We knew Joanne P. McCallie when.
Have you noticed we don’t say those words too often in Maine and apply them to sports figures?
Sure, there’s the occasional horror writer or stateswoman who develops more than a cult following. But usually when we’re discussing a famous person with “Maine roots,” it unravels into a version of that Kevin Bacon-inspired, six-degrees-of-separation game.
That is, his cousin’s neighbor’s chiropractor attended the University of New England for a semester back in 1981. Or she owns a summer cottage in Islesboro.
As for our athletes and coaches who get good enough to leave, we expect them to fail. Deep down, most of us want them to flirt with greatness. Then we want a courtside seat when stark reality comes and kicks them in the fanny.
What’s funny is that I remember sitting in a post-game press conference with McCallie and three other ink-stained wretches in the mid-1990s when she addressed that precise subject.
Somebody asked the University of Maine women’s basketball coach (she was Palombo then, that maiden name so linked to her celebrity) about the thrill of four consecutive 20-win seasons in America East and the subsequent agony of being fed as a sacrificial lamb to Connecticut, George Washington, Louisiana State and North Carolina State in the NCAA Tournament.
Her brutally honest answer insinuated that the Black Bears were somehow the perfect poster child for a state that seems to relish being “in” the boundless sporting world but not “of” it. Time has clouded the specific context, but I’ll never forget one turn of phrase. McCallie observed that many Mainers have a “built-in inferiority complex.”
Major college coaches are notorious for lulling reporters into a deadline siesta with their pre-heated platitudes about “team defense” and “leaving it all on the court,” but to this day I’ve never heard a coach say something so profoundly right-on. I scribbled it down, used it with attribution that day and have flagrantly stolen, um, I mean borrowed it in casual conversation ever since.
Because it’s so true it isn’t funny. The only thing louder than the cheers and plaudits while our hopefuls are soaring through our system is the I-told-you-so rhetoric when they move to a larger pond and get caught in the food chain. Somehow, it must make us feel better about our six-month winter or our exorbitant tax burden.
Hey, I’ve been part of it, too. Ricky Craven goes barrel-rolling into a wall at Talladega, Joey Gamache gets knocked out by Tony Lopez, Andy Bedard and T.J. Caouette become intimately acquainted with the bench in the Big East and suddenly we’re all professional talent scouts.
On the list of hollow compliments, “pretty good, for a Mainer” ranks right down there with “she has one whale of a personality” or “you look wonderful tonight.”
At best, it’s loser thinking.
Not only did McCallie isolate the problem, she started doing something about it while she still lived and worked here.
In 1999, after a stunning loss to Northeastern in the America East tournament, she’d done so much to elevate Maine’s national stature that the Black Bears received an at-large bid to the field of 64. Maine then struck a blow for mid-major programs everywhere by eliminating perennial power and former national champion Stanford.
Inevitably, after guiding Maine to another at-large berth in 2000, she was gone. McCallie took the top job at Michigan State, a raise in pay and potential but probably less than a lateral move in the women’s basketball world at the time. The Spartans stunk. They were dwarfed by Mateen Cleaves, Tom Izzo and the title-winning men’s program.
Back home, the inferiority complex acted up. With disturbing glee, we awaited the fall.
News flash: We can keep waiting. If McCallie left for East Lansing with a five-year plan, the final season just produced 33 wins and an improbable appearance in the national championship game.
Yeah, Baylor whipped Michigan State on Tuesday night. The Spartans could have used less size, more quickness and at least one conscience-challenged 3-point shooter.
Over the course of three weeks, however, McCallie became a superstar. She symbolizes the ever-increasing depth and the new face of women’s basketball. She has hooked a 2005-06 recruiting class that would make her successor in Orono, Sharon Versyp, insane with envy.
McCallie handled the spotlight with grace, class and the intensity we came to know and love. After Michigan State takes the final step in a season or two, she’ll still be one of the coolest people in all of collegiate athletics.
And yes, the journey began on what might as well have been another planet: In Maine.
Deal with that.
Kalle Oakes is a staff writer. His e-mail is koakes@sunjournal.com.
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