A former star athlete for Deering High School and Bowdoin College was killed Monday afternoon when the car he was driving on Route 1 in Cumberland crossed into the opposite lane of traffic and hit a dump truck, Cumberland police said.

Paul Soule, 78, of North Yarmouth was driving a Subaru Outback south on Route 1 just after noon when it veered into a fully loaded Crooker Construction Co. dump truck driven by Trevor Lamoreau, 54, of Richmond, police said. Soule died at the scene and Lamoreau was taken to Maine Medical Center with what police described as minor injuries.

Soule was an unusually gifted  athlete during his youth. A quarterback, Soule led the Deering High School football team to the state championship in 1959. During the southwestern Maine track meet in 1961 at the former Portland Expo, Soule stood out winning the shot put, hurdles, 40-yard dash and the 300-yard run, according to his younger brother, Mort Soule of Portland.

“There will never be another performance like that,” Soule said in a telephone interview Monday evening. “He was by far the best athlete in our family though none of us like to admit it.”

The Soule family is so well known at Bowdoin College for their athletic accomplishments that the college posted a tribute (prior to Monday’s fatal crash). “No single family has had a greater impact on Bowdoin’s athletic program than the Soule Family. Father William ’36 and his sons Paul ’66, Mort ’68, Jim ’77 and Phil have produced a lasting legacy – particularly in the Bowdoin football program,”  the tribute reads.

Mort Soule said his brother sold his home in Cumberland Center two months ago and was in the process of building of his own home in North Yarmouth.

“He was a very skilled carpenter,” Soule said.

Paul Soule was inducted into the Maine Sports Hall of Fame.

After the crash, Route 1 was closed from the Yarmouth line to Tuttle Road for nearly four hours, police said, and a crew from the Maine Department of Environmental Protection was called to the scene because of fluid leaks from the vehicles. Fire crews from Cumberland, Yarmouth and Falmouth, as well as police from Cumberland, Yarmouth, Falmouth, the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office and the Maine State Police were at the scene.

Cumberland police said an investigation into the crash is continuing, but no criminal charges are anticipated.