Just who is the University of Maine?

The University of Maine and Eastern Washington will meet for the first time as far as is known in an athletic event when the Eagles and Black Bears tangle Saturday at Roos Field in a Football Championship Subdivision playoff semifinal.

The two schools are geographic opposites, one in the far Northeast and Eastern well into the Pacific Northwest.

Located in Orono, just over 3,000 road miles east of Cheney on Interstate 90, and then north on I-95, the primary freeway that travels the Eastern Seaboard, the school is a 15 minute, 10-mile drive up the Maine River from Bangor.

The University of Maine (UMaine or Maine) is a public research university established in 1865 as a land grant college and is the flagship university of the University of Maine System.

When the University of Maine System was incorporated, in 1968, the school was renamed by the legislature over the objections of the faculty to the University of Maine at Orono. This was changed back to the University of Maine in 1986.

As of 2015 figures, some 9,100 were enrolled fulltime, both undergrad and graduate. Perhaps the most notable alum of UMaine is noted scary-guy writer, Stephen King in the class of 1970. Olympia Snowe, class of 1969, is a U.S. Senator from Maine and 1920s singer-actor Rudy Vallée attended the school from 1921-1922.

Athletics-wise, Maine is best known for its prowess in hockey where the school has won several NCAA titles. Lofa Tatupu, former NFL player and Pro Bowl linebacker with the Seattle Seahawks once played for Maine but later transferred to University of Southern California.

Paul Delaney can be reached at [email protected].