To the editor:
I heard some very upsetting news on Rene’s sports show on WAGM-TV on May 19th. The position of athletic director at UMPI, who is Bill Casavant, is being eliminated. I do not understand how a University System with the number of varsity sports and a physical education and recreation major curriculum can be without an athletic director especially one with the qualifications, experience and knowledge of sports that Bill has. Bill and I were classmates at UMPI receiving our BS degree’s together in physical education and then again at UMO receiving our master’s degree in education. I have also worked for Bill at NMCC with his popular basketball camps for boys and girls many summers which was one of the top camps in the area because of his organizational skills and his coaching staff. He not only was an outstanding athlete himself, he was outstanding coach for many years in soccer, basketball and baseball for local area high schools and college teams and has received many awards for his accomplishments.
In Bill’s position at NMCC as the director of admissions for many years he traveled throughout New England speaking to high school students, therefore bringing many of these students to our area to continue their education. These contacts he made at all these different high schools outside of Presque Isle and The County were very valuable in recruiting athletes to UMPI’s sport teams in his position as athletic director at UMPI. The job that Bill held for a short time as athletic director has put UMPI on the map in athletics, maybe not in the win/loss records, but in the public eye. UMPI’s teams have traveled all over the United States competing in the athletic arena. What better way to have northern Maine shine and entice young ladies and men to come to our area for a great education, which could be lost as Bill leaves, and my understanding this is not by his choice. Bill understands what it is to be an athlete and an academic student and is very willing to help these students to accomplish their goals.
I don’t know what UMPI plans to do without an athletic director, but I do feel the athletic teams there will suffer. I believe all the other Maine colleges and universities, that have the number of sports in their conference that UMPI has, all have athletic directors. I also feel there will be much confusion with scheduling of games and events, officials, travel, booking events at the local high school fields (such as the Johnson Athletic Complex of SAD 1, with soccer games and spring activities at the Dyer ball fields) and all the other ‘cleaning up’ jobs, too many to count, that athletic directors need to perform and go on unnoticed.
With the loss of Bill Casavant, UMPI has not only lost an outstanding alumni and a member of its own Owls Athletic Hall of Fame in their faculty, they have lost a person who has given to the education of young adults for over 40 years, with teaching, coaching, officiating and community leadership. I would like to know why our university will be without its Athletic Director, Bill Casavant, and what the university has for a plan to fill this hole.
Presque Isle
