Mark Hackett remembers cutting through Harold Westerman’s yard as a third-grader growing up in Orono. Now Bangor High School’s football coach, Hackett knows he probably could have completed the shortcut faster had he started running it out of the wing-T formation.

And to learn about that all he had to do was knock on Westerman’s door – the former University of Maine coach helped create the intricate offense more than a half-century ago.

Hackett finally did knock on his door this summer, and 41 years after coaching his last game the legendary Westerman gave Bangor’s staff a one-of-a-kind wing-T primer as the Rams prepare to run that offense this season.

“They came up to where I live,” said Westerman, who will turn 90 in December. “We got the [white]board out and I went over the fundamentals, so to speak. They were very attentive.”

Once a coach, always a coach.

Bangor’s switch to the wing-T is designed to maximize the opportunities for a talented senior class including quarterback Ian Edwards, running backs Shane Walton and Kyle Vanidestine and tight end Ryan Weston.

And where better to learn the basics than from “Westy,” who along with David Nelson launched the wing-T while at the University of Maine in 1949 and 1950.

“We’d been tinkering with it, and it got to the point where we needed to run the wing-T to make use of our personnel,” recalled Westerman, who will be inducted into the Black Bear Football Ring of Honor in Orono on Saturday, Sept. 22,.

Nelson left after the 1950 season to become head coach at Delaware, and Westerman then guided Maine to an 80-38-7 record from 1951 to 1966, including an appearance in the 1965 Tangerine Bowl.

Westerman retired after the 1966 season and served as the university’s athletic director until 1982. He eventually moved to Florida but returned to Orono earlier this year after the death of his wife of 67 years.

Since then he has reconnected with the Maine football program under current coach Jack Cosgrove, and when Hackett learned from Cosgrove that Westerman was back, it was an opportunity to learn the wing-T from the master that he couldn’t pass up.

“I knew who he was and he knew my father and uncle very well,” said Hackett, who already had some knowledge of the wing-T from defending it at practice during his own playing days at Maine under Ron Rodgerson. “So I called him and he was more than happy to meet with us. He came down with his whiteboard and markers, and he gave us his original book on it. He’s really been enthusiastic about helping us.”

Hackett expects Bangor’s version of the wing-T not to look exactly like Westerman’s original.

“The wing-T is constantly changing,” he said. “The old-time wing-Ters will look at some of this and say ‘yeah, that’s wing-T,’ and then they’ll say ‘why are they going away from the wing-T now?’ when it ends up with four wides and cross-motion. There’s really an elaborate waggle and rollout pass game that goes with it.”

But such variations aren’t wing-T blasphemy to Westerman. Whatever the variations, one huge common denominator of the 1950s wing-T and the 2007 wing-T is preparedness.

“I think it will fit Bangor’s personnel wonderfully,” he said. “The wing-T is a very intricate offense. It’s hard to do, but if they prepare properly, they’ll have success with it.”

Once a coach, always a coach.

Ernie Clark may be reached at 990-8045, 1-800-310-8600 or at eclark@bangordailynews.net.