The hollering from Locker Room No. 3 at the north end of Augusta Civic Center prompted an exchange of quizzical looks, followed by doubled-over laughs, among every coach and reporter within earshot Saturday night.
Dirigo boys’ basketball players were, ahem, enjoying a moment. They’ve shared enough of them for our enjoyment over the years. All the adult stakeholders and curiosity-seekers owed them this one, even if we’re better off not knowing what took place.
Celebrations are a funny thing in sports. In the professional realm, they’re usually more reflective of an athlete or team’s personality than actual achievement. Perhaps nobody in the history of games people play had more cause to thump their chests and dance ’til dawn than NFL greats Jim Brown, Walter Payton, Barry Sanders and Jerry Rice, yet all four made “act like you’ve been there before” a way of life.
Other times, the degree of glee is directly proportional to the amount of time you’ve gone without hardware. Eighty-six years between World Series championships? Forty-two season before your first Lombardi Trophy? Party up.
The Cougars’ drought: 1,093 days, give or take. Tyler Frost chalked up substantial minutes for Dirigo’s 2012 Class C championship team. Fellow seniors Kaine Hutchins, Cody Dolloff, Nick St. Germain all were part of the program. They don’t need YouTube or a dog-eared, dusty yearbook to bask in the memory, let’s put it that way.
Around these parts, though, two dry seasons are an eternity in basketball. Or in any sport. We’ve labeled Dixfield and the neighboring villages that feed into Dirigo “Titletown,” and there’s nothing remotely ironic or hyperbolic about it. With its convincing 68-51 victory over Maranacook late Saturday night, Dirigo won the Class C West championship for the fifth time in seven seasons.
And boys’ basketball isn’t the only place it happens. Every winter sport at Dirigo performed at a championship level in 2014-15. Girls’ basketball reached Saturday’s regional title round. Wrestling repeated as state champions. Skiing won a Mountain Valley Conference crown. Cheerleading ruled Western Maine and finished second in the state. In other seasons, baseball and football have championships legacies. Soccer, softball and field hockey are perennially good.
It’s a dynasty, and a cluster of dynasties, in a time when one has never been harder to build. Enrollments in Maine are bottoming out almost everywhere. Families in America are splintered for a variety of reasons. Coaches don’t stick around, often due to external influences. Athletes choose to specialize in one sport, or they give up playing completely in high school.
These seem to be universal trends, and certainly the towns of RSU 10 don’t have any special formula. There’s nothing “in the water,” as it’s popular to say. Dirigo isn’t immune from the foolishness that ensnares the rest of us.
So how do they continue winning with such consistency and class? There are a hundred reasons, but the easy answer is the people. They are genuinely good-hearted folks. Most of the adults grew up here, and therefore hold more than a property-tax interest in the excellence of the schools and their athletic programs. It is an emotional investment. It is love.
Teenagers are wrongly labeled “young adults” by grown-ups who want to rush the developmental process. They’re kids. They need role models, and the kids at Dirigo have no shortage of good ones. Good moms, good dads, good grandparents, good teachers, good coaches, good administrators, good athletic trainers and good neighbors.
There is freedom when you’re surrounded by all that goodness. Dirigo athletes are free to play and practice without politics; free to succeed and fail without fear. They’re free to spend time together away from the court, the field or the mat and evolve from friends into brothers and sisters.
Dirigo doesn’t always win, but it always has fun, and it always returns to the same reception whether it wins or loses. If you witnessed the unbridled joy with which the girls played a game in which they trailed from the get-go, and the sincere appreciation with which their fans cheered their runner-up effort Saturday night, you get it.
Other schools in our region, even if it’s unintentional, place an extraordinary amount of pressure on their athletes. The tension when they take the court is palpable. The look in their eyes is one of playing not to lose. When they do lose, it is never a shock.
Less is more when you’re dealing with kids. Send them into battle secure in the knowledge that building relationships and representing their community are the most important elements of the game, and a funny thing happens. Wins follow.
Dirigo wins. Dirigo wins the right way. And that’s something to celebrate.
For the whole world to hear.
Kalle Oakes is a staff writer. His email is koakes@sunjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @Oaksie72.
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