Tom Pelletier broke onto the Maine basketball stage for Fort Kent High School as a freshman scorer who competed in the tough class A basketball division. At that time Fort Kent competed against larger schools like Presque Isle, Caribou, Stearns, and Bangor.
Tom’s amazing shooting ability and his exceptional quickness made him virtually impossible to guard. Hall of Famer Steve Pound of Stearns recalls playing against this “County” legend in 1968. Pound called him “ the best player I played against my senior year.” Tom’s high school team often found themselves undersized but he kept them in every game with dazzling shots and blurring speed. As a freshman, Pelletier averaged 17 points per game. That would increase to an impressive 26 ppg by his junior year and an unprecedented 30 ppg his final season.
A basketball junky, Tom benefited from hours in his driveway shooting at a hoop put up by his dad. All that practice paid off for Tom, who still holds the all-time scoring record at Fort Kent’s Community High School, with 1,768 points. It should be noted that Pelletier’s impressive point total is from a time before there was a three-point line in high school basketball. There is little doubt that, with a three-point line he would have put his scoring record even farther out of reach for future payers.
While none of Pelletier’s teams ever won the state title, with Sam Jordan as coach they did make it to the tournament three of the four years he played, in the much tougher Class A division.
Soccer was Pelletier’s other sports passion, which is why he chose Brown University. Like most Ivy League schools at the time, Brown was not known for its basketball prowess, but it had a “fantastic” soccer team, Pelletier said.
In 1975, Pelletier’s Brown team made it to the semifinals of the NCAA soccer tournament, losing to University of San Francisco, 2-1 in triple overtime and defeating Howard University to take third place.
After college, Pelletier studied law at the University of Maine and practiced law in Aroostook County for 20 years. Today, he is a judge for Maine’s Workers’ Compensation Board, traveling between his Fort Kent home, Caribou office and Augusta.
