Some students at Bangor High School may not have known that their principal was a basketball star, both at their school and at Colby College. But now that Paul Butler is being inducted into the Maine Basketball Hall of Fame, word is spreading.
He’s even gotten a few challenges to play some one-on-one.
Butler is part of the 2025 class of former players, coaches, teams and others being inducted into the Maine Basketball Hall of Fame. He played three years of varsity basketball for Bangor High School, and went on to be a four-year starter at Colby, according to a press release from the Hall of Fame late Wednesday.
“It was a real surprise, honestly,” Butler said Thursday after the Class of 2025 was announced. “It’s just so nice to be recognized in that way, and something you never think about. But it was certainly a great surprise and a nice honor.”
As a 6-foot-5 center at Colby, Butler was named the 1992-93 New England Small College Athletic Conference Player of the year. In high school, he was on the 1989 BDN all-tournament team for Class A.
Details about Butler’s playing career appear repeatedly in the Bangor Daily News archives.
“I would like to think people thought of me as a team guy,” Butler said. “I was certainly not as broadly skilled as players that you see nowadays. I was a low post player, and stayed pretty close to the glass, so to speak.”
He said he was “really lucky” to play with some exceptional athletes and play under Bangor coach Roger Reed and Colby coach Dick Whitmore, “both of them legends” who taught him a lot.
Butler described himself as a hard worker on the court, perhaps even a bit undersized for his position at the college level.
“But our team was so strong and our coaching was so good that we had a lot of success,” Butler added.
He said his basketball journey started at the Bangor YMCA before Bangor High School, and that he was “so lucky to grow up in Bangor, where you had a chance to learn to play and learn to compete, and learn to win and lose gracefully.”
Asked if students already knew about his basketball skills, Butler said there was “a little bit” of awareness. That seems to have increased with this week’s Hall of Fame news.
“I throw the ball around a little but in the gym every now and then,” Butler said. “Somebody played a bit of a mean trick on me today, and put [the Hall of Fame news] on announcements. So kids have stopped in my office or seen me in the halls and said something, so that’s kind of neat.”
Those interactions have also included a few challenges to play a game of one-on-one. And now Butler might be needed on the faculty intramural team.
“I’ve also been told that I’m now required to play on our intramural basketball faculty team,” he said. “I’m honestly a little worried about that. I’ve got to re-activate the stretching protocol that was key to my playing health,” he said with a laugh.
Butler is one of 12 individual inductees in the 2025 Maine Basketball Hall of Fame class, along with six “legends of the game,” the entire 1976 Rumford boys basketball team and the Pine Tree Clinic Basketball Camp.
According to information provided by the Hall of Fame, the other 11 individual inductees are:
- Chris Funk, a Caribou High School and Husson University star who went on to play professional basketball in Germany
- Ruth Gagnon-Shaw of Medway, who played for the Schenck Wolverines and later at the University of New England, where she is a member of that school’s hall of fame
- Brianna Blanchard of Presque Isle High School and later St. Anselm College, who helped the Wildcats win a 1997 state championship
- Clayton Blood, a mid-1970s Searsport standout who went on to play at the University of Maine at Farmington
- Bob Brewer, a Rockland High School and UMaine player who later went on to coach Cheverus to three state championships
- Brianna Fecteau, who played at Westbrook High School, in college at Bentley and professionally in Holland before becoming a college coach
- Bob Lahey, a 1950s Lewiston standout who went on to play college basketball in Canada
- Todd Miranda, who helped lead Portland High School to a state championship in the 1980s and later played at the University of Southern Maine
- Nick Pelotte of Bingham, who led Valley High School to four straight state championships
- Dave Poulin, a longtime Winthrop coach who led the Ramblers to championships in both 1992 and 1993
- Ken Whitney, a Bridgton High School player who went on to play at the University of Connecticut in the 1960s, and later coached high school basketball in Maine
Butler wasn’t overly familiar with a lot of the others on the list, but saw Funk play both at Caribou and Husson. Butler said he was “so impressed” with Funk and marveled at “what an exceptional player he was.”
Butler was looking forward to getting to know the other inductees better as part of the induction process and ceremony later in the year. That ceremony will take place on Aug. 10 at the Cross Insurance Center in Bangor.
