Bay Area sportswriter Dave Albee retraces roots from rural Maine

After graduating from his rural Maine high school in 1972, Dave Albee was stocking shelves at the local A & P market, trying to pay off his college debt.

One day in 1973, he was greeted by a friend, the sports editor of the local weekly newspaper, the Piscataquis Observer. Albee asked her if she was going to the big high school basketball game that Saturday night. She said no.

“Do you want me to go?” Albee, a three-sport athlete in high school, said immediately — even though he had had no sports journalism experience at that point other than some radio commentary.

Albee wrote the story in longhand and submitted it to the paper for that week’s edition. The day after the story appeared, he got a call from the editor and publisher, Jim Thompson, offering him a full-time sportswriting position at the paper.

Thus began a four-decades-long sportswriting and college communications career — including 23 years at the Independent Journal and 14 years at Dominican University of California in San Rafael. Next month, Albee will recap his rural Maine years with the publication of a book about the only basketball team from his high school alma mater, Foxcroft Academy, to ascend to a state championship in the school’s 200-year history.

“The Last One Out of Town Turn Out the Lights” celebrates the 50-year anniversary of that legendary, high-drama championship win in 1975. For the book, to be published by Down East Books, Albee located and interviewed every one of the players. He will likely attend their reunion in August, he said.

According to Albee, the title for the book is taken from a huge billboard that a local resident put up in 1975 during the winning team’s season in rural Maine.

“It sort of encapsulates the community spirit for that team,” said Albee, 70, a resident of Petaluma. “Everyone was leaving town to go to the tournament in Bangor.”

Albee said he “interviewed 50 or 60 people for the book — and every one of them remembers that sign.”

Albee will launch the book Feb. 12 in his old hometown area of Dover-Foxcroft, Maine. He will also do several appearances in Marin: Sausalito Books by the Bay at 6 p.m. Feb. 27 and Corte Madera’s Book Passage at 4 p.m. March 8.

The Book Passage appearance will be in conversation with Bay Area sports talk radio host Ron Barr.

“Dave always has had a knack for highlighting the human element,” said Barr, a Strawberry resident and longtime friend of Albee’s who founded Sports Byline USA broadcast network in 1988.

“This book is a reflection of that human element,” Barr added. “It will mean an awful lot to a lot of people in that part of the country.”

Sarah Gardner, the head of communications at Dominican, said Albee deserves all the attention he is getting for his new book. Albee retired from his communications post at Dominican in September 2023.

“Dave is an outstanding storyteller with an amazing talent for constructing narratives and crafting compelling stories that draw you in as a reader,” Gardner said in an email.

“I worked with Dave for 14 years at Dominican and I never stopped admiring his talent, his work ethic and his ability to write storylines that always captured something special — something memorable — about the subjects.”

In his research, Albee discovered that some of the players and coaches from that era have gone on to major careers in sports, he said.

Brian Butterfield, a star player on the rival Orono team that Foxcroft defeated in its state championship run, went on to become third base coach for the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox.

“Those three years were unbelievable matchups, unbelievable intensity,” Butterfield said in an online post on the book’s website.

“The crowds. The passion. The fights. Just tight games. Key plays,” Butterfield added. “It meant so much to both towns. I do remember the passion, the noise, and excitement of Dover and Orono.”

Even though he celebrates the win, Albee doesn’t shy away from the intense controversies and rivalries that occurred over the years leading up to the Foxcroft’s team ascension to the championship. Those ranged from a “phantom foul” that a referee called but the players involved insisted — even 50 years later — never happened, to a school district consolidation fight that ended up giving Foxcroft Academy their star basketball player.

In his career, Albee has covered multiple Super Bowls, World Series, NBA and NHL playoffs, World Cup soccer games and NCAA football and NCAA men’s and women’s basketball tournaments.

He is an honorary member of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America and has voted on Baseball Hall of Fame inductions and college football’s Heisman Trophy selections.

Information on Albee’s book is online at thelastoneoutoftown.com