A great Maine tradition \u2014 the annual high school basketball tournament \u2014 concludes on March 1 and 2 with 10 title games for girls and boys across five different classes to be contested in packed arenas in Bangor, Augusta, and Portland.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a tourney, by the way, that Bates founded 97 years ago.<\/p>\n
In the winter of 1922, Bates\u2019 promotions-minded athletics director, Carl H. Smith, invited eight schoolboy teams to Lewiston to compete for the first statewide high school hoops title. (A girls\u2019 tourney would have to wait until Title IX and the 1970s.)<\/p>\n
Held March 10 and 11, the inaugural Bates Interscholastic Basketball Tournament took place in the old auditorium of Lewiston City Hall, and the tournament teams were selected by Smith and the sports editors of Lewiston\u2019s two daily newspapers, the Journal <\/em>and the Daily Sun<\/em>.<\/p>\n (In later years, as the tournament grew in importance, the selection committee would expand to comprise the Bates AD and two coaches, plus sportswriters from Lewiston\u2019s two daily papers and Portland\u2019s three papers, the Press Herald<\/em>, the Express<\/em>, and the News.<\/em>)<\/p>\n Scenes from the Portland-Deering game at the 1935 Bates Interscholastic Basketball Tournament at the Lewiston Armory feature old fashioned granny shots and set shots, a very young Ed Muskie ’36, and a grumpy coach. Film courtesy of the Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n
\n