ORONO - What do you do for an encore if you’re the University of Maine football team, coming off the most successful season in school history? “Elevate The Standard.”

That’s the message that new boss Nick Charlton has preached since he got the job after the departure of Joe Harasymiak to the University of Minnesota.

ORONO - It’s an old flintlock rifle made by a guy named Ebenezer Nutting sometime in the 1700s and named after a couple of coaches who did their best work during the Coolidge administration. It was largely forgotten for decades until Jack Cosgrove made it a thing again during his tenure as boss of the Black Bears. Oh, and it’s spent the better part of the last decade and a half on a shelf in Durham, New Hampshire, providing a tangible reminder to the Wildcats of their domination of the football rivalry with the neighboring state university.

And now, it’s found a new/old home in Orono, after a 35-7 opening night stunner by the Black Bears in the “Thursday Throwdown.”

Kimball, Cyr named Maine’s Sportscaster, Sportswriter of the Year

WZON hosts 13th annual Hot Stove Night

The #Hunters hashtag was adopted not long after Joe Harasymiak was named as the head coach of University of Maine Black Bear football, becoming the youngest Division I coach in the country at age 29. It was clear from day one that the former defensive coordinator was going to bring the aggressive, confident approach that has been a hallmark of the 'Black Hole' defense to the entire team.

Taking the field at Wayne's Wiffle for a Wish

BANGOR There's something wonderful about having a great time for a great cause, and that's just what I did this past weekend.

Rich Kimball and Bob Lucy enter 20th season calling UMaine football

ORONO On September 1, the University of Maine Black Bear football team will travel to Connecticut to take on the UConn Huskies.

The Tom Brady saga appears to finally be over, ending not with a bang but with a whimper.

The future Hall of Famer opted to take his four game vacation and move on with his life, perhaps understanding that as time went on, this case became less about him and more about the ongoing power struggle between the commissioner's office and the NFL Players Association.

Baseball: 2056

As we get ready for the 2056 Intercontinental All-Star Game, it seems appropriate to look back to see just how far we've come in transforming the once-moribund game of baseball into the wildly popular global pastime of today.

Several weeks ago, I shared some memories of summers in the days before youth sports exploded into a nearly mandatory way of life and I had a great response from people who remembered, as the great sports fan Barbra Streisand sang, 'the way we were.'