A Saint Joseph’s College basketball player who was killed in a car crash near the Standish campus early Saturday was remembered as a well-liked and hardworking student-athlete both in college and at Bangor High School.
Clark Noonan, 20, died at the scene of the 1:30 a.m. crash after being ejected from a Mazda 626 driven by Tyler Hall, 19, also a student at Saint Joseph’s.
Additional Photos
Hall and two other passengers were treated at Maine Medical Center for non-life-threatening injuries and released later Saturday.
Those passengers, also Saint Joseph’s students, were James Philbrook, 20, of Auburn, and Terence Cullen, 21, of Sully, Iowa.
The Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office said Hall was driving at a high speed when he lost control of the car and veered off Chadbourne Road, between Route 114 and White Rock Road. The car rolled over several times before landing in a chain-link fence, according to the sheriff’s office.
Sgt. James Ambrose said the sheriff’s office is investigating whether drugs or alcohol were factors in the crash. He said the Mazda and another car of students following Hall were on their way to campus from somewhere else in Standish. He wouldn’t say where, because the investigation is ongoing.
Saint Joseph’s athletic events scheduled for today were canceled, as members of the college community try to cope with the loss of Noonan, a sophomore business management major, according to a statement from the college.
“During difficult times like this, it is important to draw strength from each other and the larger campus community. Clark will be deeply missed by the entire Saint Joseph’s College community, and we are planning to honor his life with a service on campus in the coming days,” wrote Saint Joseph’s President Ken Lemanski in a letter sent around the campus.
Noonan, who was 6-foot-6, played center for Saint Joseph’s. He was a basketball and soccer star at Bangor High School, where he graduated in 2010. He is the son of Edward and Christine Noonan, according to his profile on the Saint Joseph’s College basketball website.
Zach Blodgett, his teammate in high school and college, said Noonan was a dedicated athlete and a warm person.
“He’s one of the reasons I came here, because he was such a good role model to me. I wanted to follow him,” said Blodgett, a freshman at Saint Joseph’s.
Blodgett said Noonan loved the sport of basketball and would have played all the time if he could have. He said he was a leader by example and was always smiling.
“His personality just rubbed off on everybody,” he said.
Roger Reed, who coached Noonan at Bangor High, said he was “one of the nicest kids you’d ever coach” and also one of the hardest-working.
He said Noonan started playing basketball later than most of his teammates and played on the freshman and junior varsity teams, before joining the varsity his junior year. Reed said he made himself into a star player — the team’s best rebounder and hardest defender.
“He never wanted a minute off. When he hit the court, it was two hours out straight,” Reed said.
In a video posted in January on the Saint Joseph’s College website, Noonan and Philbrook, his teammate and roommate, gave an interview for “Monk Confessions,” a feature in which student-athletes talk about their personal interests.
Noonan talks about his love for sushi and desire to travel to Japan. If he could trade places with anyone for a day, he’d choose President Obama, and if he could meet anyone in the world, it would be professional basketball player Kevin Garnett.
He and the interviewer agree that Garnett is “intense” — the same word those who knew Noonan used to describe him Saturday.
“He gave us everything he had,” Reed said.
Staff Writer Leslie Bridgers can be contacted at 791-6364 or at: lbridgers@pressherald.com
Send questions/comments to the editors.
Success. Please wait for the page to reload. If the page does not reload within 5 seconds, please refresh the page.
Enter your email and password to access comments.
Hi, to comment on stories you must . This profile is in addition to your subscription and website login.
Already have a commenting profile? .
Invalid username/password.
Please check your email to confirm and complete your registration.
Only subscribers are eligible to post comments. Please subscribe or login first for digital access. Here’s why.
Use the form below to reset your password. When you've submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code.