By Jim CarterSpecial to The Star-Herald
I asked former Presque Isle standout Bob Duprey if he would share his impressions of Herky Adams and his feelings upon winning the prestigious Herky Adams Award: I did not know Herky Adams, but I feel like I did. When growing up as a young boy in Presque Isle, my father and I would frequent Fay Ladner’s Gas Station on Main Street to gas up the car. This is where I learned all about Herky Adams. There always seemed to be several “old timers” at the station, and they would always be talking sports, basketball in particular, since basketball was king of sports back in the 1940s and 1950s. I would listen intently. Someone would always mention Herky Adams and then someone would always say, “There will never be another Herky Adams!” I wondered what they meant by that and would learn more each time my father and I would visit the station. They held Herky in high esteem because they thought no one at that time – or in the future – would have the basketball skills that he possessed: tricky dribbling, deceptive passing, shooting skills from all angles, and being an overall floor general. Again, someone would say, “There will never be another Herky Adams,” and I would start to say to myself, “You haven’t seen anything yet!”
I believe that these visits to Fay Ladner’s Gas Station gave me the incentive and motivation to become the best basketball player I could be. I started playing basketball when I was knee high to a grasshopper. When I attended Gouldville Elementary School, I started playing basketball – in an organized way – in the third grade (1951), and by the time that I was in the fifth grade, I put on a dribbling exhibition for the PTA. The coach, Richard Adams, had spent extra time after practice teaching me these dribbling skills. I could dribble behind my back, between my legs, on the floor and just about any way that Marcus Haines was dribbling for the Harlem Globetrotters.
When I attended Cunningham Junior High and played basketball, we started to play other teams from other towns and that was an exciting time and, of course, I went to the high school games, which were played at Cunningham. I spent countless hours playing basketball in the backyard at home, a lot of times alone. This is where I practiced not only shooting, but passing and dribbling, as well. I would practice passing behind my back off the dribble from all angles using the 6-inch wide post that the backboard was on as my teammate. All the time, Herky Adams was in the back of my mind.
Next was Presque Isle High School (1957) and this is where I found out for the first time that there was a “Herky Adams Memorial Trophy.” I spent countless hours after lunch in the lobby looking at that beautiful trophy and wondering if I would ever have my name engraved on it. Again, Herky Adams provided the incentive and motivation to become the best Wildcat I could be. The “Herky Adams Award” was not given out every year like most “Outstanding Senior Athlete” awards of today. It was the most prestigious award that a Wildcat could receive. It meant that you were an outstanding student, outstanding school citizen, and an outstanding athlete at Presque Isle High School.
At the graduation ceremonies in June of 1961, five outstanding Wildcat athletes received the “Herky Adams Award” and their names would be placed on the “Memorial Trophy.” They were as follows: Wayne Hartford, Steve Smith, Harry Buzzell, Tommy Cockcroft and I, Bobby Duprey. My dream had come true and all those hours spent in the backyard paid off. One might ask, “How come five in one year?” The answer is in the numbers 46 and 1. Forty-six is the number of wins that year against one defeat in all varsity sports (cross-country, basketball, baseball, track and volleyball). I think that you would agree that this would be a record that would be pretty hard for any school to match. All five athletes excelled in at least two varsity sports, and some three or four, along with involvement in other school activities and clubs.
I did not know Herky Adams, but I spent a lot of time thinking about him. If Herky could hear me, I would say to him, “Thanks for the memories!”
(Next week’s article will be an account of local basketball’s original Aroostook League which was formed in 1925 and lasted until 1960).
