Steve Pound

by Joel Jacobson

“Steve Pound was a skinny freshman when he first stepped on the basketball court at Acadia University in 1968. Despite a high school career that saw him average 40 points a game in his senior season, tops in the United States, and despite being recruited by more than 30 American Division I and II schools, Steve chose Acadia because, on his campus visit, academics, not basketball, were stressed. “I think I was more mature than the average 18-year-old,” Steve says today. “I came from a difficult family situation, had lived away from my parents (who were divorced) at times, and had to make many of my own decisions. Coming to Acadia just continued that, even though as a freshman, I was living totally away from home for the first time and had to learn to budget my time.” He did everything well. His school work was consistently good. In fact, he had the top Grade Point Average in his graduating class in 1972. His basketball improved because, in 1968, coach Gib Chapman made him a point guard (passer) instead of the shooting guard he was in high school. “The fact we had Brian Heaney as a shooter, and he was a senior that year, helped me improve my total game by being forced to learn a new position.” Steve learned it well. He was an Atlantic University Sport all-star and helped Acadia win the league title. Axemen finished 22-4. His scoring feats were legendary as he led the nation in scoring and was a unanimous All-Canadian. The next season was the highlight for Steve. As team captain and an AUS All-Star, he led the Axemen to a 30-2 record and the National Championship in a tournament played in Wolfville. As a senior, he set an all-time Acadia four-year scoring record when he passed the 2,000 point plateau, topping Heaney’s 1,917. Again captain and All-Canadian, Steve led the Axemen into the Nationals again where they lost in the championship game. Twice Acadia’s Athlete of the Year, a three-time- member of the university’s Sport Hall of Fame, and an inductee to the New England High School Basketball Hall of Fame, Steve received his BA from Acadia, a Master’s in Education at Dalhousie and PhD in Education Leadership from Laval University. Steve helped Halifax Wandlyn Motor Inn win the Canadian Senior A Championship in 1973 by averaging 47 points in the event and being MVP of the tournament. The next year, his team advanced to the final. He played professional ball in England for a year, leading the league in scoring with a 30-point-plus-per-game average, including a 55-point effort that remains in the Guinness Book of Records as the most points scored in an English pro league game. Steve loved to shoot. He could score on a picture-perfect jumper from around the key and from what is now three-point territory (imagine how many points he’d have scored if the three-point line was in effect when he played) and on drives to the hoop. His game was multidimensional as his defense and tenacity was important to every team performance, too. Steve eventually became a principal at Quebec (City) High School where, under his coaching, the basketball team won 80 per cent of its games, two Quebec Small High School Provincial Championships and, in 1985, went 69-2. He later was an assistant coach at Acadia while serving as Alumni Association director. He returned to his native Maine in the early 2000s where he was a school superintendent until retirement two years ago. Today he is associate director of workforce development for Cianbro Institute, a Maine-based company with 3,000 employees in 41 states. “My high school basketball coach, George Wentworth, probably challenged me more than anyone else,” says Steve. “At my first practise as a Grade 9 freshman, he told me “You’re the worst shooter I’ve ever seen.’ He knew it would make me mad and that I’d work hard to show him. I did and kept improving. That really changed my life.”

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