{"id":7474,"date":"2023-04-05T09:48:13","date_gmt":"2023-04-05T13:48:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/?p=7474"},"modified":"2025-08-22T19:08:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-22T23:08:11","slug":"15-minutes-of-fame-14-years-later","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/2023\/04\/05\/15-minutes-of-fame-14-years-later\/","title":{"rendered":"15 Minutes of Fame, 14 Years Later<\/strong> "},"content":{"rendered":"\n

How New York Times writer Bill Pennington put UMPI on the map<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     It is not often that Presque Isle, Maine, gets national attention. In 2009, New York Times beat writer Bill Pennington wrote a story on the UMPI Baseball program. \u201cA College Baseball Team, Always on the Road\u201d highlighted the many hardships that players from UMPI endure to play the game they love. \u201cI was on a kick then. It was an on-and-off series to write about people who were involved in athletics, essentially for the love of the game,\u201d Pennington said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

     UMPI\u2019s coach at the time was Leo Saucier. Saucier recalls receiving the call from Pennington out of the blue one January day in 2009. \u201cFor a minute, I just thought it was a joke, like one of my buddies,\u201d Saucier said. But he quickly realized the legitimacy. \u201cI was just happy to have the opportunity to talk about why we do things the way we do in northern Maine for a baseball program,\u201d Saucier said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Bill Pennington met the team in Virginia in mid-February for their first of two spring trips. \u201cI met them at the hotel, got on the bus and just spent the whole day as a player would,\u201d Pennington said. During his time with the team, he immersed himself in his story. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

     At first, it may have seemed odd for a school this small to have a reporter following them around. \u201cI think initially everybody thought like, what? You know, why in God’s name are you here?\u201d Pennington said. He had a quick answer for that question. \u201cYou’re always trying to surprise the reader. And I said, this is going to be a surprise that you guys exist, and this is what you do,\u201d Pennington said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Pennington essentially became a part of the team for their spring trip. During that time, he hung out at the hotel and rode with them to games. \u201cYou have to make it real, and you have to make them relatable,\u201d Pennington said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     The article was released on Feb. 28, 2009. It discussed many of the hardships the players at UMPI endure to play. Practicing in the gym all year, the long bus rides and the lack of home games to name a few. \u201cIt\u2019s not just the travel. It\u2019s the distance of the travel. Going away on trips to the southern part of the country and coming back and having to go back into the gym,\u201d Saucier said. But it was always worth it for the players who stuck it out. \u201cI can’t see where it takes anything other than a pure love of the game to do it the way UMPI has to do it,\u201d Saucier said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     In the days and weeks following the article\u2019s release, UMPI began receiving a lot of recognition. \u201cESPN called, probably a couple of days after the story came out,\u201d Saucier said. Pretty soon, UMPI baseball was appearing on the largest sports network in the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     But behind the scenes is where Pennington\u2019s journalism was really felt. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

     \u201cThe biggest ripple effect was in 2011. I brought in 17 freshmen,\u201d Saucier said. UMPI\u2019s publicity helped enormously in recruiting. The roster size was around 16 the year Pennington wrote his story. By 2011, it had nearly doubled in size. \u201cThings just rippled and got better and better. And we started competing at a much higher level,\u201d Saucier said. In 2011, the team set the school record for wins at 16. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

     But outside of the baseball success, the program saw something even more inspiring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     People from all over the country began emailing and calling in to express how Pennington\u2019s article affected them. \u201cWe started getting people requesting baseballs with the whole team’s signatures,\u201d Saucier said. Then the donations started pouring in. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

     \u201cThat first season, after the New York Times article, I think we almost had around $20,000 in total donations,\u201d Saucier said. One donor in particular accounted for half of that total. \u201cThis lady called me and I had to pull over when she said she wanted to donate $10 thousand. I almost drove into the snowbank,\u201d Saucier said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Fourteen years later, Pennington is now retired from the New York Times. He reflects with fondness on his 2009 story. \u201cIt was a fun story to do,\u201d Pennington said. He credits the UMPI players and head coach Leo Saucier for being very helpful and said they were integral to the story\u2019s success. \u201cA lot of credit goes to the players and the coach,\u201d Pennington said. \u201cIf they weren’t genuine, who they were, then the story wouldn’t have come off nearly as well.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Bill Pennington\u2019s story certainly reached (and touched) many. \u201cI got a lot of response. It definitely struck a nerve with people on a lot of different levels,\u201d Pennington said. His goal was simply to shed light on a part of college sports people rarely see. \u201cThere’s a lot of things that college athletics is. And some of it is overdone, and some of it is just really authentic and much more pure,\u201d Pennington said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Pennington\u2019s excellent work in showing the beauty in the humble and authentic things just goes to show the power that journalism can have. For Coach Leo Saucier and his team, they will never forget that 2009 season and the ripple effects they experienced after. But on behalf of everyone who was and still is affected by Pennington\u2019s story, thank you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
New York Times writer Bill Pennington<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How New York Times writer Bill Pennington put UMPI on the map      It is not often that Presque Isle, Maine, gets national attention. In 2009, New York Times beat writer Bill Pennington wrote a story on the UMPI Baseball program. \u201cA College Baseball Team, Always on the Road\u201d highlighted the many hardships that players from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":221,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7381],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archives","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7474","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/221"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7474"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7474\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8084,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7474\/revisions\/8084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}