AUGUSTA — Gerry Raymond hit the Cony defensive end so hard that his chin strap buckle broke on impact. His helmet pushed down over his eye brow with enough force to open a large gash over his eye.

The Lewiston guard bled profusely onto his jersey and pants, so he went to the team doctor to take a look at the wound. The doctor told him he could close it with a few stitches.

With no time to waste, Raymond lifted up the physician from under his shoulders and carried him over the hill from Lewiston Athletic Park to St. Mary’s Hospital. After having eight stitches sewn into his forehead, he returned to LAP, put his helmet on and went back into the game.

“He might have missed about five minutes of actual playing time,” recalled Mike Haley, Lewiston’s head coach at the time. “Unbelievable. Tough as hell. He really was.”

Now 51, Raymond still looks like he could lug a diminutive doctor up a hill if he thought his balky knees could hold up.

His toughness, strength and love of football helped him become a legend in Lewiston and statewide. He won the Fitzpatrick Trophy in 1978 and is still the only lineman to ever claim the prestigious award for the state’s top senior high school football player. He went on to All-America acclaim at Boston College and all-pro recognition in the United States Football League, and he remains the standard by which all Maine high school linemen are measured.

It is that distinction that led Haley to invite Raymond back to Maine to be the featured speaker at the inaugural Frank J. Gaziano Offensive and Defensive Lineman Awards on Sunday.

Raymond recalled how special winning his award was, and how then Gov. James Longley, a Lewiston native, came to his house to congratulate him personally.

“I remember how surprised I was,” he said. “Right away, I understood what an honor it was, even though the award was relatively in its infancy.”

“I think over time it’s just become that much more special,” he said. “Looking back as the years go by, to not have another lineman win it, you kind of look and you go, “Wow, I must have been okay.'”

Yet Raymond said his biggest football thrill was watching his son, Jason, play football in Texas, where he now lives his wife, Carrigan.

“My son’s senior year in Texas holds that special place in my heart,” Raymond told a gathering of about 250 at the Augusta Civic Center. “Having watched this young man who grew up hating sports and any type of ball suddenly announce in 7th grade that he wanted to play football, seeing the sport become important to him, experiencing the joys of victory, watching him overcome the obstacles and losses, brought a range of emotion to my wife and I that only a parent who loves their child knows.”

“Observing my son battle bigger, stronger and faster players with his greater heart, determination and desire, drove home the lessons of a sport that all who played have an opportunity to learn — that victory and success do not always go to the bigger, stronger or faster man, but often they go to the harder working, better prepared and more determined,” he said.

A furniture store executive, Raymond stayed involved in football as an umpire on one of the elite officiating crews in the state. He worked his last game at the end of this past season in Dallas Cowboys Stadium, the site of Super Bowl XLV, which he calls “Jerry World.”

Raymond makes it back to Maine once or twice a year to visit his family, including his 90-year-old mother Jeanette, who still lives in Lewiston. With his autumns now free, he said he hopes to return to his roots soon.

“My kids now being grown up, my son’s a senior in college at Arkansas, my daughter (Brandi) is in Atlanta, so now my wife and I have a little bit more time,” he said. “I want to try and catch a Lewiston game next year. I haven’t seen any for 25, 30 years.”

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