A popular debate topic for old-time Bangor High School sports fans concerns former Rams great Leroy Patterson and just what his best sport was.
A two-year, all-state performer in both football and basketball as well as a standout center fielder in baseball during the early 1960s, Patterson even made time to compete in track and field and was considered the school’s best tennis player.
The answer to the question from those who know? All of them.
“My father used to say — and he never missed a game in all the sports back in those days — that Leroy was the best all-around athlete to come out of Bangor High School,” said Paul Newman, a high school teammate of Patterson in football, basketball and baseball.
“There might have been a better baseball player, a better basketball player or a better football player, and he was outstanding in track and tennis, too. But he thought Leroy was the best all-around athlete to come out of Bangor High School.”
Patterson drew interest from the major leagues but ultimately earned a football scholarship from the University of Cincinnati. He was named most valuable player of the freshman team after the running back led the “Bearkittens” in scoring and rushing. He opted to return to Bangor where he competed on the area’s semi-pro basketball circuit and embarked on a 33-year career with the University of Maine Police Department.
Patterson, who died of cancer in 2012 at age 67, was inducted into the Maine Sports Hall of Fame earlier this year and on Sunday will enter the Maine Basketball Hall of Fame during induction ceremonies at the Cross Insurance Center in Bangor. Sixteen new inductees will join the Hall along with six Legends of the Game.
“Leroy had a lot of class,” said Bob Cimbollek, a 2017 Hall of Fame inductee who preceded Patterson at Bangor High but coached against him at the high school level level and was a semi-pro basketball teammate. “In basketball, you wouldn’t know if Leroy was 20 up or 20 down or if it was a three-point game.”
“But as good an athlete as Leroy was, he was an even better human being.”
Patterson was a three-year varsity starter for Bangor High basketball coach Red Barry. The 6-foot-2 center earned Bangor Daily News All-Maine second-team recognition as a junior and first-team honors as a senior when he led the Rams to the 1962 Eastern Maine Class LL (now AA) championship.
Known for his leaping ability, rebounding and defensive skills as well as his scoring proficiency, Patterson’s emergence as an influential basketball player was no surprise to anyone who saw him play at the YMCA or at Garland Street School during his younger years.
“I’m sure Red had his eye on him,” Newman said. “My job at Fifth Street School when he was at Garland Street was to tackle Leroy in football, guard Leroy in basketball, and get Leroy out in baseball — none of which I did very well.
“But I knew at some point I was going to be at Bangor High School and he was, too, so we’d be playing on the same team, and then my job was to block for Leroy in football, to feed Leroy the ball in basketball, and to get on base in front of Leroy in baseball so he could knock us in. He was the go-to guy, no question about it.”
Patterson was a matchup nightmare, his quickness and leaping ability leaving bigger players flat footed and his strength overpowering smaller foes.
“I was coaching at Fort Fairfield [in 1962] and we played Bangor twice,” Cimbollek said. “I remember we couldn’t stop Leroy because if we guarded him one on one, he scored, and if we double-teamed him, he would easily find the open man.”
Patterson led Bangor to a 16-3 regular-season record during the 1961-1962 season — the second year of four classes of high school basketball in Maine. The Rams then defeated Gardiner, Presque Isle and Caribou to capture the Class LL regional title before falling to western Maine powerhouse Morse of Bath 52-43 in the state final.
“With Leroy you had to make sure you boxed him out, he was an aggressive rebounder and he was a good defender, too,” Cimbollek said. “He was a good foul shooter, too, so you had to be careful with him because he had a good inside game. And he could also shot the 12- to 14-foot jumper.”
Newman said Patterson played his senior season at an all-state level despite being less than 100 percent physically.
“He broke his elbow his junior year of track and he never got it fixed, so he couldn’t extend his left arm and he could only reach about halfway up,” Newman said. “He had to rebound almost one-handed and it was just amazing to watch him do it.”
Patterson finished his three years with more than 1,000 points, a relatively rare feat at the time for Class LL players.
But as much as Patterson was known for his athletic skills, an equally lasting memory of the Bangor star was his demeanor as a teammate, an opponent and as an adult who gave back to his community through his work and time spent contributing to the Bangor youth sports scene as a coach, official and confidant.
“Leroy was a prince,” Newman said. “I never saw him get upset at an umpire or an opponent. He took the game very seriously but once the game was over, it was over and he was right back to his normal self.
“And he never got upset with the rest of us. We weren’t up to his speed, nobody was, but I never heard a cross word about his teammates. He was a lot of fun to play with.”
Patterson’s calm demeanor did not go unchallenged, particularly when faced with racial slurs during athletic competition as a young African-American growing up in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
“He never got upset with the opposition even though they started yelling names at him,” Newman recalled. “We had a testimonial for [former Bangor High football coach] Gerry Hodge a few years ago and Leroy got up to speak and said, ‘Geez coach, I really enjoyed playing for you. You told me before my junior year that the opposition would start calling me names, but coach, you were a year too late,’ because they started right off in his sophomore year.
“But I never knew it, nobody knew about it until that day, because he never said a word. He never let on to say anyone was out of line, he never complained to the refs. He just took it in stride and played his best. He was something else.”
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