Football
Maine's football team competes in the Colonial Athletic Association. Prior to the 2007 season, the NCAA football league was sponsored by the Atlantic 10 Conference. The football program has produced many professional football players and coaches, such as center Mike Flynn, offensive lineman Justin Strzelczyk, quarterback Mike Buck, wide receiver/coach Phil McGeoghan, Pro Bowl linebacker Lofa Tatupu, who transferred to USC after his freshman year, linebacker Stephen Cooper, Pro Bowl fullback/special teams Montell Owens, defensive back Daren Stone, tight end Matthew Mulligan, defensive lineman Mike DeVito, linebacker Jovan Belcher and defensive back Brandon McGowan. Current Iowa coach, and 2002 AP National Coach of the Year Kirk Ferentz began his head coaching career at Maine. The team also received brief publicity when the Oakland Raiders selected wide receiver Kevin McMahan as the last player in the 2006 NFL Draft, affectionately known as Mr. Irrelevant. The University of Maine is known currently to have the most active players on NFL rosters at the Division 1 FCS level.
The team has played several Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) opponents and is slowly progressing to develop into a Division I FBS program. The team has played teams in recent years such as Iowa, Rutgers, Hawaii, Mississippi State, Nebraska, Connecticut, Syracuse, and Pittsburgh in 2011. In 2004, The Maine Black Bears defeated Mississippi State University, 9-7. This marked the first time that Maine defeated a Division I FBS opponent. The largest crowd that the Black Bears have ever played in front of was 77,469 fans at Memorial Stadium, when Maine fell, 25–7, to the Nebraska Cornhuskers in Lincoln. The team currently plays its games at Harold Alfond Stadium. The team is scheduled to play BCS games at the ACC's Boston College in 2012 and the Big Ten's Northwestern in 2013.
Active Players
- Derek Buttles, TE, Buffalo Bills
- Derek Session, WR, Buffalo Bills
- Pushaun Brown, RB, New York Jets
- Stephen Cooper, LB, San Diego Chargers
- Trevor Coston, S, Chicago Bears
- Mike DeVito, DL, New York Jets
- Brandon McGowan, S, Free Agent
- Jerron McMillian, S, Green Bay Packers
- Matthew Mulligan, TE, St. Louis Rams
- Montell Owens, Pro Bowl FB/ST, Jacksonville Jaguars
- Daren Stone, S, Calgary Stampeders CFL
- Lofa Tatupu (transferred to USC), Pro Bowl LB, Atlanta Falcons
Read more about this topic: Maine Black Bears
Famous quotes containing the word football:
“People stress the violence. That’s the smallest part of it. Football is brutal only from a distance. In the middle of it there’s a calm, a tranquility. The players accept pain. There’s a sense of order even at the end of a running play with bodies stewn everywhere. When the systems interlock, there’s a satisfaction to the game that can’t be duplicated. There’s a harmony.”
—Don Delillo (b. 1926)
“...I’m not money hungry.... People who are rich want to be richer, but what’s the difference? You can’t take it with you. The toys get different, that’s all. The rich guys buy a football team, the poor guys buy a football. It’s all relative.”
—Martina Navratilova (b. 1956)
“In football they measure forty-yard sprints. Nobody runs forty yards in basketball. Maybe you run the ninety-four feet of the court; then you stop, not on a dime, but on Miss Liberty’s torch. In football you run over somebody’s face.”
—Donald Hall (b. 1928)