By Mary Psyhogeos and Sophia Solmos
As the wind raged around him, thick snow camouflaging his mustache, Bob Morse led a pack of skiers through the Northern Maine Woods surrounding Mt. Katahdin. In three below zero temperatures, they sped down a hill in a line behind him like ducklings following their mother. The cold was brutal and skiing grueling by nature, but Morse managed to get a community hooked on the sport.
Fifty years ago, the Yarmouth Nordic program was a weak, all boys aspect of the ski team. They have since become a “skiing dynasty,” (as Dylan Thombs, Yarmouth’s current head Nordic coach, called it) and Morse has collected seventy-one state championships.
Beginning his Yarmouth career as a math teacher at the Harrison Middle School in 1970, Morse went on to teach for fifty years and coach for forty-eight. He was eventually made head coach of the Yarmouth cross country, Nordic, Alpine, and track teams for several decades - although his heart always lay in Nordic. During this time, he has seen not only various sets of siblings and friends pass through the school, but also the children of his former students.
Beginning his Yarmouth career as a math teacher at the Harrison Middle School in 1970, Morse went on to teach for fifty years and coach for forty-eight. He was eventually made head coach of the Yarmouth cross country, Nordic, Alpine, and track teams for several decades - although his heart always lay in Nordic. During this time, he has seen not only various sets of siblings and friends pass through the school, but also the children of his former students.
“Every year was a new challenge,” he explained. “The thing I love about teaching is every year is different.” As students come and go, he found that he never liked to read incoming students’ bios because he wanted to “know who they are when they walk through the door because that’s who they are today. How they were yesterday, that doesn’t mean anything. That’s not important.”
Teaching is a profession that, by definition, allows one to make a tangible effect on a student. In fact, Morse chose the career because of the impact that his high school teachers had on him.
“I can still remember way back in high school, sitting in study hall one day,” he recalled, “and saying I was very jealous of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson. I said, ‘gee, they made their mark, and what am I gonna do?’”
“I can still remember way back in high school, sitting in study hall one day,” he recalled, “and saying I was very jealous of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson. I said, ‘gee, they made their mark, and what am I gonna do?’”
Make a mark he did. Hundreds of students have passed through his classroom and ski teams and were given the opportunity to learn whilst having fun.
“I think what made him so great was that we were always laughing,” said Jane Fulton, a Yarmouth High School senior and member of the Nordic ski team. “He was always playing pranks and joking around, so that even hard workouts and really cold days could be fun.”
“I think what made him so great was that we were always laughing,” said Jane Fulton, a Yarmouth High School senior and member of the Nordic ski team. “He was always playing pranks and joking around, so that even hard workouts and really cold days could be fun.”
Even at seventy-six years old, Morse has a remarkable knack for connecting with middle and high schoolers. Thombs, who is a Yarmouth High School science teacher and assistant cross country coach (in addition to Nordic), believes that the most important quality in a ski coach is their ability to form connections. Morse, he said, is “someone who can connect to people - someone who can connect to kids, someone who can connect to skiers and students.”
His proficiency at this quality is what Thombs believed has made him successful. “I think a person’s success is never in how much they make or how many state titles they win, but it’s in the connections that they form,” he said.
His proficiency at this quality is what Thombs believed has made him successful. “I think a person’s success is never in how much they make or how many state titles they win, but it’s in the connections that they form,” he said.
Morse’s impact is evident in the response that his presence garners. “[He] can’t go anywhere in the Yarmouth community,” Thombs remarked. “You can’t have a conversation because he’s constantly being grabbed to the side and people want to take pictures of him and people want to talk to him… you know, that’s a successful person. That’s a person that has created an amazing legacy because they’ve been able to make so many meaningful connections in this world.
“That’s why I got into teaching,” Thombs continued. “That’s why I got into coaching - to make those types of connections and to hopefully one day be that type of person. Morse does all of that and more, and it’s amazing.”
Born in Portland in 1943, Morse moved to Canton, a small town near Rumford, at the age of five and began to learn to ski from his father. He was given a pair of Bass ski boots - “the old fashioned buckle kind,” he remembers - for Christmas and skied everyday after school throughout his elementary years on a hill behind his house.
After five years in Canton, the Morse family moved back to Portland and away from the plentiful mountains of the Rumford area. He attended Deering High before ski teams existed there, and thus would ski only with the school clubs that carpooled to Shawnee Peak (then known as Pleasant Mountain) and Sugarloaf on weekends.
“It was $4 for a day ticket and $60 for a season pass [at Sugarloaf],” Morse laughed. “Now I think it’s $75 for a day ticket.”
In his junior year, an algebra teacher came to Deering who had skied at the University of Maine. Morse and his friends talked him into being their coach, and the Deering High School ski team was born.
“We were a ragtag team,” Morse recalled. “We were up against all the private schools and prep schools and got our butts kicked, but we had a lot of fun. We had like a dozen boys.”
In that time, ski teams competed in numerous events - including jumping. The Deering team learned to jump from several middle schoolers at Pettengill Park in Auburn. While Morse stood on the top of the hill, “scared to death,” one of the younger kids came and encouraged him to follow.
“I didn’t follow,” he laughed. After Morse told him he was afraid he’d fall, the boy explained that “you gotta really oomph. Otherwise, if you hit the bump you’re gonna kill yourself.”
Evidently, the impromptu lessons from eleven-year-olds in the park worked because Morse and the Deering High team went on to compete in the state meet at Black Mountain that year.
After five years in Canton, the Morse family moved back to Portland and away from the plentiful mountains of the Rumford area. He attended Deering High before ski teams existed there, and thus would ski only with the school clubs that carpooled to Shawnee Peak (then known as Pleasant Mountain) and Sugarloaf on weekends.
“It was $4 for a day ticket and $60 for a season pass [at Sugarloaf],” Morse laughed. “Now I think it’s $75 for a day ticket.”
In his junior year, an algebra teacher came to Deering who had skied at the University of Maine. Morse and his friends talked him into being their coach, and the Deering High School ski team was born.
“We were a ragtag team,” Morse recalled. “We were up against all the private schools and prep schools and got our butts kicked, but we had a lot of fun. We had like a dozen boys.”
In that time, ski teams competed in numerous events - including jumping. The Deering team learned to jump from several middle schoolers at Pettengill Park in Auburn. While Morse stood on the top of the hill, “scared to death,” one of the younger kids came and encouraged him to follow.
“I didn’t follow,” he laughed. After Morse told him he was afraid he’d fall, the boy explained that “you gotta really oomph. Otherwise, if you hit the bump you’re gonna kill yourself.”
Evidently, the impromptu lessons from eleven-year-olds in the park worked because Morse and the Deering High team went on to compete in the state meet at Black Mountain that year.
During high school, Morse became the captain of the cross country, ski, and track teams. He helped the Deering track team win a state championship in his senior year before going on to attend the University of Maine.
After college, he had just begun a promising teaching career when the Vietnam War’s draft interrupted the lives of men around the nation. With his draft notice in the mail, Morse was beginning to prepare to leave when he coincidentally ran into his high school cross country coach in Portland. “He asked me if I wanted to go to Vietnam,” he recalled, “and I said, ‘Well, no one really wants to go to Vietnam.’”
His coach suggested that he join the reserves and Morse began a program that weekend called Rep 73, an 8 year commitment to the military. After training in California, he moved back to Maine as a part of the medical battalion and worked as a social worker in Portland. During this time, he spent sixteen hours a weekend working in a psychiatric ward, had a full time job during the week teaching GED classes to locals struggling with drug addictions, and was a full time University of Southern Maine grad student at night.
After college, he had just begun a promising teaching career when the Vietnam War’s draft interrupted the lives of men around the nation. With his draft notice in the mail, Morse was beginning to prepare to leave when he coincidentally ran into his high school cross country coach in Portland. “He asked me if I wanted to go to Vietnam,” he recalled, “and I said, ‘Well, no one really wants to go to Vietnam.’”
His coach suggested that he join the reserves and Morse began a program that weekend called Rep 73, an 8 year commitment to the military. After training in California, he moved back to Maine as a part of the medical battalion and worked as a social worker in Portland. During this time, he spent sixteen hours a weekend working in a psychiatric ward, had a full time job during the week teaching GED classes to locals struggling with drug addictions, and was a full time University of Southern Maine grad student at night.
Eventually, a phone call from Doug Pride, a Yarmouth High School chemistry teacher, presented an opportunity to teach science at Yarmouth. At the end of what had felt like a successful interview, he was asked to explain how electricity worked.
Having no idea, Morse replied, “Well, you know what? I never studied a lot of electricity and it still bothers me that I don’t know what happens. I flip the light switch and the light goes on and off. I don’t know how that happens.”
Assuming he had blown it, Morse returned to daily life. A few days later, however, he received a call. Yarmouth explained that they were “still laughing about [his] electricity and the lights” because everybody else “hemmed and hawed and tried to talk through but [he] was just very frank and said, ‘I don’t know.’” He was offered a job as a middle school math teacher and began a fifty-year-long teaching career in which he impacted the lives of hundreds of students.
Having no idea, Morse replied, “Well, you know what? I never studied a lot of electricity and it still bothers me that I don’t know what happens. I flip the light switch and the light goes on and off. I don’t know how that happens.”
Assuming he had blown it, Morse returned to daily life. A few days later, however, he received a call. Yarmouth explained that they were “still laughing about [his] electricity and the lights” because everybody else “hemmed and hawed and tried to talk through but [he] was just very frank and said, ‘I don’t know.’” He was offered a job as a middle school math teacher and began a fifty-year-long teaching career in which he impacted the lives of hundreds of students.
When Morse began teaching, calculators were still not used in schools and teachers smoked during recess. In the decades that he has been involved in education, schools - and the world - have changed many times over. They were changes that Morse took in stride, knowing that “you have to adapt and you have to learn and whatever you learn today, it changes tomorrow.”
He credited this ability to adapt and learn to his time in the military, which he said is “always changing.”
“They would have this plan,” he explained, “and you’ll go, ‘I’m going to do this.’ Then, five minutes later, they change - ‘you’re going to do that.’ So if you’re not calm, cool, and collected inside, you freak out.”
He credited this ability to adapt and learn to his time in the military, which he said is “always changing.”
“They would have this plan,” he explained, “and you’ll go, ‘I’m going to do this.’ Then, five minutes later, they change - ‘you’re going to do that.’ So if you’re not calm, cool, and collected inside, you freak out.”
The military, he believed, also helped him in his teaching position.
His passion for teaching math, he said, came from helping those students who were struggling and later seeing them in high school. He explained that they would often say, “‘Oh, hey, Mr. Morse, guess what? I’m on the math team. Can you believe it?’” and he would tell them, ‘“Yeah, I can because you really made hard work of it.’”
Math, like skiing, is developmental, and Morse has learned that it doesn’t click for everyone at the same time.
His passion for teaching math, he said, came from helping those students who were struggling and later seeing them in high school. He explained that they would often say, “‘Oh, hey, Mr. Morse, guess what? I’m on the math team. Can you believe it?’” and he would tell them, ‘“Yeah, I can because you really made hard work of it.’”
Math, like skiing, is developmental, and Morse has learned that it doesn’t click for everyone at the same time.
“I always sought out those students that were struggling,” he explained, “to encourage them, and say, ‘You know what? All you have to do is try.’ You know, especially the ones who start crying. I said, ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa - what is this? You’re gonna make me cry.’”
"THE MORSE STYLE OF COACHING, WHICH IS ALL ABOUT FEEL AND ALL ABOUT FAMILY… THAT WAS MORSE, THAT’S WHAT HE EMBODIED."
His ability to connect to skiers and students of all levels is evident by all. Thombs explained that different people respond to different things and “that was something that Morse was amazing at - knowing what everyone wanted to hear at the right time.”
The connections that he was able to form and his communication with skiers and the broader community - something Thombs said he “did an amazing job with” and was “well-known for doing” - made him an incredible coach.
His approach to skiing, according to Thombs, was “old school” and “transcends everything that we talk about now when it comes to skiing.”
Someone that is very “technique-oriented, very training plan oriented, very numbers oriented,” Thombs explained, “will sometimes bristle up against the Morse style of coaching, which is all about feel and all about family… That was Morse, that’s what he embodied.”
Someone that is very “technique-oriented, very training plan oriented, very numbers oriented,” Thombs explained, “will sometimes bristle up against the Morse style of coaching, which is all about feel and all about family… That was Morse, that’s what he embodied.”
Of course, Morse was still more than capable of teaching technique gained from years of experience. Thombs stressed that his decades of coaching helped to ensure that the team’s wax was right nearly every time (an extremely important part of any race) and helped Morse acquire a wide breadth of knowledge.
“Technique changes all the time,” Thombs explained, “so Morse knows dozens of different techniques from over the years that he can teach to different people so that they can find one that works.”
The bottom line to Morse’s success, however, was simply that he wanted everyone on every team to do well. “That’s just Nordic skiing,” Thombs said. “That what it’s about and I think Morse embodied that. I mean, he cheered on everybody and he wanted everybody to do well… that’s a huge part of Nordic and Morse."
“He wanted you to do well,” Thombs explained. "He wanted you to do well as a person, he wanted you to do well as a skier, and he wanted you to do well after skiing is over. And I think that’s what takes a great coach and makes them a fantastic coach.”
“He wanted you to do well,” Thombs explained. "He wanted you to do well as a person, he wanted you to do well as a skier, and he wanted you to do well after skiing is over. And I think that’s what takes a great coach and makes them a fantastic coach.”
Morse found that the Nordic team was most successful when they were having fun and when he was able to step back as a coach on the day of meets. He never did half-hour lectures because he knew that the captains would handle it. Yarmouth kids, he said, knew what was expected of them and did it.
“It was their team, their moment,” he explained. “ I was just a coach. I just bought them there, but it’s their victory.
“It was their team, their moment,” he explained. “ I was just a coach. I just bought them there, but it’s their victory.
“Not that I wanted to lose,” he added.
When asked why he remained in Yarmouth for so long, he simply replied, “Why would I want to leave?
When asked why he remained in Yarmouth for so long, he simply replied, “Why would I want to leave?
"EVERYTHING WORKED - I TAUGHT HERE, I COACHED HERE, THE RAPOUR OF THE KIDS WAS GREAT."
Morse believed that the Yarmouth community was a large part of the ski team’s success because they were “at the cutting edge.”
“We always have superintendents,” Morse said, “who are three steps above where the state and the nation are. We were always encouraged to go to workshops, and I would always be taking courses in the summer [to learn] the next thing coming.”
“We always have superintendents,” Morse said, “who are three steps above where the state and the nation are. We were always encouraged to go to workshops, and I would always be taking courses in the summer [to learn] the next thing coming.”
It was this culture that he credited with instilling in him a desire to be “a cut above the rest.” Simply put, he said, “If I didn’t like it, I would’ve been gone after a year. But everything worked - I taught here, I coached here, the rapour of the kids was great. I just enjoyed it and I could have kept on going but the time comes when it’s time to move on and let other people take over. You have a good man in there [Thombs], and Tracie [the assistant coach] as well.”
Only one season after his retirement, it is too early to predict the full effect of Morse’s legacy on the skiing community in Yarmouth and in Maine, but it will undoubtedly be great. From 1970 to 2018, Morse took a group of twelve reluctant boys and created the Yarmouth ski team as it is known today - a band of skiers clad in cow-suits dozens of bodies larger than nearly every other team in the state. In his first year, he asked for a girls’ cross country team - to which the administration asked if girls can run a mile. In his final two years, the Yarmouth girls’ cross country team were the first and then second best in Maine. Over forty-eight years, Morse mentored hundreds of skiers, played dozens of pranks, helped several Yarmouth students achieve collegiate dreams, and collected 71 state championships along the way.
In 2005, he was inducted into the Maine Skiing Hall of Fame, an experience he described as “overwhelming.”
He was inducted along with three other coaches to whom he’d looked for advice when first beginning his career. “I felt very honored to be inducted with them,” he said.
Many in the Yarmouth Ski Club came to watch the event and filled five tables in the room. “It was a very humbling experience,” he explained, “I’m very grateful and very proud that I’ve been inducted into that.”
His place in the Maine Ski Hall of Fame will continue to be a lasting tribute to Morse’s work in Yarmouth.
“His retirement,” Thombs explained, “represents a shift in skiing that I’m sad to see… sports in general are dying across the state of Maine and across the region. We’re seeing lower numbers than we’ve ever had and we’re seeing people not wanting to come up and take the banner, if you will, and carry it on for another 48 years.”
Morse, however, created not only a team but a culture. His retirement has not resulted in any decrease in numbers for the Yarmouth Nordic or cross country teams, and both won the girls' state championships in their first season after he stepped down.
Many in the Yarmouth Ski Club came to watch the event and filled five tables in the room. “It was a very humbling experience,” he explained, “I’m very grateful and very proud that I’ve been inducted into that.”
His place in the Maine Ski Hall of Fame will continue to be a lasting tribute to Morse’s work in Yarmouth.
“His retirement,” Thombs explained, “represents a shift in skiing that I’m sad to see… sports in general are dying across the state of Maine and across the region. We’re seeing lower numbers than we’ve ever had and we’re seeing people not wanting to come up and take the banner, if you will, and carry it on for another 48 years.”
Morse, however, created not only a team but a culture. His retirement has not resulted in any decrease in numbers for the Yarmouth Nordic or cross country teams, and both won the girls' state championships in their first season after he stepped down.
The Yarmouth ski team will certainly be different without Morse, but the goals and values that he instilled will be preserved. The team that Morse cultivated, Thombs said, is “not a team, it’s a family… the goals of the Yarmouth ski team is to make lifelong skiers who love the sport, not to win state championship titles or WMC (Western Maine Conference) titles.”
Both Morse and Thombs hope that students will learn from the Yarmouth Nordic team to love skiing. Their main goal, Thombs explained, is for Yarmouth kids to be able to “ski outside of high school and just go out, put on a pair of skis, and enjoy it… or to be able to go into a restaurant somewhere and see an old ski team member and talk about it.”
Morse has made skiing a lifelong sport for dozens of Yarmouth skiers and become an influential part of the lives of hundreds of students. These are large shoes for the new coach, Thombs, to fill, and he admitted he is "terrified" and "nervous" to take over. “At the same time,” he said, “I know I’m ready to do it… I feel prepared and I’m excited to take on and continue Morse's legacy that goes well beyond me for not only Yarmouth but also for the state of Maine.”