BETHEL — Dominic Haines dropped back, surveyed the scene, planted his feet and launched the football into the breeze.

Drew Wilson stretched his hands toward the cloudless, azure sky, cradled Haines’ offering, tucked it away and made a hasty retreat from a defeated secondary.

Ten other Telstar Regional High School players raced past everyone in a Sacopee Valley High School uniform, not wanting to miss the party as the Rebels celebrated their first, official touchdown.

Thirty years late, but well worth the wait.

Telstar revives a dormant tradition this fall, becoming the latest Maine school to buck every economic and extracurricular trend and launch a varsity football program.

“A lot of hard work, and it’s finally paying off,” said Dylan Poland, one of nine Telstar seniors along with his twin brother, Derick.

Three Class C schools will elevate their programs to varsity status this fall.

Hermon and Washington Academy join the Little Ten Conference. Telstar moves into the Campbell Conference.

That brings the number of high schools with varsity football to 76, an increase of more than 40 percent since 1990.

Exhibition games with Sacopee and Boothbay set the stage for Telstar’s regular-season and home opener against Winthrop on Saturday, Sept. 3.

“We’ve been working really hard to get to this point,” said Wilson, a senior receiver and defensive back. “Everyone’s looking forward to it.”

The move didn’t happen overnight.

Boosters began the process of resurrecting the community’s youth football program seven years ago. A junior varsity high school club team soon followed.

“The first year, we didn’t win a game,” said Telstar coach Tim O’Connor. “We didn’t win the second year. Or the third year.”

School officials issued the new program a financial ultimatum, setting a $70,000 benchmark before the team would be considered for varsity status.

Players and parents conducted bottle drives. Some businesses donated $50. Others contributed $250.

“We had to put our heads together and get creative,” O’Connor said.

A letter to the New England Patriots led to an exchange of phone calls and a $5,000 donation. An anonymous donor visited a boosters’ meeting and wrote a check for $20,000.

Team personnel took over all operations of a local restaurant for four nights and were told they could pocket the profits. That put an additional $6,500 in the bank.

O’Connor, who doubled as chairman of the boosters, and Telstar alumni Brad Wight and Jerry Broomhall played pivotal roles in the fundraising effort.

The final total was $81,000.

“We put the exclamation mark on it,” O’Connor said.

“A lot of people donated a lot of time and effort to football so we could have it back,” Dylan Poland said.

Football isn’t new to the school.

Telstar fielded one of the most successful programs in Class C from 1968 through ’81, posting an overall record of 69 wins, 52 losses and four ties.

The Rebels tucked a 21-game winning streak into that span, winning back-to-back state championships in 1972 and ’73. In those two seasons, Telstar outscored its opponents by the overwhelming margin of 462-53.

Of course, that might as well be the Dark Ages to any of Telstar’s new trendsetters.

“Football doesn’t have a big reputation around here, but we’re ready to make a reputation,” senior lineman Kenny Haas said.

Maine’s upstart football teams have met with mixed results.

Bonny Eagle, Windham, Scarborough, Dirigo and Yarmouth all have won state titles. The last two schools are the two most recent champions from the same Western Class C division Telstar joins this fall.

But some have failed to gain a foothold or celebrate a winning season. Others got off to a solid start when the students who launched the respective youth programs reached high school, then struggled after those athletes graduated.

“You have to build up slowly,” Wilson said, “It takes a while, but you learn a lot. You learn how the game is played and how it goes. You learn to respect the game.”

Armed with a senior class that included son T.J., a four-year starter at quarterback, O’Connor hoped that the Rebels would move to varsity in 2010.

That didn’t happen because the Maine Principals’ Association classifies teams and sets the schedule in two-year cycles. The next new window was 2011-12.

So the JV team went 8-0 in 2010 against other club teams from Monmouth, Erskine and Lincoln, plus a smattering of local JV squads.

“You can’t really say when is the best time. We could have been awesome last year. We had key people in the right places,” O’Connor said. “But I’ve talked to the Sacopee coach. They started the program and in two years jumped right in, and it was way too soon. They didn’t have a youth program. They’ve been struggling to keep a team. People said to me we were doing it too slow, and I said, ‘No, I don’t think so.'”

Telstar’s seniors understand that their chances of putting a Gold Ball in the trophy case are remote.

“We’re clearly the underdogs,” Haas said.

On the other hand, they recognize that every small victory is a building block in the program’s long-term success.

“The intensity is going to be brought up,” Derick Poland said. “It’s going to be a little more difficult. We’ll see how it goes.”

“You’re not going to get me to say we’ll have five or six wins and make the playoffs, although that would be awesome. We’d be ecstatic,” O’Connor said. “Unless we have a terrible game where we fumble six times, we won’t get blown out. I certainly don’t think we’ll go 0-8.”

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