for those in many northern Maine towns like East Millinocket, where Marquis taught students from kindergarten through grade 12 at different stages of his tenure.

When Marquis first began teaching in East Millinocket, Schenck competed in Class B.

Three decades later, the Wolverines now fluctuate between Class C and Class D, and the corresponding reduction in enrollment has added to the challenge of maintaining a successful interscholastic sports program.

“You have more specialization with kids playing one sport,” said Marquis. “That doesn’t affect schools with large enrollments as much, but for the smaller schools it’s harder to keep the numbers up, and with the specialization you’ve got bare-bones numbers in some sports.”

Marquis also has seen the impact of other co-curricular activities, which he describes as “all very important to rounding out a student’s education,” and other more individualized activities such as skateboarding that draw students away from traditional school sports.

He also has had to deal with ongoing talk about the potential consolidation of neighboring Schenck and Stearns high schools, and has a unique perspective on the topic.

While he has taught in East Millinocket, Marquis is a 1973 graduate of Stearns of Millinocket – where as sophomore he played basketball for the legendary George Wentworth – and a lifelong resident of the Magic City, save for his college years at the University of Maine at Fort Kent.

“I regionalized 30 years ago,” he said, “way before people started talking about merging. As far as what’s best for the area, I see both sides of the issue.”

In addition to his most recent duties at Schenck, Marquis coached girls soccer there before it became a varsity sport, and served an earlier six-year stint as girls varsity basketball coach during the 1980s.

The Wolverines compiled a 60-44 regular-season record between 1981 and 1986, and Schenck reached the Eastern Maine final in 1986, the program’s first year in Class C.

Marquis also guided the Wolverines’ baseball team for several seasons.

But he may be best known beyond the region as a successful basketball official, having worked with the likes of Jimmy DiFrederico and Tony Tammaro and refereed countless high school tournament games over the years.

“I started refereeing my first year at East Millinocket,” said Marquis, citing the early support of fellow refs Ron Marks, Dean Shea, Roger Morin, Dick Lowell and Rick Grant. “It was a good way to learn the rules. I wasn’t sure how far I’d go with it, but wanted to make myself better as a coach.”

Marquis has been inactive as an official for the last three years while concentrating on his duties at Schenck, but hasn’t ruled out a return to the hardwood.

Marquis, whose wife Sarah also is retiring from her middle-school teaching job in Millinocket, said he doesn’t expect to coach again.

“I’ll miss the camaraderie with the coaches and the people in the schools, and the personal contact with the kids in the classroom,” he said. “There have been a lot of great relationships.”

Bangor recognized by SI.com

Bangor High School’s string of athletic championships throughout the 2006-07 academic year has received some national notice.

According to a report this week on the Internet version of Sports Illustrated, Bangor has been named the top high school in the state for athletic performance.

SI.com developed a list of the top high school athletic programs in each state as well as the District of Columbia for the 2006-07 school year. Athletic administrators from top programs in each state were contacted, and state tournament results and all-around success rates of programs under consideration from compared.

Bangor won Class A state championships in six sports during the recently completed school year: boys soccer, boys indoor track, girls swimming, boys swimming, boys basketball and boys outdoor track. Bangor also won the Eastern Maine Class A championship in baseball, and advanced to the regional championship game in football and boys tennis.

Other New England schools on the list were Greenwich (Conn.) High School, Boston College High School in Dorchester, Mass., Salem (N.H.) High School, Bishop Hendricken High School of Warwick, R.I., and Essex Junction (Vt.) High School.