LIVERMORE — As a young teacher new to Livermore and the Livermore Andies, Ron Beedy wasn’t sure what the high school’s mascot ought to look like, but he was pretty sure it was not meant to be the white bear found on his football jerseys.

“Being a history guy, I’ve got to find out what an ‘Andy’ was,” Beedy said.

He asked around. It was supposed to be a nod to the area’s log-driving lumberjacks. About the same time, he remembers getting a letter from a coach with the Acadia University Axemen.

Now that logo looked like an Andy.

So he, ah, borrowed it.

That Axeman-turned-Andy is all over the high school. Beedy jokes that it was one of his biggest impacts at Livermore. Jokes because that can’t be true.

After leaving the Army, Beedy got his first teaching job out of college in 1971 at Livermore Falls as an eighth-grade history teacher and assistant football coach. He’d go on to teach 14 years of eighth grade there and 13 years at the high school, and to coach even longer than that.

“You name it, I coached it,” said Beedy, 67. “In small schools, the principal comes knocking on a door, ‘Who wants to do this or that?’ I absolutely loved it.”

He coached track. Skiing. Little League, on the side. And for the longest time, he coached football.

Beedy served as head coach from 1972 to 1986, then again in 1999. He wracked up an 88-58-2 record.

“I drove the kids hard, I had high expectations,” he said. “I had one guy say, ‘God, when I was in the Army, it was a piece of cake; I’ve been through Beedy’s preseason.’”

He didn’t believe in favorites and says he worked everyone hard, but for a reason: “You can’t control who shows up in September. You’ve got to cook with what’s in the kitchen.”

Livermore Falls High School Athletic Director Sally Boivin said Beedy is still a regular in her stands.

“He’s one of those people — there’s always someone talking to him because everybody knows him,” Boivin said. “He loved his football team.”

Plaques kept in his sporting room in the basement sing high praise. From the 1985 football team, in part: “A man who cared enough to get us up when our spirits were down.”

From a former captain: “Mr. Beedy showed me how to channel all the hard work I did and achieve something with it. He gave me direction that I follow today.”

He and wife, Barbara, have three grown sons. All three played football.

“You can reach kids in a way coaching on the field or on the courts you never will in the classroom,” Beedy said. “It’s the one venue maybe they can succeed and find themselves a bit.”

Andy or not.

Know someone who knows everyone? We’re always looking for ideas. Contact staff writer Kathryn Skelton at 689-2844 or kskelton@sunjournal.com

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