The Bucksport High School football team has three new stickers on the back of their helmets this season. The head coach wishes there were none.
That’s because those stickers, a years-long tradition in the program, honor members of the Bucksport football family who have died recently.
“We never forget who played for us, and once you start playing Bucksport football, you are truly part of that family forever,” said head coach Sean Geagan.
The three stickers displayed on the Golden Bucks’ helmets this year honor longtime former head coach Joel Sankey, who died this spring, and former players Bobby Alvarado and Marcus Boober.
Geagan said Alvarado passed away this year. Boober’s obituary says that he died in February 2024 after a brief illness.
“Unfortunately, we’ve done a lot of stickers,” Geagan said. “Our goal, our true goal when I mentioned this to every team I’ve coached for the last 25-plus years, is not to put any stickers on the helmet.”
This year’s honorary decals include the players’ initials and their numbers at Bucksport — 34 for Alvarado and 40 for Boober — along with the third that says “Sank” in honor of the legendary former coach.
Geagan said both Alvarado and Boober were “just great individuals” and dedicated members of the Golden Bucks family.
“Bobby was a very athletic kid, good football player,” Geagan said. “And Marcus was just a hard-nosed kid.”
Geagan added that Boober was “really a Purple and Gold kid — I call it — that just loved football, and his family loved football.”
Sankey is the winningest coach in program history and spent decades at the helm, with Geagan serving as a longtime assistant.
“He was a true legend, that’s the only way to put it,” Geagan said. “I coached with him for 25 years and I learned a lot of football from that man. Just a great guy and truly, truly missed.”
The Bucksport community will have another chance to remember Sankey ahead of Friday night’s 6 p.m. game. There will be a ceremony in his honor ahead of kickoff.
It will be yet another reminder for current players and coaches about the football family members who represented Bucksport before them.
“If people unfortunately go before us, we are a family and we will definitely recognize everyone that we know has passed and has been part of our family,” Geagan said. “Because family goes a long way.”
He once again emphasized that, ideally, the only thing on the back of a Bucksport helmet should be a current player’s number. But the sad reality is that there have been a lot of departed Golden Bucks for them to honor and remember.
“It really teaches our kids a lot about life, and not to take life for granted,” Geagan said.
He encourages players before each game to think about someone besides themselves, and to play with that person in mind. He wants student athletes to remember that the team is bigger than any one individual, and that they are also playing for the people around them and the Golden Bucks who came before them.
“I don’t care if it’s your mother, your father, your sister, your brother, your grandparents — whoever you pick, you’re gonna have that,” Geagan said. “And then at every pregame, I tell them, ‘Think of that person and remember who’s on the back of your helmet.”
