AUGUSTA – Larry LaBrie owes his career to a teacher who didn’t believe in labels.

Forty-six years ago, when LaBrie prepared to graduate from Edward Little High School, high school seniors were branded more strongly than they are today.

There were college students, business students and vocational or industrial arts students, and never the twain should meet. Rarely did aspirations cross over from one category to the next. In a different economy, with less emphasis on post-secondary education, there was no reason to veer off the marked trail.

Thankfully for LaBrie, there was a faculty advisor with insight into his potential, and perhaps even a vision of the future.

“I had good grades, but they were all in business courses,” LaBrie said. “They used to track kids, and I was a business kid. But Jim Randall kept telling me, ‘You want to go to college.'”

LaBrie listened, leaving the comfort zone of his hometown and his prescribed path for the University of Maine at Presque Isle.

It was a fateful choice that ultimately brought him back home and launched a 42-year career in public education, one that will end when LaBrie, 64, retires from his post as assistant director of the Maine Principals’ Association on June 30.

Formerly a principal and coach at Walton School and principal at EL, LaBrie has worked for the organization that oversees athletic and extra-curricular activities in Maine since 1992. The MPA began the statewide search for his successor this week.

“It’s been a great experience,” LaBrie said. “Of course (retirement) comes with mixed emotions. This is a job that’s like any in education. You live them, whether you’re a teacher planning lessons and so forth, or you’re at the administrative level as a principal or athletic director with demands that now are nearly un-doable.”

LaBrie, who earned his Master’s degree from the University of Southern Maine in 1971, lived and enjoyed jobs across the entire spectrum of the teaching profession.

He began at Walton when it was the freshman preparatory school for EL, teaching social studies, coaching football and serving as an advisor to intramural sports and student senate.

Seven years as a teacher, eight as assistant principal and three more as principal at Walton led LaBrie to EL in 1984. He remained until the state level job piqued his interest 16 years ago.

“Probably anybody’s dream is to come back home and work in a job you enjoy,” LaBrie said.

Sports opportunities through the MPA have grown dramatically during LaBrie’s tenure in the capital city.

Lacrosse became a varsity sport for boys and girls in the late 1990s. Competition cheerleading, a relatively new endeavor at the time of LaBrie’s arrival, has expanded into one of the most popular and lucrative of the principals’ regional and state championship events.

Athletes in many individually-driven sports – wrestling, cross-country and track and field among them – have benefited from Maine’s return to New England interscholastic championships in recent years.

There have been notable enhancements to existing MPA programs in that span, as well.

“We did a lot of things such as the ‘Super Saturday’ concept in football,” said LaBrie, referring to the promotion of all three state championship games at one site (Fitzpatrick Stadium in Portland) that began in 2002. “We’ve been able to bring ice hockey to new and bigger venues.”

LaBrie was instrumental in launching committees that have promoted opportunities for women in sports, and others promoting greater understanding of sportsmanship and safety issues.

“It has become much more technical,” LaBrie said of the change in sports. “You look at the hydration issue. Back when I played football, if you drank water, you were a sissy. Now we know better.”

As he leaves the profession, LaBrie notes that one area of concern is declining participation in youth sports. While the MPA oversees varsity sports, member schools continue to report lagging numbers at the junior varsity and freshman levels.

“That’s disappointing. Obviously it takes years to work on all the skills you need to get to the high school varsity level,” LaBrie said. “Now if a kid goes out for a sport in eighth or ninth grade, it’s almost impossible to catch up. It’s a difficult thing to build up the participation level.”

Many of his professional accomplishments have been collective or intangible ones.

LaBrie cites a John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts Secondary School Administrator Award in 1991 as a special individual honor.

“It was nominated by our fine arts department, so the fact that it came from the grass-roots level made it meaningful,” he said.

LaBrie’s wife, Willy, retired from her own lengthy career teaching in area schools last year. The couple plans to spend more time at camp this summer after Larry’s retirement becomes official.

Don’t be surprised to see him at a committee meeting or a sporting event in the fall, though.

“I plan to come back and do something,” LaBrie said. “I’m not going to fully retire.”