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The phrases “Who cares,” “So what,” “Big deal” and “What a joke” can usually be heard coming from the student section about the opposing team during the starting lineup at home hockey games at the University of Maine.
One may think they come from a rowdy student or Maine-iac. In reality, the phrases are started by 62-year-old Jeff Harris, who stands atop the beloved student section at Alfond Arena proudly wearing his University of Maine attire and waving a UMaine flag, screaming and heckling the opposing goalies just as much as the students do.
Although Harris praises sportsmanship, he said it’s good to get inside the other team’s heads a little.
“I just enjoy it,” Harris said. “I enjoy being a part of it, and I enjoy being supportive of them. They are representing the university, the state and their families.”
Harris, who works at Eastern Maine Community College as the director of student housing, athletics and activities, graduated from UMaine in 1972 with a bachelor’s degree in education and a minor in English. While here, Harris showed his love for UMaine athletics by attending games and dressing up as Bananas the Bear at the sporting events.
After graduating, Harris went on to teach for nine years, first at Central High School and then at Washington County Vocational Technical Institute. “There was more money and more responsibility,” Harris said.
The Guilford, Maine native returned to his alma mater in 1985 to complete a master’s degree in Education Administration. He worked as a full-time hall director on campus in Gannett Hall for about eight years.
While at UMaine, he also worked part-time for the athletic department as an event coordinator.
Because of budget cuts, the university did away with all the full-time hall director positions. While the athletic department wanted him to continue to work part time, Harris needed a full-time job.
Harris said it was hard for him to say goodbye, but he had to leave Orono once again to try to find a new position to improve his life. His next step would be far from Orono: He accepted a job in Bulgaria as the director of housing at American University.
“The American University in Bulgaria was the first American-style university in the old communist bloc. Several faculty members from that university came from the University of Maine,” Harris said. “They were looking for a way to make it the most positive collegiate experience as possible here in the United States and they hired me.”
In July 1992, he moved to Bulgaria and stayed for three years. He started out building a residential life program. While he was there he was given a leave of absence so he could come home for six months to a year and return if he wanted to.
“They wanted me to come back,” Harris said. “Unfortunately, I was too Americanized.”
Harris found that he missed what Americans often take for granted in the States, including American sports and especially UMaine athletics. Harris would call WMEB during the football season and listen to about five or six minutes of the game.
“Friends of mine would tape football games and send them to me,” said Harris.
Harris’ notorious Maine flag never left his side while he was overseas. Every weekend that Maine had a football or hockey game, he would proudly hang his flag on his balcony.
Although he was thousands of miles away from the Alfond Arena and the UMaine campus, the hockey team was always on his mind.
“When the Maine hockey team won the 1993 National Championship, I listened to the game live over the telephone and it cost me $375,” said Harris.
He eventually returned to Maine and was hired as director of housing at Maine Central Institute in Pittsfield. But shortly afterward, bad news came for Harris when his position was eliminated in order to meet budget.
The summer that Harris returned home, his father had suffered a stroke and passed away. “My parents had been together for 62 years,” said Harris. “My son and I moved back to Milo, Maine to be with my mother to get her through the first hunting season, the first anniversary and the first Christmas without my dad being there.”
Harris got a break when a position for resident director at Eastern Maine Community College opened up. “I had experience and wanted to get back into the college level,” Harris said.
Now a season ticket holder for the Black Bears athletics, Harris became close with former hockey coach Shawn Walsh while he worked here at the university.
“Coach Walsh asked if I would help him in the transition from moving the band and the student section from sections U and V, under what are now the skyboxes, to the balcony,” said Harris.
Even after the passing of legendary coach Walsh, Harris contacts Tim Whitehead every year to see if he still wants him to continue his work in the student section. “Every year they come back and ask me to do it,” said Harris.
Harris, a fan that any sporting team can only hope for, joins the students in the balcony at every home game. “It’s fun for me because it’s a different role I play. I’m not a disciplinarian up there. However, we don’t want the kids to curse and swear, like some of these other student sections at schools do. We’re much more effective without swearing,” said Harris.
“A year or so ago I read an article written by a Boston University student for their campus paper who came up to Maine for a weekend to watch the games. While he was up here, he actually had pictures taken in the Maine-iacs section and wrote the article on what an outstanding student section Maine has and how we don’t swear. We probably have one of the best student sections in the country, because we don’t swear and we don’t curse, and I’ve been told this plenty of times,” said Harris. Although Harris tries to teach the UMaine student section to be classy, he does have fun with the different teams that dare to enter the Alfond.
“We have several of our opposing mascot’s stuffed animals such as the River Hawk, the Boston College Eagle and the New Hampshire Wildcat. These are critters that I have put together with glue, feathers, tape and duct tape – you name it, and I created them to hang from the balcony,” Harris said.
Along with the homemade mascots and the random chants, Harris has also started something else. He throws out candy to the students between the periods at every home hockey game. “I spend anywhere from $30-$50 a weekend on the packages of candy with everything from blow pops to air heads,” said Harris. “It’s just money, it’s no big deal.”
In September of last year, Harris was diagnosed with colon cancer and it was then that he missed his first home hockey game. Harris had surgery and was in the hospital for about five days. He said everything is fine now, and after he got out he was at the home hockey game the following weekend.
“The game I missed was against Boston University a year ago when I was really sick, and people knew I was really sick,” Harris said.
Harris’ presence in the stands is felt by many of the students in the balcony. Many of them came up to him after his successful surgery during the games and asked him if there was anything they could to do to help him out in any way.
“The students in the student section have been very respectful and I’m very appreciative of that,” Harris said. “I think some of them wonder ‘why is this old guy here’ and I can certainly understand that.”
For Harris, the most memorable home hockey game was the first held after Shawn Walsh passed away.
“I don’t think we won this game, but it was when Coach Shawn Walsh passed away and North Dakota came up to play us. They came onto the ice and every North Dakota player had Walsh on the back of their jerseys and they left those jerseys here at the University of Maine to be auctioned off,” said Harris.
Along with everything Harris does, he is the president of Friends of Maine Cheering.
“Each year we raise about $20,000 to send the cheerleaders down to compete in the Nationals in Daytona Beach, Florida. We fundraise all year long, and I go down for the competition,” Harris said.
The university has given Harris the graduate “M” award, and the Pepsi Spirit Award. He was made a Senior Skull for his commitment to the university, and last year the Student Senate gave him a special citation for the work that he does for the university and for the students.
“It’s wonderful and I really enjoy it [the awards], but I can never understand why I get them; it’s very easy for me to love this institution,” said Harris. “I had a wonderful education, and that’s why I do what I do.”
As far as predictions for this year’s hockey team, “I want to see them win the championship. They are a young team, but I think they can do it,” he said.
