TOPSHAM

“The best athletic director is one who has enough sense to hire good coaches to do the work that needs to be done. And … self restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it.” Plaque in Colin Roy’s office

Mt. Ararat High School is desolate save a couple of main office workers and a few straggling teachers.

Colin Roy, the school’s athletic director, is moving a cart up and down the hallway. He is packing up nearly two decades worth of memorabilia and momentos as he braces for another chapter in his 59 years on this planet — retirement.

For 16 years Colin has surveyed fields, diamonds and hardcourts alike, watching his Mt. Ararat players and coaches evolve with each passing season.

If there’s a football game, you’ll likely see him up in the booth. Who’s gonna turn on the soccer/lacrosse field lights? Probably Colin.

Change in the weather, change in the schedule. Better check with Colin when it comes to what’s happening on Eagles Way.

Colin, who cut his teaching and coaching teeth at Williams Middle School in Oakland and Hall-Dale High School in Farmingdale, took time out Tuesday from his deskcleaning duties to reflect on his career here in the Mid-coast region.

Interestingly, one of his last official acts was to oversee the recent Spring Sports Awards Night, where, unbeknownst to him, the Mt. Ararat community was planning a bit of a surprise send-off.

In his honor, the brand-new Colin Roy Award will be presented to an outgoing senior who competed in three sports each year over a four-year career. Just talking about the importance of this award and the outpouring of love and respect by those in attendance, caused him to well up.

“I was speechless … normally if you get me talking, I don’t stop. I could go on forever. I have all kinds of anecdotes — you’re in education for 37 years, involved with sports for 37 years, you can tell a whole litany of stories. It was unbelievable and I was speechless.”

Memory Lane

But, he deflects all that and starts reminiscing, gladly taking a local scribe down memory lane where the foundation of a pretty darn good career was laid.

“I’m feeling pretty good … I think I’ve had plenty of time to get ready for this point. I’ve had a chance to talk to people, to say good-bye to people. Not that I’m going to disappear off the face of the earth.”

He has seen a myriad of changes in the athletic director’s position. When he first took over he also oversaw the middle school, which at the time was housed in the Old Brunswick High School. Trying to share two offices with limited resources and a busted phone … was a pain.

“There is a lot more work than just the administrative work with the MPA (Maine Principals Association). In the old days coaches would turn in their roster and you would just fax them in. Now, they have to be entered electronically. All the schedules, the rosters, everything.

“If you don’t have a secretary, and I don’t, that means that you sit down and enter in all the information and updates. And then all the changes, so that’s just another piece of the meal.

“Fortunately, for me, this job morphed into just high school athletics and the job became a little easier. But, still, long hours and 60-70 hour weeks.

“Most people don’t understand that you’re always on call. You can be home on Saturday with no home event and you’d be getting a phone call because someone got injured, or the bus was not there, or no officials.”

But, Colin is right there to quickly add that there is a huge upside to being an athletic director and that translates to the coaches and students he’s so intertwined with.

“The joy, of course, is watching kids representing your school and kids who compete and do well, have some success and grow from freshmen to seniors. And you can see that change. And, watching your coaches working hard to get their teams ready … and of all the work that they have to do. That’s the joy of it.”

Taste for Gatorade

Along the way, Colin developed a wicked taste for Gatorade with Cuyler Goodwin (track, three times), Beth Wilcox (track), Jenn Moreau (track), Mark Rogers (baseball), Erika Stupinksi (soccer) named Gatorade Player of the Year during his tenure.

He also witnessed 1,000-point scorers in basketball with Mark Gilbride, Ricky White, Jimmy Hunt, Stupinski and Erin Johnson, while wrestling and girls basketball earned MPA Good Sportsmanship banners.

The downside of athletics is the actions and events that Colin can’t control. Unruly fans/parents, weather, etc.

“What happened to me is that it got to a point where some of the peripheral stuff that had nothing to do with athletics. I’m not sure that it became more prevalent, but more annoying, because it was just unnecessary.

“Whether it be behavior at games … which I have never understood how anyone could rationalize that behavior as justifiable. How does it fit in the realm of high school athletics? And, how is that role modeling for kids?

“We have punishments for kids who don’t have good behavior, but then we have the people who are supposed to be the models exhibiting behavior that’s not even close to what the kids are exhibiting. That becomes a distraction and I think it takes away from your school and what you’re trying to accomplish. I don’t want to be a policeman and it became more and more evident that was what you had to do.”

He never once sat down to keep track of team and individual championships, but has enjoyed his celebrated athletes down through the seasons.

“I don’t think about it because it’s all about my coaches and all my kids. I know we’ve hosted a lot of events here which is nice. We have done a lot of KVAC (Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference) championship events here, which were great.

“When I think of all the championships we’ve won I just think about the coaches and how hard they’ve worked with the kids to get to that point.”

There are also no top stories or games that stick out, but again, just those individuals involved.

“I just think about the majority of coaches I’ve really enjoyed working with. When I started 16 years ago, there are some who are still here. I’ve made a lot of friends … who will be my life-long friends.

“I’ve had coaches like (track and cross country) Diane Fournier, who I’ve never ever had to worry about at all. Never! She’s just on top of her program and its nice to know that you have coaches who you don’t have to worry about because they take care of their programs. They get things done.

“As far as kids? We’ve had so many kids who were fun to talk to and they were not the high-powered athletes, but kids who worked hard and gained with their self-confidence. And maybe they had trouble with their academics and turned it around.”

Lots of plusses

Plusses are also upgrades to the school’s physical complex, the official retiring of Rogers’ No. 8 jersey number, a State Class A championship baseball game with Deering at a packed Hadlock Field in Portland, and the occasional faux pas.

His favorite was an overtime home girls lacrosse game with Messalonskee, played under the lights. In girls lacrosse, two, three-minute OT periods are played out with aggregate score winning.

Let Colin explain: “It goes into overtime and in that first overtime period we scored like, four, five goals. So, I’m thinking ‘great, the game’s over.’ So, I snapped two of the lights off and left the other two on so that people could get off the field. I had a brain-cramp, but the problem is that the lights won’t come back on! I wanted to hide down there in that little shed.”

For now he’s not thinking about the future, just “how fortunate I have been to have the job that I have had over the last 37 years.”

He started out as an Ed tech and study hall monitor at Williams and moved on as a model of consistency among the AD ranks.

He turns 60 in September (when typically the only days off he had were Sundays) and hopes to organize a benefit softball tournament because his dad pitched at the young age of 60 and Colin, a national-caliber fast-pitch player in his younger days, wants to do likewise.

There will be a lot of golf, some fishing, day trips with wife Sharon, and possibly substituting at a middle school.

“But, for now, I just need to gear it down a little bit, get my life back a little bit, and we’ll see what happens. The thing that I think will have the most impact will be not being around people and I don’t know how that will make me feel. I just know that I’m not going to have a scheduled life … I’ll miss the people I’ve worked with, miss the kids that I’ve watched compete, and I’ll miss a number of parents who were very supportive and really had the best interests in mind.”

Final thoughts?

He simply would like to be remembered “as someone who really tried to do the best they could with what resources they had.

“Tried to make sure the coaches and teams had the best opportunities possible.

“And, I’ve been asked to do some pretty interesting things that were not in the best interests of the ‘whole’ or all of the programs. The decisions that I made, and the things that I did, were with the whole in mind, not just the small parts.”

GEORGE ALMASI is the Times Record sports editor. He can be reached at galmasi@timesrecord.com