Basketball: New Start For Phoenix
LIVERMORE FALLS — It was a fresh start and a new beginning for all basketball teams in Maine on Monday.
At Livermore Falls, it was a unique start for two basketball programs. The Spruce Mountain Phoenix started practicing and began a new history as the winter basketball seaons tipped off.
With the Jay and Livermore Falls athletic teams combining this season, the Phoenix have risen out of that merger.
It has put two well-known coaches in familiar, yet different circumstances. Chris Bessey, who coached the girls' team at Jay last year, is at the helm of the boys' program, while Gavin Kane has returned to the high school level to coach the girls' squad.
Though both coaches are well-proven, starting from scratch still takes some adjustments. On the first day of practice, the basketball court at Jay wasn't ready. So that forced a move to the gym at Livermore Falls.
"It was very chaotic," Bessey said. "Things started really quickly. School gets out at 2:10. Then everybody had to come down from the North Campus, and then we didn't have basketballs because they didn't have basketball down (at Livermore Falls)."
It is those kinds of logistical things that are most prevalent now in this combined scenario. With many of the athletes having adjusted to the merge during the fall season, the coaches have the biggest adjustments.
"It's more of an adjustment that I'm coaching boys now rather than the fact that I'm coaching a combination school," said Bessey, who coached the girls' team at Jay the last eight seasons.
That meant Bessey is getting used to a new group of players, whether they're from Jay or Livermore Falls. That meant a different approach to opening day.
"Being a new coach for the program, there was a lot of teaching done today where as when I was with the girls, it was more like a review," said Bessey, who also had coached the boys varsity teams at the two schools.
Livermore Falls went 11-7 last year and lost in the quarterfinals. Jay also went 11-7 and just missed the playoffs. Jake Bessey, Zach Bonnevie, James Barker and Nate Shink are all returning starters from Jay, while Tyler Gervais and Trevin Dunlop each saw plenty of time with the Tigers. Ben Keene is the only returning player from Livermore Falls who saw significant time last year. The Andies graduated nine seniors.
Well Drilling Southern Maine - News
Spruce Mountain boys varsity basketball coach Chris Bessey watches a drill during the first day of practice at the South Campus of the school Monday afternoon. LIVERMORE FALLS — It was a fresh start and a new beginning for all basketball teams in
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Also, 2012 is an election year, and there are many in the GOP that think it's time to drill into the issues that helped Republicans sweep into power in 2010. "I would much rather we focus energy on our economic agenda and making the state a better
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Wednesday, Nov. 16, 2011: Two Maines, reducing the deficit and ...
Two Maines, again
You could have bet the family farm that Question 2 was going to lose. The population and the wealth of the state is concentrated in southern Maine, a population far too self-centered and greedy to share any of the “goodies” with their poor neighbors to the north.
There really are two Maines. Northern Maine, the real Maine, and southern Maine, better known as northern Massachusetts, complete with all the vices and problems of “modern” living. Unfortunately it is likely to remain this way. Money talks and it speaks for, and owns, southern Maine and its politicians.
Up here in northern Maine, we may remain poor but we can hold our heads high and know that this is where the slogan “the way life should be” applies.
Hal Goodman
Eastport
Experiment didn’t workAs the congressional supercommittee approaches another deadline to do something about the federal deficit and work towards a reduction in spending, I find hypocrisy with the semantics used.
At a local hospital, over 80 percent of patients have some form of government health care. The cost of health care is in the news on a regular basis. I know no one to be happy with their policy.
The cost of the war in Iraq now has a price tag over $3 trillion. The cost of Obamacare is over $2 trillion. War in Iraq is patriotism, yet Obamacare is communism, they say.
Oil drilling rights have increased on public lands in the past few years. Gas prices have driven Exxon Mobil profits up 41 percent. These profits are the good business sense of capitalism. To add a tax to their profits is considered socialism.
We are told by Congress that we should not add additional taxes to U.S. corporations, as they need money to reinvest in company growth. However, in the past months, several networks report that U.S. corporations are holding over $2 trillion dollars in cash.
We are told Social Security is going broke, yet Congress cut the Social Security deduction from our pay. Bush entered office with a budget surplus with a chance to reduce the deficit. He chose to reduce taxes. Congress continues on the same path. Our deficit continues to rise. This experiment did not work. It needs to change. Everyone needs to pay their fair share.