Fern Masse remembers me, but he doesn’t remember me.

Whenever our paths cross, usually at a basketball game, the classy former Lewiston basketball coach and athletic director will greet me with a wave and a nod. It’s the younger me, the former basketball star, that he doesn’t remember.

There’s not much else he doesn’t remember. I’ve sat down with Fern a couple of times to reflect on his amazing career – last year when he was inducted into the Auburn-Lewiston Sports Hall of Fame, and earlier this week as he prepared for a trip to the New England Basketball Hall of Fame. It’s been a privilege to hear his stories about the local heroes that he played with or coached on the hardwood.

If the conversation turns to baseball, Fern has a few yarns to spin about that, too, having played town team baseball when it was at its pinnacle locally in the 1950s. But usually, the tales are from his five decades in local basketball, and often the setting is the Hoop Basketball Camp he co-founded on the shores of Pleasant Lake in Casco in 1971.

Masse has touched many lives through the game, whether it was as a head coach at Lewiston or as Jim Murphy’s assistant with the Bates women. But it’s through Hoop Camp that his influence has been felt the most.

Over the last 35 years, a who’s who of Maine basketball has passed through Hoop Camp in some capacity, whether a player, counselor, coach, camp director, or all of the above. Fern has a fantastic memory, so he can remember when a lot of the legends of the Maine hardwood were just zit-faced, uncoordinated campers, laboring through the Mikan Drill while baking in the sun. He remembers Bob Warner. He remembers Matt Hancock. He remembers them all. Except me.

“What year were you there?” Fern asked me as we relaxed in his Auburn home.

“Uh, it was either `82 or `83,” I recalled. “It was the year Fred Lynn hit the grand slam at Comiskey Park and the American League finally won the All-Star Game. We watched it in the cafeteria before curfew.”

“Well, we put a lot of kids through there over the years. We’ve got sons and grandsons of former campers coming through now,” my ever-polite host replied. “I’ll have to check my records.”

I tried to jog Fern’s memory. I was assigned to play for the Warriors. My first day, I checked into my cabin, went to bed, then found out the next morning I’d been traded to the Knicks. I was told it was because the Knicks needed a big man. Years later, I learned that I’m a horrendous snorer. I like to think that that was the real reason the Warriors traded me. They couldn’t have possibly wanted to part with my height and untapped reservoir of talent.

The Knicks welcomed me like I was Patrick Ewing. I was one of the tallest kids in camp and I actually dominated the boards the first few games and made the All-Star team. At the time I thought this was a pretty impressive accomplishment. Three years later, when I was cut from the varsity at Lake Region High School, it dawned on me that enrollment at Hoop Camp must have been down that year.

I remember three other things about Hoop Camp – the Hooper Dome, which we frequently retreated to to seek shelter from the daily thunderstorms; my coach, Gordon Weeks, the former Bridgton Academy coach who tinkered with my free throw shooting just enough so I could hit the rim on a regular basis; and I remember getting a bad sunburn.

There are thousands of men and women in their 30s and 40s scattered around Maine or New England or, heck, the world, who have the same memories as I do. Some of them went onto great high school and college careers. Most, like me, were little more than wannabes just having fun playing a game we loved. And most of us probably left Casco loving it a little more, because Fern and his staff took the time to show us the right way to play it.

Friday night, Fern Masse was honored as a “contributor” by the New England Basketball Hall of Fame in Rhode Island. It was fitting that Paul Bessey, the former Buckfield High and University of Maine star, was one of the inductees that night, since he was a counselor at Hoop Camp when it first opened.

Many more Hoop Camp alums will follow Bessey into New England’s hoop hall, but that will only begin to scratch the surface of Masse’s influence on Maine basketball. It’s already crossed three generations. It will probably cross at least three more.

Randy Whitehouse is a staff writer. He may be reached by e-mail at [email protected].