ORONO, Maine -- From the time she was about 6 years old, growing up in Augusta, Amy Vachon was outside with all the other kids in the neighborhood, tossing balls, shooting baskets, developing a hunger to compete.

She was drawn to softball, field hockey and basketball, narrowed her focus in high school to field hockey and basketball, and went on to play college basketball at the highest level.

And, now, here she is, more than three decades later, still competing, still winning.

"Amy is a remarkable person," says Joanne P. [Palombo] McCallie, who coached Vachon at the University of Maine. "She is one of the most coachable, low maintenance, driven players I have ever coached."

Now the head coach at Duke, McCallie says, "She was the consummate player and did whatever it took. Now she's doing it as a coach."

Maybe not at age 6, but by the time she was 16, Vachon's career trajectory was clearer.  

At Cony High School, coached by her father, Paul Vachon, she was a four-year All-State pick, a two-time Gatorade player of the year, Miss Maine Basketball, high school athlete of the year in 1996 and had won two state basketball championships. She excelled in field hockey too, winning two state titles and player of the year.

However, it was basketball that drew her to Orono, and she went through the recruiting process, "but I wanted to go to Maine," says Vachon, "I wanted to contribute to the success the program was having at the time under Joanne Palombo."

"It was obvious that she was an outstanding player," says McCallie. "She came from a great pedigree with her father coaching her growing up."

Vachon arrived as a freshman as Cindy Blodgett, the nation's top scorer, was entering her junior year, so her role as a scorer and distributor in high school changed.

"Amy was a talented, talented point guard who made everybody around her better," says McCallie.

"I always liked to pass," says Vachon.

In fact, she passed so often and effectively that she set UMaine records for assists in a season (234) and career (759), the latter of which is an America East record. The Black Bears were 87-35 during Vachon's four years, went 61-11 in the conference, won the conference championship twice and made the NCAA tournament all four seasons. She was team captain her final two years, earned All-America East honors both seasons, and was named to the conference all-tournament team as a junior.

But, if there was one highlight to her playing career, it came in her junior season, the year after Blodgett graduated, when UMaine upset Stanford, 60-58, in the NCAA tournament. Vachon calls the game the most memorable moment of her career and "the biggest win in Maine women's basketball history."

McCallie adds, "She was completely the catalyst for the team that beat Stanford. To lose a player like Blodgett and beat Stanford in the NCAAs was amazing. A real competitor, she made everybody better."

Off-court, she was a member of the All-Maine Women Honor Society and a Magna Cum Laude graduate in elementary education with a concentration in psychology. She went to graduate school at North Carolina in Chapel Hill and became a middle school guidance counselor, taking a break from basketball for several years.

McCallie explains the break by saying, "I was demanding.  Her father was demanding, but it's in her blood."

Vachon coached several years of high school basketball, as an assistant and a head coach, and led McCauley High School to the 2011 state championship before joining Rich Barron's staff at UMaine in 2011. Over the next several years she became his top assistant, interim head coach when Barron had health complications and permanent head coach, having led the Black Bears back to the NCAA tournament in the year of her induction into the Hall of Fame.

"She made me so proud," says McCallie. "I can't say enough about what she has done with that team."

Vachon has also been inducted into the New England Basketball Hall of Fame (2013) and the Maine State Hall of Fame (2016).

The University of Maine Sports Hall of Fame will induct a 10-member class to the 195-member hall at a ceremony held on Friday, Oct. 5 at the Black Bear Inn and Conference Center. For a full list of this year's inductees, please click HERE.

-UMaine-