POLAND – In the Poland Community School gym Friday, Max Levine showed third-graders how to shoot a free throw.

Bend your knees. Keep your balance.

As a volunteer coach, the 17-year-old has taught these lessons before. But on Friday he had to add a new skill: Ignore the cameraman who was busy getting close-ups of him.

Levine was being filmed for ESPN.

“I really can’t imagine it,” he said as the small film crew prepared to shoot him teaching soccer. “This is the stuff you see on TV and you dream about.”

Thursday night, Levine, a top student who plays three sports and has volunteered for more than a dozen projects and organizations, learned he had been selected as a Northeast regional winner – and a national finalist – for Wendy’s High School Heisman Award. His parents had been told of the honor the week before, on the condition they keep the information secret until the Thursday night regional ceremony.

For a national ceremony in New York and an ESPN special, a three-person crew spent the entire day Friday filming him, his family and his friends.

Most of the shots were set up, designed to show Levine doing the things for which he’s being honored. The crew filmed him playing soccer with third-graders at Poland Community School. Moments later, after a quick change from his yellow soccer jersey to a gray Poland T-shirt, they filmed him teaching basketball.

Dad tears up

Then there were shots of Levine in the library, studying physics with his friends. Shots of him working with the debate team in the auditorium.

While a cameraman and production assistant followed Levine, the 17-year-old’s friends and teachers trooped through a makeshift film studio to be interviewed about him.

“I couldn’t help it, I teared up,” said Ike Levine, Max’s father, after talking for the camera about his son’s integrity and honesty.

The hours of film will be edited into a 90-second profile that will be broadcast on ESPN2 on Sunday, Dec. 12, at 6:30 p.m. During that ceremony, two national winners- one boy and one girl – will be chosen from the 12 regional finalists.

Levine topped 17 students for the Maine award and dozens of others for the regional award. No Maine student has won the national award since its origination in 1994.

But as the film crew set up lights and adjusted the camera in the library Friday, Levine wasn’t too concerned about that.

ESPN was filming. His school would be on TV.

“The best thing is the publicity the school gets,” he said. “There are so many good things happening here.”