Jun 29, 2006
When Mike Gore arrived at his first practice for the University of Massachusetts at Lowell's men's basketball team, he was in a pretty unique situation.
When the players started getting to know one another, many of them spoke about their stops prior to UMass.
Jerreh Saidybah is from Canada and transferred from Vanier College. Carl Benn played high school ball at Lawrence Woodmere Academy and two others graduated from Cheshire Academy in Connecticut.
Gore?
Shawsheen Valley Technical High School in Billerica.
"Nobody had any idea where Shawsheen was," said Gore with a laugh. "Everyone else is from these big-name high schools around the country."
River Hawk coach Ken Marer chuckled when recalling Gore's first days with the team and the other players' reaction to Gore's high school career.
"You don't exactly look to Shawsheen Tech as a mecca of high school basketball," Marer said.
But Gore is doing his best to put his high school on the map.
In September, Gore will enter his junior year at UMass-Lowell. While working on his degree in management information systems, he's also preparing for his third season with Lowell's Div. 2 program. To most people's knowledge, Gore would be the first Shawsheen Tech graduate to play four years at such a high level.
"It's been great so far," said Gore, who helped the 'Hawks reach the NCAA regional final this season and finish with an overall record of 21-10. "Even though I haven't played as much as I would like to, playing at this level makes you put everything into perspective. You just have to work so much harder at everything, not just the physical aspect but the mental aspect as well. There's so much more to learn. At Shawsheen, we had 10 plays. [At Lowell] we have two or three different offenses with 30 or 40 plays."
"It's certainly a higher level, but he's never backed away from a challenge," said Barer. "He's a tremendous young man with a great work ethic. Everybody loves Mike and it's been great to have him here, he's improved tremendously."
Gore, admittedly, has spent most of his time in a River Hawk uniform on the bench, quite an adjustment for a guy that never left the floor when he played for the Rams.
"I knew when he was a sophomore that Mike was going to be something special," said Roger Bourgeious, who coached Gore for Gore's first two years at Shawsheen Tech.
After the Rams started 2-8 during Gore's sophomore season, Shawsheen finished with eight wins in its final 10 games to clinch a state tournament berth.
"As the year developed, he just came on," said Bourgeois." He started playing at almost an all-star level. He was a very disciplined and hard working player, even at that young age."
Yes, there have been a few times over the past couple of years at UMass-Lowell that Gore considered calling it quits, but the former Ram all-star persevered.
"I just couldn't see myself quitting," said Gore. "I am here because I wanted to play at the highest level possible. I looked at the big picture and decided to keep fighting."
Gore was behind Stacey Moragne on the UMass-Lowell depth chart, who graduated this year.
"Mike is pretty savvy offensively," said Barer. "He's learning to be crafty."
"Next year looks a lot better for me," said Gore.
The future looks good for Gore off the court as well. He's maintaining a grade-point average just under 3.0 and says that his time at Shawsheen, where he studied internet technology, has been a big help at college.
"A lot of people told me to go to a regular high school instead of Shawsheen," said Gore. "In college we do a lot of stuff that I did in high school. I think I'm better off after going to a technical high school."
"I'm an old-school type coach," said Barer. "We have a pre-game meal before every game and every time, Mike comes over to me afterward and says 'Thanks for the meal.' In this day and age, basketball players are spoon-fed so many things for free and don't seem to appreciate things, but Mike does. He takes nothing for granted. He's really done Shawsheeen proud. He's represented that school well in a lot of ways."
Story contributed by Shawsheen Tech staff.
