Bangor-Brewer football The great rivalry to mark a milestone

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Even the most successful athletes tend to dwell on defeat rather than savor victory – such is their competitive nature.

Mike Edwards is no exception.

Edwards’ Bangor High School football teams won two of three games against archrival Brewer during his playing days in the early and mid-1970s. But that lone loss remains a nagging memory more than three decades later, despite a storied career that produced Class A state titles in 1973 and 1975 and individual recognition as winner of the 1975 Fitzpatrick Trophy.

“You don’t really remember the wins as much,” he said. “It seems like you remember more about the losses.”

Brewer’s 14-6 victory over Bangor in 1974 was one of the bigger upsets in a rivalry that has spanned more than a century and will be renewed for the first time since 1998

with the 100th edition of the game at Doyle Field in Brewer at 7 tonight.

Bangor leads the series 71-20-8, but for Edwards a 44-7 victory over Brewer in 1973 and a 36-15 win in 1975 weren’t quite enough to erase the anguish of that loss to the Witches, who entered the game with an 0-7-1 record and an 11-game losing streak overall but used touchdown runs from Dave Mallory and Ricky McHale to defeat a Bangor team that entered the game with just one loss.

“We had to live with that for a year,” said Edwards, who rushed for 105 yards on 21 carries in the game.

Ironically, this year’s game offers a scenario similar to the 1974 contest, as Bangor has a 6-1 record while Brewer is 0-7.

And Edwards’ son Ian is Bangor’s starting quarterback.

Within the family, at least, there will be no looking past the Witches.

“I’m sure [Ian’s] heard me talking about those games,” said Mike Edwards.

Cycles of success

Bangor and Brewer first met in an official capacity in 1903, though “practice games” between teams from the schools were reported as early as 1895.

They met three times in 1903, with Bangor winning twice and Brewer once.

Bangor would not lose again to the Witches until 1928, scoring 12 shutout victories and four scoreless ties over a 17-game span before Brewer broke through with a 7-0 victory in the second of two 1928 meetings.

After earning a forfeit win over Bangor in the second of two meetings in 1931, the Witches played the Rams on relatively even terms during the next decade.

Most of the games throughout the first 50 years of the rivalry were one-sided, but 1947 and 1952 produced a pair of exceptions. Bangor earned a 26-20 victory in 1947 thanks to a late interception return for a touchdown, and the Rams scored in the game’s final 35 seconds for a 25-20 win in 1952.

Brewer won back-to-back games in 1956 and 1957, employing the Wing-T with great success under coach Larry Mahaney. Mahaney brought that offense with him from the University of Maine, where he learned it from legendary Black Bears coach Harold Westerman.

“We had real good success back then,” said Norris Nickerson, a two-way tackle on those Brewer teams who went on to play at the University of Maine and is Bangor High’s principal.

“Football was real strong in the area back then. Not only Bangor and Brewer, but you could throw John Bapst and Old Town into that mix, too, and if any of those four teams were playing each other you’d have great crowds.”

The glory years for both programs soon followed, and the big crowds that followed these teams grew even bigger.

“Growing up a Brewer boy, I remember being 6 or 7 years old watching the games in the 1970s,” said current Brewer coach Don Farnham, who also starred for the Witches during the early 1980s. “It was the big thing all week before the game. There would be parades and bonfires, and everyone would come to the game. I guess there’s something about a gladiator sport between two schools that are right next to each other.”

Coach Ken Perrone’s Brewer teams won five of six games against Brewer from 1966 through 1971, a run that helped fuel the Witches’ state championship teams in 1968 and 1970.

The undefeated 1970 team, featuring such stars as Ralph Payne, Dick Coffin and Don McGlauflin, was ranked fifth in that year’s national rankings, and today is still considered by many the best team in Maine high school history.

That year’s Bangor team would be hard-pressed to argue – the Witches’ 38-2 win over the Rams in 1970 represents Brewer’s most lopsided victory in the rivalry.

But soon it was Bangor’s turn to shine. By 1973 the Rams were winning the first of its four state titles over a nine-year span with a team coached by Gerry Hodge and led by twins Paul and Pete McCarty. Pete McCarty was that year’s Fitzy winner after leading Bangor to a championship season that included a 44-7 blitzing of Brewer.

A year later, Brewer got its revenge, catching a Bangor team coming off its first loss of the season against Waterville with a strong two-way effort that produced season-ending heartbreak for the Rams and perhaps the most satisfying of victories for the Witches.

Bangor returned the favor a year later, its 36-15 victory helping the Rams to the state championship as well a 21st ranking nationally.

“What I remember most were the crowds,” said Edwards. We always played at Bangor then, and the [Garland Street Field] grandstand would be packed all the way to the top. They also had much bigger stands on the visitors’ side than they have now, and those would be full, too. “Then they would put a snow fence around the field and people would be lined up all the way around it.”

Brewer rebounded two years later with 30-0 victory, but that would be its last win in a countable game against the Rams.

In 1980 Bangor won two overtime battles, the second one ending in controversial fashion when Brewer’s Steve Bazinet fumbled just before going into the end zone for a tying touchdown – or fumbling after he reached the end zone, depending on your perspective.

“Those were two great games,” said Farnham, a sophomore on that Brewer team.

Changing times

When Bangor and Brewer meet for the 100th time tonight, it will mark just the third regular-season contest between the two rivals since 1990, and just the sixth since that 1980 doubleheader.

Brewer has fluctuated between Classes A and B since then, and the schools also were separated when Maine high school football used a four-class alignment in the early 1980s.

The schools played several exhibition games during the 1990s – including one in 1995 that was halted at halftime because of a power failure – before the rivalry went on full hiatus after Brewer was reclassified to Class B after the 1998 season.

“There’s a generation of people from both sides that don’t really have a sense for the rivalry,” said Farnham.

A variety of festivities are planned in conjunction with Friday’s game. Former players, coaches and cheerleaders have been invited onto the field before the game to form human tunnels for the current teams to run through during pregame ceremonies. Commemorative minifootballs will be tossed to the crowd, and special T-shirts will be on sale.

After the game, a slide show featuring team photos through the years from both schools will be projected onto the side of the Brewer Auditorium.

Whether the Bangor-Brewer football rivalry will ever attain the status it held for earlier generations remains to be seen.

Brewer’s enrollment may foster future fluctuations between the Class A and Class B ranks, and the dramatic increase in entertainment options since the 1970s has reduced attendance at high school sporting events.

But the memories will persist, as will the intensity from whistle to whistle – it’s the competitive nature inherent in any rivalry.

“I think it’s healthy, a good, old-fashioned rivalry,” said Bangor coach Mark Hackett, who has experienced Bangor-Brewer from the sidelines for nearly two decades. “There’s no hatred, and that’s nice. I think it’s what a rivalry is supposed to be.

“I think it’s a lot like playing against your brother, really.”

The nationally ranked 1970 Brewer Witches are considered one of the top teams in Maine high school football history. Ten veterans led the Witches to their second state title in three years: (front row, from left) John Robichaud, Bobby VanPeursem, Bruce Whitten, Ralph Payne, Dana Goddard; (back, from left) Fred Olsen, Robin Holyoke, Donny McGlauflin, Dick Coffin and Steve Campbell.

The offensive tandem of center Alan Mathieu, quarterback Tony Trafton and running backs Mike Edwards (28) and Kevin Mosher (42) helped Bangor win the 1975 state championship and earn a national ranking. Edwards went on to win that year’s Fitzpatrick Trophy symbolic of the top senior Class A player in the state.