Bob Beatham is much more than just a voice

I met Bob Beatham when he was a student at Bangor High school where I was the Bangor High School physical education department head and physical education teacher. All four years he was a student at Bangor High from 1987-1990 he was a manager for the basketball and baseball teams.

Bob was a manager for two of the most successful coaches in their respective sports in the history of Maine high school basketball, Roger Reed and the history of Maine high school baseball, Bob Kelley. Both coaches won 8 state class A championships in their respective sports.

After graduating from the high school on outer Broadway in Bangor (one of three high schools on Broadway in Bangor, along with John Bapst Memorial High School and Bangor Christian High School), he attended University of Maine at Farmington where he was the official basketball scorer his junior and senior years for both basketball teams.

After graduating from UMF in 1995 he was the JV basketball coach at Bangor Christian in 1995-96.

Then he moved on to John Bapst in 1996-97 to be my volunteer varsity assistant for 2 seasons. Then from 1998-2000 he was my freshen basketball coach until I retired in 2000. He still remained the freshmen coach for 7 more years and his last year coaching at Bapst he was the JV coach, retiring from coaching in 2008.

Having been under Coach Roger Reed for 4 years as a high school basketball manager and 2 years being a scorer for UMF and the year at Bangor Christian being their JV coach, 2 years as my volunteer assistant coach at Bapst, I felt he could certainly do the job I needed for a freshmen coach at John Bapst. Bob was my freshmen coach for 3 years from 1998-2000 until I retired in 2000.

In a private high school that does not have a middle school team it was extremely important that we identified the type of players we needed to help our varsity program. I asked Bob and my JV coaches to give me 3 players from their teams a year that could help our varsity program by the times they were juniors or seniors.

We had no idea what kind of basketball talent we had with each incoming freshmen class until we saw them in the summer program.

The freshmen and JV basketball programs at Bapst ran the same type of basketball program for us as the varsity program. Same discipline, team rules and policies, same basketball strategy and the coaches’ evaluation was not their win-loss record but did they give the varsity 3 players from their teams that could contribute to the varsity.

The real secret to the success of the Bapst boys program for 20 years from 1980-2000 and girls program under Mike Webb for 15 years from 2002-17 was “teaching the life lessons that cannot be taught or learned in the academic classrooms” was the mission statement of the basketball programs and using the biggest strengths of the players which usually was their intelligence and high IQ’s.

Bob Beatham was very successful in doing this and this was not an easy job when you have to take players from many different middle schools and make them understand the basketball philosophy and discipline that it takes to run our offensive and defensive strategies along with “teaching the life lessons that cannot be learned or taught in the academic classrooms”.

Usually we had about 15 freshmen candidates a season. We would tell them that by the time they were juniors and seniors that we would only need 3 of them for the varsity. They were told how the program works and it’s philosophy and that we were looking for team oriented, coachable and disciplined players that eventually help the varsity and these things would be started with their freshmen year and that the coach would have my complete backing in instilling what I expected from him and the team and the players.

Bob was like a basketball sponge, absorbing everything I could want for as a freshmen coach as he immediately instilled the objectives of what I wanted and for good measure he won the Eastern Maine Class B/C Freshmen League Championship during his very first year as the freshmen coach.

There was never a year where he did not end up having at least 3 juniors and 3 seniors ready to compete for the varsity team.

For a coach who had never played the game, he certainly took to coaching as if he was a long time player. On a scale of 9 to 10 with 10 being THE HIGHEST I RATED HIM AS A FRESHMEN COACH doing everything I expected of a freshmen coach as a 9………………………TEEN.

He was a dot all the i’s and cross all the t’s kind of young coach.

This certainly has contributed to his success in his professional life as he is the Service Coordinator for Aging Excellence in the Bangor area. This is a non-medical agency for home care for seniors. The attention to detail he learned as a coach has really helped in his position and career today.

After Bob retired from coaching he stayed on as the official basketball scorer for both John Bapst basketball teams which he still does today.

When John Bapst moved their home football games several years ago to Husson University, I missed hearing Bob’s voice on the PA system at Cameron Stadium at Garland St. Field as when the wind was blowing towards my house on Howard Street his great tones would flow into my house.

Currently, he is still announcing on the PA for Bapst football games at Husson and still does the score book for the Bapst basketball teams at Bangor’s Cross Insurance Center.

Bob just finished his 23rd year as the Mansfield Stadium baseball announcer and his 20th year as the football announcer for John Bapst football. He also did the announcing for Brewer football for 18 seasons.

He has filled in as a MAINE BASEBALL/BASKETBALL/VOLLEYBALL announcer over the years when needed.

He currently writes a BLOG for the Bangor Daily News during the school year entitled the PRESS BOX covering high school athletics in the fall, winter and spring seasons.

Bob has certainly contributed to high school athletics in the Bangor area over the years as a basketball coach, public address announcer and writer.

So as this BLOG titles states, Bob Beatham is much more than a voice.

His voice has made it to the national level when he did the PAing at Mansfield during the 10 of the 15 years the national senior little league championship game was at Mansfield Baseball Stadium was televised by ESPN.