BANGOR — Anthony Amero is living proof that good things happen to good people. But if he and his wife Ami had stuck with the original plan, he would not have been on the Cross Insurance Center basketball court on Saturday afternoon, celebrating his second state championship in three years with the Forest Hills boys basketball team.
“My wife and I went to Jackman, we were going to do one year, until she had enough years teaching,” Amero said after his Tigers beat Fort Fairfield’s Tigers 51-45. “We were there for six months, fell in love with the community, fell in love with the kids. We bought a house. We hadn’t been married a year. We decided we wanted to be around the folks that are there. Just good, quality people.”
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This season was Amero’s 18th as the head basketball coach at Forest Hills, and it was inarguably his best. The Tigers went 22-0, the only boys basketball team in the state, regardless of class, to run the gauntlet undefeated.
Two years ago, when the Tigers beat Central Aroostook for the first boys basketball title in school history, the win came as a pleasant surprise. This season’s team was expected to be among the best Class D teams in the state. Amero had four seniors who had been varsity contributors since they were freshmen. That didn’t make Saturday’s victory celebration any more low key than the one the Tigers had in 2013 in the now-gone Bangor Auditorium.
“It means so much to bring the Gold Ball back to our community. Basketball’s been big there since it was first played,” Amero said. “Our fans are exceptional. We had over 1,500 people here today and we don’t have that many people in town.”
The Amero plan was to do one year in Jackman, then see the world.
“We were going to go to Japan, that was our plan,” Amero said.
Plans quickly changed. Amero grew up in Monmouth, and found the pull of another small town was too much to resist. Jackman is one of the most isolated communities in the state. A few miles from the Quebec border, Jackman is 112 miles from the state capitol in Augusta and surrounded by forest. It’s approximately the same distance from Jackman to Quebec City.
Amero, who will celebrate his 44th birthday next month, turned a one-year trip into the woods into a vocation. Eighteen of his 25 years coaching basketball, which started as the junior high girls basketball coach at Williams Junior High School in Oakland, have been in Jackman.
Amero embraced the support of the small town community, and it embraced him back.
“I don’t know if I could ever get that someplace else. I just don’t. We won today, we won as a family. It just does my heart good, and I love every one of these kids to death, right down from the leading scorer to the kid with the pencils and the book,” Amero said.
Saturday’s win was number 236 for Amero, by far the most in Forest Hills boys basketball coaching history. The next closest is Darryl Peary, with 54 wins. Amero brushed off the win total, chalking it up to longevity.
“Nobody else wants to stay that long,” Amero joked.
It’s more than that, obviously. Forest Hills is always one of the smallest public schools in the state. According to the state championship game program, Forest Hills has an enrollment of 54 students this season, less than half the number of Saturday’s opponent, Fort Fairfield (130 students). There have been seasons in which Amero took eight or nine players into each game, some of which barely had any playing experience.
The Tigers still won. This year’s undefeated campaign was the Tigers’ 11th winning season in a row.
“He means a lot to Forest Hills. We couldn’t have done this without his help. He’s a good man,” said Forest Hills senior Matt Turner, who scored his 1,000th career point this season.
“He’s a really good coach. He knows what he’s doing in the tight games, the tight situations,” senior Ryan Petrin, who scored 16 points and grabbed 18 rebounds on Saturday, said. “Just give it up to him. He’s a real good coach.”
Forest Hills and the people of Jackman have become Amero’s extended family. With his gregarious personality and demeanor, it was easy to do.
“We don’t have kids of our own, so it’s a family-like atmosphere. The kids come to our house all the time,” Amero said. “It’s tough when they graduate. I feel like a parent sometimes. There’s a lot of tears at my house when these kids move on. I love them like they’re my own, and I hope I’ve had some sort of good influence on them.”
Among the dozens of people waiting to congratulate Amero were basketball alumni, many of whom come back to give the Tigers opponents to scrimmage. Amero looked at them, and looked at his current team, celebrating together.
Eighteen years into a one-year plan, Amero smiled. These kids were enthusiastic. They had no fear.
“That’s good for life. They’re going to compete in life. I can’t be any prouder of these kids,” Amero said.
Travis Lazarczyk — 861-9242
Twitter: @TLazarczykMTM
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