We assume there must come a single dramatic moment when a veteran coach consciously decides to retire.

It would be after a victory milestone, we think. A round number. A long-sought championship. Something big, to let a coach feel he is going out on top.

Or maybe it would come after a crushing series of losses which cause a coach to decide he can no longer reach and teach his players.

It could even happen after one too many long road trips in February, when, win or lose, the combination of age and repetition make six hours in a cold van on an icy highway unbearable.

For Bruce MacGregor, whose 26 seasons coaching men’s basketball at Husson College in Bangor have made his name synonymous with both the school and the sport in this region, it was none of the above.

“My first moment came when I was sitting in the stands at the Bangor Auditorium watching them win it,” MacGregor said, referring to the night last February when Husson, under the direction of former Braves player and six-year assistant coach Warren Caruso, captured the Maine Athletic Conference title.

“This great, warm feeling came over me, seeing Warren run things, seeing him make the moves he did,” MacGregor said softly. “That was one of the moments…”

It is a measure of how deeply MacGregor is embedded in the infrastructure of Maine sports that the moment of his retirement Tuesday, so unexpected, so understated, caused such incredulity among the media. When the press conference was announced Monday, speculation ran toward new facilities, new programs, anything but MacGregor leaving the bench for good.

Hadn’t he taken last year off to travel around the country observing great basketball coaches like Jim Calhoun of the University of Connecticut and even Garry St. Jean of the NBA Sacramento Kings? Didn’t that mean he was gathering strategy for another 5, 10, maybe even 15-year run on the hardwood at Husson? Hadn’t he taken an active role in this year’s recruiting?

“I had every intention of coming back,” MacGregor admitted, as the cameras whirred and the pens scratched. “But when the time of year came again when I actually had to make the decision… I felt it was time.”

So here he stood during a dual-purpose press conference pulling from his pocket a beat-up plastic whistle on a nylon cord, the one he got when he began coaching at Reading (Mass.) High 33 years ago as a kid out of Springfield College. And here he was presenting it, with misty eyes, to Caruso, his duly appointed successor and friend while Husson President Bill Beardsley and athletic director Pam Hennessey looked on in approval.

Now, here he was at age 56, speaking of his proudest achievements since that day in 1968 when he arrived with his wife, Christine, to coach college ball in some place called Bangor, Maine.

“Consistency,” he began. “Over the years we were an NCAA member with no scholarships, an NAIA Division I member and an NAIA Division II member with scholarships. No matter what we were we averaged 21 wins a year. I’m proud of the consistency.”

He also spoke of his pride in stressing academics to his players, of holding mandatory study halls, of a high graduation rate.

He spoke of all the great players whose talents contributed to the 545 wins and 176 losses next to his name in the record book, making him one of the five winningest active coaches in the NAIA. He thanked his players en masse.

What will he do next?

He’s still a full-time professor at Husson, he answered. He will build a couple of houses. He’s involved in a telecommunications venture. And he will still run his summer basketball camps.

One thing he won’t do is hang over Caruso’s shoulder when the season rolls around again. But he will watch the Braves.

He is content to leave his historical placement to the fans. He’s heard the cheers and he’s heard the jeers; about how Husson’s run-and-gun style was easy to coach; about how in recent years the Braves won because they had scholarship money to give that most of the competition did not.

What he didn’t have to talk about was the positive impact he has had on his community by recruiting both the downtown shooters from small Maine towns and the playground stars from the inner cities up and down the east coast. For a lot of years, Bruce MacGregor put black and white together and made it come out Husson Green.

As the press conference broke up, MacGregor was asked if he might be back coaching, somewhere, someday?

“I’d never shut the door,” said the coach, as the moment of his retirement officially arrived.