By Al Daniel
From our February 2025 issue
When Amy Vachon joined the UMaine Women’s basketball team as a point guard, in 1996, Cindy Blodgett was the leading scorer for the Black Bears and the entire NCAA Division I league. Vachon had been the top scorer at Cony High School, in Augusta, propelling the Rams to Class A state titles during her junior and senior years. But at UMaine she commanded the role of wingwoman, setting school records for assists in a season (234) and career (759) that still hold. “I always liked to pass,” Vachon said in 2018, when she was inducted into the UMaine Sports Hall of Fame.
For the last eight years, Vachon has been the Black Bears’ head coach. During her tenure, they’ve won four America East regular-season titles and back-to-back conference-tournament crowns, earning them berths in the NCAA tournament. Vachon has been named America East Coach of the Year five times. This season, the team got off to a bit of a rocky start, but Vachon wasn’t fazed. “Our players are working hard to get better every day. We have had a very tough schedule and we have learned a lot.”
More than a thousand fans regularly show up to watch the Black Bears play on the sunken court, affectionately known as “the Pit,” at UMaine’s Memorial Gymnasium, but Vachon has a particular fondness for a more intimate arena. In sixth grade, she won her first basketball championship in the gym at what is now St. Michael School, in Augusta, surrounded by the community that had supported her since she was a kindergartener there. “That gym is always going to have a really special place in my heart,” Vachon says.
