DIXFIELD – Bob McPhee lost his ability to walk and speak in a fateful football collision more than 28 years ago. His adventurous streak was untouched.
Since that accident in a Rumford High School uniform, McPhee has tackled whitewater rapids on the Kennebec River, whooshed down snow-swept mountains at Sunday River and ridden roller coasters.
So why the reluctance to write his autobiography?
“I didn’t feel I had a story to tell,” said McPhee, 46, a Dixfield resident.
That’s hard to imagine. Adrenaline-junkie McPhee also is a professional sportswriter, a better one than most peers with full use of arms and legs. He’s been honored by the Maine Sports Hall of Fame and inducted into the Maine Amateur Wrestling Hall of Fame.
Finally, he’s also a published author. McPhee’s autobiography, “It Could Be Worse,” is available at 11 locations in Oxford and Androscoggin counties. He’ll sell and sign copies from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Friday at the Penalty Box on Canal Street in Rumford.
“All the time we’ve been together since he got hurt in ’76,” said friend Ted “Bitsy” Ionta, “I have never once heard him say, Why me?’ or, If only.’ He just goes with the flow.”
Ionta, who was McPhee’s high school baseball coach, now takes McPhee to dozens of high school athletic events each year. McPhee himself has been a fixture on the Sun Journal sports pages since 1987 and a correspondent for the Rumford Falls Times in recent years, as well. He’s best known for his baseball, wrestling, field hockey and tennis coverage.
It’s probably no coincidence that McPhee played shortstop for Ionta at Rumford, because he’s called in sick as infrequently as Cal Ripken Jr., another middle infielder known for his work ethic.
“He makes all his assignments,” Ionta said, “even though he’s susceptible to colds and things.”
Even on his healthiest days, McPhee is an overcomer. Left with limited use of his fingers, he cradles a pen and notebook but relies on Ionta as his statistician.
In the early 1990s, friends in Rumford, Dixfield and Peru raised funds to help buy him a Liberator, a machine resembling a laptop. McPhee types, and a computer-generated voice speaks on his behalf.
The gift was a godsend to a guy who doesn’t ask for much.
“I don’t consider myself any different from anybody else,” McPhee said. “I try to get by in life. I make mistakes, but I keep at it.”
In the opening chapter of his paperback book ($10, Sun Press), McPhee tells the story of his brother’s death in an automobile accident, before his own life-changing accident. He suggests that baseball, wrestling and football gave him direction after that tragedy and tamed his own wild ways.
Well, kinda.
His own man
“You can write this about him: He’s stubbornly independent,” Ionta suggests. “He’s done some awfully wild things just because somebody told him he couldn’t.”
McPhee’s book, begun in 1995, was an exception. Friends had pestered him to finish it, until he topped it off in 2000.
Last summer, after a frustrating search for an agent, McPhee decided to have the book published locally. He invested $6,000 to do it.
Ionta and another friend, Tim Hanson, offered literary guidance. Kathie Williams handles the promotion.
“I didn’t attempt to embellish things,” McPhee said. “People may not agree with everything the way it was written, but it’s the way I remember it.”
Perhaps a sequel is in order. After all, whenever McPhee leaves home, he’s capable of stuff Hollywood wouldn’t touch.
“I’m putting him in a power hang glider in Strong next summer,” Ionta said. “And I want to take him skydiving. We’ll take pictures of that.”
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