Maine Black Bears

The Maine Black Bears are the athletic teams which represent the University of Maine. They compete in NCAA Division I athletics, with the majority of the teams playing in the America East Conference. The only exceptions are the ice hockey program, which competes in Hockey East, and the football program, which competes in the Colonial Athletic Association.

Ice hockey
The men's ice hockey program was introduced in 1977. The team has been successful and have won the Hockey East title five times, appeared in eleven Frozen Fours, and won 2 National Championships. The Black Bears compete in the Hockey East conference, which includes teams such as Boston College, Boston University, Northeastern, and New Hampshire. The program has produced many professional ice hockey players, such as Paul Kariya, Eric Weinrich, Keith Carney, Garth Snow, Mike Dunham, Dustin Penner, and Jimmy Howard. The team is best known for its 1992–93 season, in which the team only lost one game, finishing with a record of 42–1–2. The team is noted for its head coach Shawn Walsh, who coached the team for seventeen seasons. Walsh is credited with turning the team into such a successful program, as well as turning the Alfond Arena into one of the most intimidating arenas in college hockey. Walsh died of renal cell carcinoma on September 26, 2001.

Baseball
The baseball program has made several trips to the College World Series and has produced numerous major- league baseball players. The program has also made 16 NCAA tournament appearances, most recently in 2011 when they defeated FIU, 4-1, in the NCAA regionals. The program has won the AEC Tournament five times, in 1993, 2002, 2005, 2006, and 2011. The program also won the conference in 1990 and 1991, before the America East sponsored a baseball tournament.

Basketball
The basketball teams, as well as all other sports teams, participate in the America East Conference. The current Clemson University head coach Jack Leggett also attended the university, as well as NBA head coach Rick Carlisle (although Carlisle transferred to Virginia and finished his college career there). Other notables include Rufus Harris, Kevin Reed, Andre Rossignol, Jim Boylen, Andy Bedard, and several former Maine high school stars including Bangor's Jon McAllian and Edward Little's Troy Barnies. A prominent current player is San Diego-native Gerald Mclemore. The women's and men's basketball teams play at Alfond Arena. On October 20, 2011, Maine announced that the men's and women's teams will have 11 home games played at Memorial Gym in Orono. UMaine played home basketball games at Memorial Gym from its opening in 1935, but held some games at the Bangor Auditorium from 1980 through the early part of the 1990–91 season. The remaining men’s and women’s home games will be played at Alfond Arena, UMaine’s basketball home since January 1992. The men’s team has held a total of eight games at Memorial Gym since 2003–04. The team has never played in the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament.

The women's basketball team is particularly noted for producing one-time WNBA player Cindy Blodgett, who also served as an assistant coach at Boston College and Brown.

The men's basketball team in recent years has made progress as in the 2009–10 season the team finished the season in second place in the America East conference with a 19–11 overall record with recording one of its biggest wins in recent years with a 52–51 win over Boston College of the Atlantic Coast Conference and in the 2010–11 season defeating the University of Massachusetts, 68-56, and Penn State, 74-64.

On May 23, 2007, Blodgett was named the head coach of the women's team. She was released in March 2011.

The Black Bears' rivalry with the New Hampshire Wildcats is the longest continuous basketball rivalry between any two non-Ivy League schools: the men's teams have played each other 107 seasons in a row, from 1904–1905 to the present season (2010–2011).

The program has developed 2 NBA players those being former Los Angeles Clippers Jeff Cross and former Boston Celtics and current head coach of the Dallas Mavericks Rick Carlisle.

Football
Maine's football team competes in the Colonial Athletic Association. Prior to the 2007 season, the NCAA football league was sponsored by the Atlantic 10 Conference. The football program has produced many professional football players and coaches, such as center Mike Flynn, offensive lineman Justin Strzelczyk, quarterback Mike Buck, wide receiver/coach Phil McGeoghan, Pro Bowl linebacker Lofa Tatupu, who transferred to USC after his freshman year, linebacker Stephen Cooper, Pro Bowl fullback/special teams Montell Owens, defensive back Daren Stone, tight end Matthew Mulligan, defensive lineman Mike DeVito, linebacker Jovan Belcher and defensive back Brandon McGowan. Current Iowa coach, and 2002 AP National Coach of the Year Kirk Ferentz began his head coaching career at Maine. The team also received brief publicity when the Oakland Raiders selected wide receiver Kevin McMahan as the last player in the 2006 NFL Draft, affectionately known as Mr. Irrelevant. The University of Maine is known currently to have the most active players on NFL rosters at the Division 1 FCS level.

The team has played several Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) opponents and is slowly progressing to develop into a Division I FBS program. The team has played teams in recent years such as Iowa, Rutgers, Hawaii, Mississippi State, Nebraska, Connecticut, Syracuse, and Pittsburgh in 2011. In 2004, The Maine Black Bears defeated Mississippi State University, 9-7. This marked the first time that Maine defeated a Division I FBS opponent. The largest crowd that the Black Bears have ever played in front of was 77,469 fans at Memorial Stadium, when Maine fell, 25–7, to the Nebraska Cornhuskers in Lincoln. The team currently plays its games at Harold Alfond Stadium. The team is scheduled to play BCS games at the ACC's Boston College in 2012 and the Big Ten's Northwestern in 2013.

Active Players
 * Derek Buttles, TE, Buffalo Bills
 * Derek Session, WR, Buffalo Bills
 * Pushaun Brown, RB, New York Jets
 * Stephen Cooper, LB, San Diego Chargers
 * Trevor Coston, S, Chicago Bears
 * Mike DeVito, DL, New York Jets
 * Brandon McGowan, S, Free Agent
 * Jerron McMillian, S, Green Bay Packers
 * Matthew Mulligan, TE, St. Louis Rams
 * Montell Owens, Pro Bowl FB/ST, Jacksonville Jaguars
 * Daren Stone, S, Calgary Stampeders CFL
 * Lofa Tatupu (transferred to USC), Pro Bowl LB, Atlanta Falcons

Radio and television
The current radio broadcast rights to all UMaine sports are held by WAEI and WKSQ in Bangor, Maine. TV coverage includes Bangor's WABI-TV (Most home football and basketball games and some hockey games). NESN also carries select hockey and basketball games (from American East TV and ESPN Plus). During the school year Black Bear Weekly is carried Sunday mornings on WABI.

In 2006 the University sold the advertising rights to athletic events to Missouri based Learfield Sports. Starting with the fall 2007 sports season, WVOM and WGUY split radio coverage, WGUY carrying men's and women's basketball and select baseball and softball games and WVOM carrying football and hockey broadcasts. After the 2008 fall sports season, WAEI-FM became the flagship for all Maine sports; the rights were transferred again to WKSQ in 2011 (though WAEI's AM sister station remains a co-flagship).

Many Black Bear games can also be heard on WMEB-FM, a student-run, commercial-free radio station located on campus.

Championships
National Championships

Men's Ice Hockey – 1993, 1999

Conference Titles

Men's Ice Hockey Hockey East – 1989, 1992, 1993, 2000, 2004 Baseball America East – 1990, 1991, 1993, 2002, 2005, 2006, 2011 Men's Cross Country America East – 2004 Softball America East – 1994, 2004 Football Yankee Conference – 1949, 1951, 1952, 1961, 1965, 1974, 1982, 1987, 1989 Atlantic 10 – 2001, 2002 Women's Basketball America East – 1990, 1991, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 2004 Men's Outdoor Track America East – 1995 Women's Outdoor Track New England – 2003