2023 NEPSAC Winter News Magazine

NEPSAC® News

NEW ENGLAND PREPARATORY SCHOOL ATHLETIC COUNCIL

Derek Green and John Mackay

honored at Annual Meeting

NEPSAC®

New England Preparatory School Athletic Council

President

Martha Brousseau Greenwich Academy

Vice-President

Ryan Frost Cardigan Mountain School

Secretary

Rob Quinn Berwick Academy

Treasurer

Jim Smucker Berwick Academy

Co-Directors of Championships

Jamie Arsenault New Hampton School

Bob Howe Deerfield Academy

Lisa Joel Phillips Andover Academy Director of Classifications

Mark Conroy Williston Northampton School

Coordinator of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

Lamar Reddicks Milton Academy Past Presidents

George Tahan Belmont Hill School

Bob Howe Deerfield Academy

Jamie Arsenault New Hampton School

Mark Conroy Williston Northampton School

Richard Muther St. Paul’s School

Middle School Representatives

Rob Feingold The Fay School

Amber Kuntz Beaver Country Day School

District I Representatives

Stefan Jensen Hyde School

Caddy Brooks Hebron Academy District II Representatives

Tara Brisson Tilton School

Jenna Simon Holderness School

Connor Wells Brewster Academy

District III Representatives

Betsy Kennedy Pingree School

Jen Viana Cushing Academy

Sean Kelly The Wheeler School

Andrew Mitchell Lexington Christian Academy

District IV Representatives

Mike Marich The Frederick Gunn School

Tim Joncas Westminster School

Mo Gaitán Pomfret School

Catherine Conway School of the Holy Child

Communications Specialist

Laurie Sachs The Rivers School

“NEPSAC” and the NEPSAC logo are registered trademarks of the New England Preparatory School Athletic Council and may not be used or displayed without permission.

New England Preparatory School Athletic Council qualifies as a public charity under Internal Revenue Code 501(c)(3).

President’s Letter

Martha Brousseau Greenwich Academy

Happy 2023 to you! Was great to see so many faces in Boxborough back in November! Great to meet at our regularly scheduled time frame and the new digs were a hit with our vendors who make the day possible. If you missed the meeting, 1) you need to be in attendance next year; and 2) please see a great article about our most recent Martin William Souders Award and Distinguished Service Award honorees.

Annual meeting attendees had the opportunity to learn more about the history of Title IX and how gender is playing out in sport 50 years later, and heard from one of our own about fostering positive team culture.

The other big news that came of out of the fall meeting was the vote to play NEPSAC semi-final games at the higher seed beginning this winter.

There are some other great articles in this issue, ranging from remembering a beloved figure on Proctor’s campus to learning more about Milton’s and now Amherst’s legendary hockey coach Jack Arena. There is an interesting piece about the intersection between NEPSAC and the NESCAC.

So grab a bowl of popcorn and read on!

NEPSAC Online Directory:

Please continue to update your school information in the online directory with any changes that you might have. This has been a much more efficient system and will allow schools to keep information more accurate. Look for reminders as we move forward. Contact Laurie Sachs communications@nepsac.org if you have any questions.

TREASURER’S REPORT Online Payments and Coaches’ Associations

by Jim Smucker, Berwick Academy, NEPSAC Treasurer

Reminders/Tips for making payments online:

To be most efficient it is important that schools only create one account when making their payments. If you don’t remember your login information, simply click on the “Forgot your username or password?” link to enter your email address to receive instructions to reset your password. Remember to check your spam/junk folder for these instruction emails.

For the following sports: Field Hockey, Soccer, Volleyball, Basketball, and Ice Hockey, please do not pay for Tournament fees until your team has been selected.

Please be aware that there is a processing fee to off-set our cost with every online transaction. We are not able to refund processing fees, so please be diligent about this process and your record keeping.

View My Account

How To View Your Account

If you already have a Username and Password, go to 'View My Account' and enter your credentials to log in.

If you already have a Username and Password, go to ‘View My Account’ and enter your credentials to log in.

Got news to share with other NEPSAC schools? Send the details to communications@nepsac.org and we’ll put it in the next issue.

After logging in, you will have access to ‘Payment History”. Use the available filters to view ALL of them or choose any date range or period.

After logging in, you will have access to 'Payment History. Use the available filters to view ALL of them or choose any date range or period.

If you have any concerns about this process please feel free to reach out to Jimmy Smucker jsmucker@berwickacademy.org or Laurie Sachs communications@nepsac.org

Coaches’ Associations/District Banking Transfers:

In Process: Football changing of treasurer, WNEPSWLA, DIII, Wrestling

Remaining: Boys Soccer, Field Hockey, Swimming and Diving, and Boys Tennis.

NEPSAC anticipates trying to open these accounts by September 2023 so that these Associations can comply with NEPSAC’s 501(c)(3) status. If you have any questions or need any assistance please reach out to Jimmy Smucker.

NEPSAC Fall 2022 Tournament Champions

BOYS CROSS COUNTRY

Division 1 Phillips Exeter Academy

Division 2 Noble and Greenough School

Division 3 The Rivers School Division 4 The Harvey School

All-NEPSAC List

GIRLS CROSS COUNTRY

Division 1 Loomis Chaffee School Division 2 Austin Prep Division 3 Pingree School Division 4 Lexington Christian Academy

All-NEPSAC

GIRLS FIELD HOCKEY

Class A Greenwich Academy

Class B The Governor’s Academy Class C Pingree School

FOOTBALL

Mike Silipo Bowl Brunswick School

Kevin Driscoll Bowl Avon Old Farms School

Dave Coratti Bowl Brooks School

Todd Marble Bowl Lawrence Academy

Mark Conroy Bowl Loomis Chaffee School

Ken Hollingsworth Bowl Proctor Academy

Moose Curtis Bowl Rivers School

John Papas Bowl St. Paul’s School

BOYS SOCCER

Class A Worcester Academy

Class B Brooks School

Class C Greens Farms Academy Class D Hyde School

GIRLS SOCCER

Class A Buckingham Browne & Nichols

Class B Pingree School

Class C Brewster Academy

Class D Montrose School

All-NEPSAC List

GIRLS VOLLEYBALL

Class A Deerfield Academy

Class B King School

Class C Cushing Academy

Class D Christian Heritage School

All-NEPSAC List

BOYS WATER POLO

Brunswick School

All-NEPSAC

In Memoriam: Remembering Edna Peters

morning to prepare breakfast. Rather she understood her impact on young people’s lives reached far beyond her culinary skills. Her impact on those around her each came from simply knowing, caring for, and making sure each student felt loved.

Edna’s mindset, encouraged by longtime director of Dining Services Art Makechnie, permeated the entire team, and inspired others across campus to set aside their designation as “staff” or “faculty”, and to embrace the notion that all adults at Proctor are here for the kids. Her legacy lives on in the current Dining Services team and the hugs they offer kids each day as they come to meals and navigate their days.

Perhaps the greatest lesson Edna taught us is the impact one individual can have through living an intentional, consistent life that puts others at the center of all they do. A post sharing the passing of Edna on our Instagram account sparked dozens of comments from alumni spanning five decades. Each had their

For a teenager, especially one who is living away from home at boarding school, a smile, food, and hug are the simplest, most profound acts of love one can receive. Edna Peters, GP ’11, ’14 made sure that each Proctor student who walked into the dining hall experienced all three forms of love each day for more than 40 years. Today, we celebrate her life and her profound impact on the Proctor community.

Since her arrival on Proctor’s Dining Services team in 1979 (Edna worked in Housekeeping for a few years prior), Edna touched the lives of thousands of Proctor students through her unique ability to simultaneously make students feel loved while still holding them accountable for their actions, always with a spatula in hand. Her famous waffles and cookies provided sustenance to us, however, it was her hugs that consistently brought life to groggy students each morning.

A stalwart on the sidelines of athletic contests, with a special affinity for cheering on Proctor’s football and basketball teams, her role at Proctor transcended the dining hall. Edna, like so many others in the Proctor community, recognized her job did not start or stop when she arrived in the Cannon Dining Hall early each

own memory, their own stories about how Edna made them feel special, and yet they were remarkably consistent in their deep appreciation for her daily presence in their lives.

Sometimes we think we need to have these big, magical, transformative moments to truly impact a young person’s life, but what we learned from Edna is that we simply need to show up for our kids. We need to be there. Everyday. We need to ask how they are doing. Give them a hug, and maybe make them a waffle or some cookies. Often, the simplest acts of love are the most profound. Thank you, Edna, for showing us how to make a difference and how to love our kids, your kids.

Andrew Copelan Named Premier Lacrosse League’s Coach of the Year

a couple of challenging seasons due to the pandemic, I am so looking forward to seeing him coach his first full season; the team is going to have a great year. I know the whole GCDS community joins me in congratulating Coach Copelan on this achievement!”

GCDS Athletic Director Tim Helstein also sent his congratulations to Coach Copelan.

determination, and focus. Those who play for him don’t just become better lacrosse players, they become better people,” said Helstein. “To hear the way his players speak about him as a coach and mentor is all the proof you need to see why he was selected as the PLL Coach of the Year.”

Andrew “Andy” Copelan, Head Coach of the Greenwich Country Day School Boys Varsity Lacrosse team as well as for the Premier Lacrosse League (PLL) Team—the Waterdogs—was named the PLL 2021 Coach of the Year on Friday. In order to be considered for this award, coaches must first be nominated by PLL players, team staff, and fellow coaches. Following the preliminary nominations, the media, PLL front office, and PLL Advisory Board then vote to select the award recipient. Honorees enjoyed a celebration at the awards ceremony held on Friday, September 17 in Washington, D.C.

“Individual awards in a team sport really are team awards,” said Copelan. “Great players make coaches look good, and great assistant coaches make the head coach look good. I am fortunate to have both.”

Adam Rohdie, GCDS Head of School, expressed his excitement for Copelan as both a PLL and GCDS Tigers Athletics lacrosse coach.

“It is truly incredible that the coach of the year in the professional lacrosse league is also our head lacrosse coach! The young men on our team have already received remarkable skills training and insights from Coach Copelan. After

“I cannot think of someone more deserving of this award. He devotes his heart and soul into both the game and the boys. Andy brings the best out of his players, and they do everything to give their best to him. I’m not just talking about skill. I’m talking about comradery, unity,

The honor is the latest addition to Copelan’s list of accolades, which includes a 2018 induction into the US Lacrosse Rochester Chapter Hall of Fame, and four Patriot League titles as an athlete at Bucknell. Prior to joining the Waterdogs, Copelan coached college lacrosse for sixteen years, including 11 years as the head coach of the Fairfield University Men’s Lacrosse team (2008-2019). In addition, Copelan served as the assistant coach at the University of Maryland for two years (2006-2008), and led Marist College to their first NCAA tournament appearance in 2005 as their head coach (2004-2006).

“To coach with and against the best players in the world has been a lot of fun. I love what the PLL is doing for lacrosse and for the future of our sport,” said Copelan.

PHILLIPS ACADEMY | ANDOVER, MASSACHUSETTS

The Eastern Athletic Trainers Association’s Excellence in Athletic Training Award is given to a certified athletic trainer who has made outstanding contributions to the professional advancement of athletic training in secondary schools. Andover’s Amy Wiggins has served on numerous different committees at both the state and national level. She presently serves on the NATA Secondary School Committee and is the chair-elect for NEPSCA Sports Medicine Advisory Committee. Amy has served on the Massachusetts Concussion Coalition with MDPH, MIAA sports advisory board, and the MYSA advisory board, always with the goal to provide safer youth sports. Amy saw a need for secondary school athletic trainers at the start of her career and never stopped pushing forward. She has started numerous athletic training programs; all presently employ full time athletic trainers. Amy has impacted the profession in many ways; she is known for never stopping. Her exceptional contributions, strong leadership and dedication to the professional advancement of athletic training makes her this year’s recipient of the Excellence in Secondary School Award.

GREENWICH COUNTRY DAY SCHOOL | GREENWICH, CONNECTICUT

Photo by Emma Adams

Worcester Basketball Coach Sherry Levin Honored: Holy Cross College to Retire Five Women’s Basketball Jerseys

Holy Cross Director of Athletics Kit Hughes is honored to announce the retirement of five Holy Cross women’s basketball jerseys at the College. This recognition coincides with the 50th anniversaries of Title IX and coeducation at Holy Cross, and will celebrate the tradition of excellence within the women’s basketball program. The incredible accomplishments of these women will elevate them to the heights of fellow Crusader basketball greats already displayed within the Hart Center at the Luth Athletic Complex.

Kathleen Courtney M.D. ’97, Janet Hourihan Brooks ’86, Sherry Levin ’84, Lauren Maney George ’96 and Amy O’Brien Davagian ’99 will all have their numbers hung in the rafters of the Hart Center Arena forever, in honor of their significant impact on and off the court as a part of the storied women’s basketball program.

The five alumnae will be formally honored, and their jerseys officially displayed, during the Crusaders’ Patriot League contest against Army West Point on January 28, 2023.

“The accomplishments of these Crusaders are truly remarkable and I am thrilled for the opportunity to honor their legacy and impact on Holy Cross women’s basketball,” said Hughes. “This special recognition is well-earned based on their significant accomplishments on the court and continued service to others throughout the community and at the College. The opportunity to honor their legacy at the same time we recognize the 50th anniversaries of Title IX and coeducation makes this all the more special. I look forward to celebrating with our entire Holy Cross community as we add these new names to the pantheon of Crusader basketball greats.”

“This is such an exciting time for our program,” said Holy Cross head coach Maureen Magarity. “These five women laid the foundation for the success and tradition that Holy Cross women’s basketball has been built on. The impact that they made individually and collectively on and off the court aligns perfectly with the 50th anniversary of Title IX. We can’t wait to hang their jerseys in the rafters to cement their lasting legacy in Hart.”

#24 Sherry Levin ’84

Levin, the program’s all-time leader in points (2,253), scoring average (21.8) and field goals made (842), started and played in 103 games

for the Crusaders. A four-time first team Jewish All-American, she led Holy Cross to an EAIAW championship in 1983 and the MAAC regular season title in 1984. Academically, she was a three-time CoSIDA Academic All-American and the 1984 MAAC scholar-athlete of the year. In 1984, Levin was awarded the Holy Cross Varsity Club’s John A. Meegan Athletic Achievement award. Levin was honored before the Holy Cross’ game against UMass on November 19, 2021, when the players’ lounge adjacent to the women’s locker room was dedicated to her.

Levin was the first women’s basketball player to be inducted into the Holy Cross Varsity Club Hall of Fame in 1989, and on April 23, 2023, Levin will be enshrined into the Jewish Sports Heritage Association (JSHA) Hall of Fame.

“I am extremely honored that Holy Cross is retiring my jersey,” she said. “It’s quite humbling to be mentioned in the same breath as the legends I always looked up to as a student-

athlete. I am especially thrilled to have my number alongside that of my dear coach, Togo Palazzi. I know he would be proud. My career was filled with so many incredible memories on the court that this is a culmination of a dream come true. A heartfelt thank you to the athletic department for establishing this new initiative recognizing the tradition of excellence and achievements of women’s basketball at Holy Cross. I am filled with such gratitude and share this honor with my teammates, coaches, and all who have supported us along the way. I am especially excited to have the women’s basketball players honored while Title IX celebrates its 50th year of existence. Setting the foundation for future players to look up and see our jerseys and feel like anything is possible is meaningful.”

Patriot League Recognizes Trailblazers of Distinction During the 50th Anniversary of Title IX

by Holy Cross Athletics

The Patriot League in conjunction with its 10 full-member institutions has announced its Trailblazers of Distinction to recognize the accomplishments of some of their most impactful women leaders during the Title IX era.

The league worked closely with staff from each of its institutions to identify and honor individual women and memorable teams for contributions to their respective athletics departments, campuses and society at large. The Trailblazers of Distinction were selected in concurrence with the Patriot League’s yearlong celebration of the 50th Anniversary of Title IX.

Each Trailblazer of Distinction represents the Patriot League’s vision for their achievement of athletic potential in addition to values of integrity, character and personal development. Collectively, the women and teams recognized have served as shining examples of the importance of the journey toward inclusion and gender equity.

When the Patriot League became an all-sport conference during the 1990-1991 academic year, it initially offered 22 sports; 11 men’s and 11 women’s. The ability to offer an equal complement of sports was in part due to the contributions made by some of the Trailblazers of Distinction, whose collegiate athletics careers concluded before the formation of the league. The paths they paved for future generations who were afforded more opportunities to compete is why it is important to recognize their accomplishments alongside those that directly impacted the Patriot League.

Recognized by Holy Cross are: Egetta Alfonso, Sherry Levin, Lauren Manis, Mary Fitzgerald Riley and Patricia Sutton Thompson.

NEPSAC Award Winners Aim for Excellence

by Bob York

The United States Air Force has a motto: Aim High. By the tender age of 6, Derek Green, who would grow up to attain the rank of Lt. Col., had concocted a slogan of his own: Aim Higher.

“It was the summer of ’69,” reflected Green, a graduate of Kingswood Oxford School (’81), on a time when the phraseology changed from “Man in the Moon,” to “Man on the Moon.” “It was the night of July 20th … a night I’ll never forget … it was the night man first walked on the Moon,” — and the youngster nearly missed it all.

“The astronauts were scheduled to land late that night, so my mother sent me off to bed,” remembers a resourceful Green, who snuck back downstairs after she fell asleep on the couch. “I got to watch the landing, then watched Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walk on the moon. I couldn’t help but wonder, even as a

six-year-old, how in the world they ever got up there.” And by the time Green finally tucked himself back into bed that night he remembers thinking “I want to do that … I want to be an astronaut.”

Green’s aspirations never carried him into space, but they got him darn close. Turns out, he came within the blink of an eye literally of becoming an honest-to goodness “Rocket Man.” However, the diligence he exhibited in reaching the final cut as a candidate revealed his mettle, while the array of experience he has acquired throughout the years in both the military and private sectors helped place him atop the balloting for this year’s New England Prep School Athletic Council’s Martin William Souders Memorial Award.

The Souders Award is the council’s most prestigious accolade and is annually presented to a person who has portrayed the

Martin William Souders Award recipient Derek Green with Distinguished Service Award winner John Mackay.

same characteristics of leadership, vision, high ideals and accomplishments that Souders, the council’s first president, did as an educator.

NEPSAC also handed out its 2022-23 Distinguished Service Award during its annual meeting on Nov. 18 with this year’s prize going to John Mackay, a long-time St. George’s School athletic director, football coach and history teacher as well as NEPSAC board member and past president. Mackay is retiring this year following a 26-year stay at St. George’s, putting “The End” to a remarkable 46-year career as a prep school teacher and mentor.

NEPSAC’s Distinguished Service Award is annually presented to someone who has contributed significantly to both the athletics and physical education of New England’s independent schools through their enthusiasm, dedication, leadership and vision.

Green’s captivating resume checks all the boxes for a Souders vote. It begins with an electrical engineering job for Westinghouse, followed by a 22-year stint in the Air Force, during which, the Hartford, Conn., native listed occupations from flight commander to VIP pilot. In his stint as VIP pilot from 2000 to 2007 he transported White House officials from the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush administrations, as well as members of the Department of Defense and Congress throughout the world.

“I never flew either president … they normally flew on the 747s,” explained the 737 pilot, “but I did fly both first ladies (Hillary Clinton and Laura Bush) on numerous occasions.”

While based at Joint Base Andrews, located just outside Washington, D.C., Green’s outstanding level of work earned him two other prestigious jobs prior to his retirement. One was being named commander of operational support of the 201st Airlift Group. The other got him an office at the Pentagon, where he was in charge of 15 Air Force programs including overseeing the maintenance of Air Force One and given a budget of $6.3 billion to ensure everything was up to snuff.

In 2007, Green returned to the civilian sector and began a

seven-year stay at General Electric, where he served as vice president and general manager of its Global Flight Operations Division, which meant he was in charge of all the company’s global flight planning.

Today, he serves as a consultant to many large companies as well as being the Chief Operating Officer for a major multi-use facility. In these positions, he serves as principal advisor and consultant to select companies. It’s his job to advise on execution strategies, efficiency, market strategy, senior executive development, business development planning, communications, financial forecasts and problem solving in complex arenas.

“I’m both honored and humbled to be receiving this year’s Souders Award,” said Green, who learned of his latest achievement while flying a cancer patient and her mother to a doctors’ appointment in Presque Isle, Me. “It was one of those wow moments. Then, when I got home, my wife Googled the award and when I saw the names of some of the previous award winners … names such as George H.W. Bush (Andover), Bill Belichick (Andover) and General Mark Milley (Belmont Hill) … I had a double wow moment.”

“Derek certainly has all the characteristics that the council is looking for in a candidate for the Souders Award,” said KO Athletic Director Josh Balabuch, who tossed Green’s name into the ring.

The two first met during the school’s annual Athletic Hall of Fame Induction Ceremonies last spring. Balabuch was there to serve as master of ceremonies while Green was there to be inducted for his efforts in all three sports he competed in football, wrestling and track for the Wyverns.

Earning a letter in all three sports during all four years he attended Kingswood Oxford, Green played tailback for legendary KO football coach Joel Lorden, “who taught me the meaning of resilience,” said Green, “while I learned what determination was all about during my time on the wrestling team.”

It would appear as though Green saved his best for last every year as the spring season meant track season. He was voted team captain his junior and senior years and held the school record for the 200-meter run for four years, while his time in the 100-meter dash sat atop the school’s annals for more than a quarter century. And he didn’t slow down in college, either. At Tufts University, he competed in track, was voted captain his junior and senior years and culminated his career with the Jumbos by scampering to the New England championship in the 100-meter dash.

“We got chatting after the ceremonies and I came away being very impressed by the things Derek had accomplished in 30 years or so,” said Balabuch. “Then, a few months later when the council began looking for candidates for the Souders Award, I felt he would be a perfect fit.”

As far as Green’s hopes of fulfilling his childhood dream of becoming an astronaut was concerned, he earned an invite to the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, in 2003, where

Derek Green and his family.

he and the other 19 candidates in his group were greeted by the director of flight crew operations and promptly informed that “their chances of becoming rich were very low while their chances of being involved in a serious accident were very high.”

And with that, Green and his teammates only two of whom would survive the final cut set out on what he would later describe to “BuzzFeed News,” as “probably the most exhilarating, exciting and intense period of time in my life.”

One highlight of his stay at astronaut boot camp was a sixhour multiple-choice test that contained approximately 2,000 questions. “Only one hour of the multiple-choice test was on cognitive abilities,” explained Green, “while the other five concentrated on the psychological. And after those results were compiled, I spent about four hours with a psychologist and a psychiatrist. It was very comprehensive and you certainly learn a lot about yourself.”

As for an astronaut candidate’s shot of making it to the moon, much less even climbing into a space capsule tethered to good old terra firma during their four months of training were considered miniscule to begin with.

Just how miniscule? Well, according to “Space Pete,” the editor of NASASpaceflight ISS, “I can’t give you odds, but I can give you statistics:

“Every time NASA puts out a request for a new astronaut group, more than 2,000 people send in their applications … of those 2,000, about 500 receive an invite to boot camp and survive the first cut. From that 500, 100 will be interviewed … and out of those 100, only 20 or so will be actually be offered a position as an astronaut.

“Then,” “Space Pete” continues, “you have to complete two years of rigorous training before you qualify for a flight assignment. Then you have to wait another two years -- or more – before you are assigned to a mission and then you have to complete about two years of training for that mission.”

“Space Pete” then closes out his commentary on an optimistic note accompanied by a smiley-face emoji saying: “However, contrary to popular belief, it is NOT impossible!”

And so, with all that good stuff in mind, Green survived two extensive rounds of testing and interviews before being cut prior

to the final round due to a vision problem. He was diagnosed with a refractive error, which means his eyes were unable to bend and focus light appropriately onto the retina.

The problem proved to be so negligible that although Green was deemed unable to fly spaceships, he was still able to fly planes.

“Naturally, it was greatly disappointed to learn that I’d been turned down by NASA, but I was extremely happy to learn that my eye problem wouldn’t affect me flying airplanes,” said Green, who admitted, “I’d rather fly than breathe,” and he’s still doing both today.

Green approached his goal of becoming an astronaut with both feet firmly planted on the ground. As a youngster, he began researching what he would need to do to make it into space and quickly noticed that all three members of the Apollo 11 Mission Armstrong, Aldrin and Michael Collins had a common bond. All three were pilots, while Armstrong and Aldrin held engineering degrees. So, Green quickly realized the first step to his staircase to the stars would begin by getting a good education. After all, this is rocket science we’re talking about.

“I knew that wanting to become an astronaut would mean registering for as many science and math courses as I possibly could during my four years at KO, because that meant I would have to be attending engineering school once I got to college,” said Green, who is now the proud holder of a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Tufts, as well as a master’s degree in aeronautical science from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and another master’s degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Alabama.

Green, who is a member of the KO Board of Trustees, admitted “the school proved to be a perfect place for me. As it turned out, I wasn’t as prepared to fulfill my dream as I thought I was when I first got to KO. I had to take a step down in math early on but I really connected with the teachers there and they really helped me get back on track.

“By my junior year they had me right on schedule,” added Green. “I was taking calculus, then my senior year I was taking physics and I was ready to go. Looking back, I feel blessed that I was able to attend Kingswood Oxford. The school and its teachers played an integral part in shaping my life.”

It would appear as though the KO staff, or at least John Sherfinski, anyway, hasn’t forgotten Green. In fact, the two have remained good friends over the past four decades.

“Derek was very quiet in class,” remembers Sherfinski, Green’s physics teacher, “but he was fascinated with the subject and you could tell he was very interested in the class. Any time you looked at him you could tell the wheels were turning in his head.”

Sherfinski, who recently retired following a 33-year teaching career at KO, invited Green back to speak to the latest wave of physics fanatics prior to his retirement and he remembers the proceedings went quite well.

“Derek told the students about being a test pilot,” said Sherfinski. “He explained to them about putting a plane into a deep dive and how the blood tends to drain from their brain and can cause a pilot to black out. It really got the kids’ attention.”

Name, Derek Green and Josh Balabuch of Kingswood Oxford.

Whenever the members of the New England Prep School Athletic Council gather for their annual meeting, they like to set aside a portion of the festivities to pay tribute to someone who almost always ends up being one of their own. They spend the prior year scouring the landscape from Bridgton, Me., to Lawrenceville, N.J., for a colleague who infuses enthusiasm, dedication, leadership and vision into their beloved subjects: athletics and physical education.

This year’s selection process was made much simpler than most when it was discovered that one of its very own had been inspiring his charges with such traits for more than a quarter century but who wouldn’t be using them much longer due to an impending retirement. This year, the track record and timing meant none other than John Mackay

Mackay and his family.

Mackay, who has been a mainstay at St. George’s School in Newport, R.I., for the past 26 years and who has been a part of the prep school scene for nearly a half century now, is due to hang up the last of the numerous hats he’s worn at the school for a final time this spring. Before he makes that last trek to his office hat rack, then closes the door forever, his partners at NEPSAC issued him a thumbs up on jobs well done by presenting him with the council’s Distinguished Service Award for 2022-23.

“I’m truly honored to receive this award … it means the world to me to know that my peers at NEPSAC think this much of me, as well as the work that I’ve done and the way I’ve gone about doing it,” said a humbled Mackay, who broke in as a member of NEPSAC’s District III when he first joined the St. George’s faculty in the fall of 1997. “I think the world of everyone I’ve worked with here throughout the years as well … it’s truly been a wonderful experience. It’s one I feel fortunate to have had and one I’ll never forget.”

Like most of his cohorts, Mackay filled numerous roles with NEPSAC as well as on the faculty roster at St. George’s. The native of West Hartford, Conn., rose through the council’s ranks to serve as president from 2013 to 2015 and has served as an officer for NEPSAC’s Football Coaches Association for 26 years as well. Among his chores with the coaches association was making a clean sweep of the front office positions, serving as vice president, then president, then succeeded Tom Flaherty for the past 20 years a secretary-treasurer.

Last but certainly not least, as a member of the football board, Mackay also served as liaison to the athletic directors, “and in that role we were able to adjust the scouting rules and expand the number of bowl games from four to eight, which was a big deal.”

Speaking of “big deals,” that’s exactly what Mackay has turned into back on the St. George’s campus and not just on the football field. He is an Associate Dean at the school and occupies the Prince Chair in the History Department, where he has taught Advanced European History, Western Civilization and U.S. History.

He also serves as an assistant to the Dean of Faculty and the Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. During the 2020-21 school year he also filled in as interim director of the Humanities Department.

“I’d like to think that my teaching and coaching philosophies are similar and include motivation, organization and enthusiasm,” said Mackay, who served as St. George’s athletic director from 1997 to 2016. “I greatly enjoy working with young people and I’m particularly proud of the number of my former students who’ve entered the education field.”

“Believe me, this award is well deserved,” said Mike Hansel, Mackay’s offensive coordinator, of the Distinguished Service Award, which he nominated Mackey for. “The characteristics that are written on that award … enthusiasm …dedication … leadership … vision are all traits that John incorporates into his game plan for success.”

Truth be told, Mackay likely might never have come to St. George’s, had it not been for Hansel. The two formed a part of the Peddie School coaching staff in Hightown, N.J., for a number of years, prior to Hansel leaving to take on a job at St. George’s. A few years later, both the athletic director and head football coach’s jobs opened up at St. George’s and Hansel felt Mackay, who had been the head football coach at Peddie for the entire 13 years he was there as well as its AD for the last seven years he was there, might be interested and he was.

“The man has become an institution on this campus,” said Hansel. “He’s so loved and well respected by not only the scholarathletes who have come through here over the past quarter century, but by their parents, as well. He’s always gone the extra mile for each and every one of them and they’ve all come to appreciate how he helped them prepare for the future, whether it be on the football field or in the classroom. He wore so many hats, he’s going to be a hard guy to replace.”

For Joe Lang, who spent the past nine years assisting Mackay with the quarterbacks, receivers and special teams, “this has been

John

a bitter-sweet season. We all love playing football … we wouldn’t be here if we didn’t … but with this being John’s final season, it’s been tough on everyone. He’s meant so much to this program and to this school, it’s tough to see it come to an end.

“I think that fact was born out last week when we concluded our season with a 42-6 win over archrival Middlesex School,” added Lang. “If you could have seen the number of John’s former players who came back to be a part of his last game … to congratulate him … to thank him … to wish him luck. The turnout was truly astounding.”

“John’s served as an outstanding role model not only for the players, but for the members of his coaching staff, too,” said Lang, who has been tapped as the school’s next head football coach. “To see the amount of work he goes through every week in game preparation, you can’t help but go out there and give everything you have as well.”

The win in Mackay’s finale gave the Dragons a season mark of 3-5 and their mentor a final record of 79-122-3 to make him the winningest football coach ever at St. George’s.

“I think if it was just about the wins and losses, I would have quit a long time ago,” said Mackay, who has also made prep school pit stops at Winchendon School, Albuquerque Academy and Avon Old Farms. “To me, though, it’s all about the relationships you develop with your players and your staff of assistant coaches and those relationships are what I’m going to miss the most.”

Mackay, who year in and year out went to war with one of the smallest enrollments in a highly competitive Independent School League (ISL), admitted to “being proud of keeping the program strong.” And with that, he pointed to an undefeated (9-0) season in 2015, as well as bowl victories in 2015 and 2021 and a bowl berth in 2016. That 2015 campaign also saw Mackay named as the Independent School League’s Coach of the Year by the Boston Herald.

Ironically, Thursday, (Nov. 18) turned into a rather busy day for Mackay, as he ended up attending not one, but two football banquets on the day. Following the NEPSAC festivities, he and his trophy took a three-hour drive back to his boyhood home in West Hartford, Conn., where he attended a reunion to mark the 50th anniversary of Conard High School’s undefeated (9-0) 1972 football season. “I’m really looking forward to getting together with a bunch of teammates I haven’t seen in a real long time,” admitted Mackay.

“We were pretty good back in those days,” said Mackay, who was a two-way tackle in his high school hay day and would later go on at 6-1, 205 pounds to be a two-way tackle at Hamilton College. “We only lost three games during my entire high school career … two my sophomore year … one my junior year … none my senior year.”

While Mackay has become a popular figure throughout his NEPSAC family, he also comes highly regarded as far as his own lineage is concerned, just ask Robertson “Bob” Howe. In addition to being a fellow NEPSAC member, a former council president and athletic director at Deerfield Academy Howe and Mackay are cousins.

“I’m named after John’s father, Robertson,” explained Howe, who is about six years younger than Mackay. “And if that doesn’t tell you how close our two families are, then my mother always

saying John and his younger brother Steve were two of her most favorite people in the world, certainly should.”

Being a bit younger than his cousin, Howe found himself in awe of Mackay’s athleticism during his pre high school days.

“I remember visiting John’s family in Vermont one summer,” said Howe. “When we got to where they were staying for vacation, John was outside exercising in preparation for his first year of college ball. As a kid, I was impressed by how hard he was preparing for the upcoming season and for the first time in my life I remember thinking I wanted to be like someone … I wanted to be like my cousin John.”

And in many ways, he has been very much like his cousin John. As the two have proceeded through life, it seems as though the more their lives have mirrored each other. Both graduated from Hamilton College, “and I think my going to Hamilton had a lot to do with John,” Howe said, “because I’d always ask him how he liked it there … what the academics were like … what the athletics were like. I became very interested in the school through what he had told me about it and when the time came it helped make my decision much easier than it might have been.”

Then, when Mackay became an athletic director, “I’d ask him how he liked the job … what it entailed and so forth and from what he told me, becoming an AD became more and more appealing to me.” And when Mackay became president of NEPSAC, “I was just starting out in the council, but knew if I stuck with it, I was due to become president one day as well, so again, I began asking him how he liked the job and what it entailed, so when my turn came I’d know what to expect.”

As for how his cousin won the Distinguished Service Award, that’s one question Howe never needed to ask. He already knew the answer, “John’s well deserving of it,” said Howe. “In my eyes, he’s always been a leader.”

The cousins: Bob Howe and John Mackay.

NEPSAC Alumni Launch Interactive Touchscreen

Awards Platform

Chase McKee (Nobles ’17) walked by the interactive touchscreen in the Morrison Athletic Center at Nobles for 6 years. The touchscreen never worked that well, but it was a very engaging concept. As a senior in the spring of 2017, and looking for a senior project, Chase approached his computer science teacher, Tessy Smith (Nobles), about reengineering the Noble’s Athletic Hall of Fame touchscreen display. He was met with both enthusiasm and skepticism as the project was important and timely, but all available solutions on the market were cumbersome and very difficult to administer, thus perhaps it was a challenge too grand for a senior project.

In discussing a solution there were several key requirements:

» A website that goes in full-screen mode on a touchscreen

» Aesthetically pleasing modern look

» Simple yet flexible design

» Extremely easy updating & upkeep

» Work on all alumni devices (phone, tablet, laptop, touchscreen)

» ADA Accessible as a website

» Long-term sustainability

Noble’s New Touchscreen Athletic Hall of Fame (view here) was formally introduced to the community at Senior night, where students presented their projects. While a successful senior project, Chase knew it was not yet a commercially viable product. That summer, employed as a tennis instructor, Chase spent his free time learning how to code, seeking to improve his product enough to be marketed to other schools. This process was slow, tedious, frustrating, and seemed to result in nothing but error messages…hardly a viable, salable solution. He kept working.

Now enrolled at Colby College as a freshman, Chase entered the Business Pitch Competition with several other students; including his lacrosse teammate, Gerald Nvule (BB&N ’15). Although the team did not win the pitch competition, it was a great learning experience, an opportunity to gain valuable feedback from the panel of Venture Capitalists, and to refine public speaking skills. The pitch can be viewed here

After his freshman year at Colby, Chase transferred to Brown University. Over the summer of 2020, The Brooks School, seeking a cutting edge touch screen solution for its Hall of Fame, became Rocket Alumni Solutions’ first client. Bobbie Crump-Burbank (Brooks) believed in the solution. This vote of confidence inspired Chase to persist.

At Brown, now motivated by his paying customer, Chase built a team, consisting of several NEPSAC alumni, to completely rethink touchscreen software for schools & colleges. Now officially incorporated as a business, the team scrapped everything and started from scratch, utilizing the most modern, forward looking, and long term sustainable technology. This team has included many NEPSAC alumni: Jason Fishman (Belmont Hill ’17), Kei Nawa (Groton ’17), Luke Harrington (Hotchkiss ’18), Carter Pearen

NEPSAC alumni, from left: Colby Gendron (Andover), Gardner Gendron (Andover), Chase McKee (Nobles), Ryan Madalone, Colin Mahoney (Nobles)

(Hotchkiss ’18), Olivia Gill (Nobles ’18), Christopher Karlson (Milton Academy ’14), Daniel Monahan (Nobles ’18), Max McPherron (Nobles ’17), Aidan Porter (Andover ’22), Gardner Gendron (Andover ’17), Eric Smith (Taft ’14), Parker Mckee (Nobles ’14), Coby Goldstein (Nobles ’17). Brown team members participated in several entrepreneurial-focused courses at Brown, including one led by Jonas Clark (Northfield Mount Hermon ’00). The team benefited from the advice, guidance, and mentorship from the world’s top business, engineering, and computer science professors.

A clear need was identified and it was obvious the Rocket Alumni Solutions team was well suited to rapidly build in the space with complimentary engineering, product design, marketing, and sales skills.

Today, Rocket Alumni Solutions is experiencing accelerating growth, delivering the most innovative, flexible, user friendly touch screen solution for high schools, colleges, and professional organizations to celebrate the most important members of their community. As of 2022, Rocket Alumni Solutions serves over 300 institutions throughout North America and nearly all 50 states.

Rocket Alumni Solutions is excited to continue growing and maintains an “Always be launching” mentality. Each week, the team releases new features, functionality, and layouts. If a client ever requests something new, the team builds it in a week and releases it the following Sunday. Notable plans for expansion within the NEPSAC include automatic inclusion of championship history, league records and statistics, and potentially weight room records and statistics. All of this information will automatically be available on member schools’ displays. Additionally, the team is expanding its cutting edge technology to leverage the school’s efforts around admissions, recruiting, and alumni engagement. Rocket was born in the NEPSAC and will continue to innovate and bring creative solutions to serve the community.

View the NEPSAC Awards & Honors site here

Jack Arena

by Bob York

Orr Rink is Amherst College’s hub of hockey. Although the facility underwent a major renovation in 1997, it may be due for a minor yet significant alteration in the coming years. The powers that be might be inclined to change the wording above its entrance from Orr Rink to Orr-Arena Rink.

An Amherst newbie migh muse that it’s a bit redundant to incorporate the words Arena and Rink into the same name, but for anyone who’s been hanging around this icehouse over the past 40 winters, there’s no contemplation needed.

Not if 500 victories and counting mean anything to you. Not if you’re impressed by the trio of New England Small College Athletic Conference Championship pennants (2009, 2012, 2015) … by the pair of ECAC title banners (1992, 1996) … by the two NCAA Frozen Four appearance flags (2009, 2015) that hang from the rink’s rafters. Not if you’re in awe of the fact that 18 of the college’s past 22 graduating classes have qualified for at least one NESCAC tournament finale since the tourney began in 2000. Not if you think Jack Arena and his Amherst College hockey teams have turned Orr Rink into their personal Golden Pond.

Want more fodder for a potential name changer? How’s this grab you: Amherst’s 3-2 victory over Trinity College on Dec. 3, 2022, supplied Arena, a former Milton Academy standout, with the 500th victory of his storied career at Amherst and makes him the fourth winningest active coach in Division III annals. And, if you toss his name in amongst his Div. I peers to see where he stands overall, you won’t be disappointed. His current 505 victories (as of Jan. 14) rank him 28th among the most successful men’s college hockey coaches ever, and nudge him past the legendary John “Snooks” Kelley, who chalked up 501 wins while coaching at Boston College from 1932 to 1972.

“It’s been a great ride,” said Arena, who ranks as one of the most outstanding all-around athletes to ever graduate (1979) from Milton, of his four-decade run in Amherst, “and I’d like to feel as though I’ve still got at least a few more years of hockey ahead of me.” His resume there has been a blue-chipper, highlighted by a pair of American Hockey Coaches Association Div. III National Coach of the Year awards (2012, 2015) and two NESCAC Coach of the Year honors (2009,2012).

Arena wasn’t too shabby as a collegiate hockey player, either, as he capped off his senior season at Amherst by receiving one of the very first Div. III Hobey Baker awards in 1983, which, at that time, was presented to the National Div. I, II and III Player of the Year. Today, the Hobey Baker Award is handed out to the premier Div. I player in the country, while the Sid Watson Award named in honor of the late Bowdoin College hockey coach who led the program from 1959 to 1983 is presented to the nation’s top Div. III player.

The award climaxed a career that saw Arena chalk up 140 points at Amherst, which at the time, proved to be the pinnacle on the program’s scoring charts. Today, Arena, who can still remember “scoring the 100th point of my career during my final

game at Milton,” finds his production at Amherst still good enough to place him in a tie for fifth on the school’s all-time points chart.

“I feel blessed,” added Arena, “I don’t think there’s ever been a day that I’ve gotten up that I haven’t looked forward to getting to the rink for practice. I love coaching … I love the interaction with the student-athletes ... to me it’s one of the most enjoyable parts of the job.”

It’s doubtful the successes Arena has enjoyed at Amherst would come as a surprise to any of his former teammates or classmates at Milton. As for his classroom endeavors, they don’t call NESCAC “The Little Ivies” for nothing, although in his current field of work, Arena will admit he seldom finds much use for his master’s degree in economics.

As for athletic prowess, he earned All-Independent School League laurels in all three sports football, hockey and baseball his senior year. Arena, who played tailback and defensive back in football, forward in hockey as well as shortstop and pitcher in baseball, was named to the Quincy Patriot Ledger All-Scholastic Team in all three sports as a senior and to its baseball roster his junior season as well. He then wrapped all those accolades up in a big bow when named recipient of the Saltonstall Medal, which is annually presented to the school’s top athlete.

“Milton Academy means the world to me, it’s paved the way for everything as far as I’m concerned … heck, if it hadn’t been for Milton I might never have even heard of Amherst College,”

said Arena. “In the end, Milton not only helped introduce me to Amherst, it prepared me to make it through Amherst as a studentathlete and for that I will be forever grateful.”

Another trait Arena exhibited throughout his Milton days and has remained in his repertoire as both player and coach at Amherst has been the humble approach he has always ascribed to when dealing with the successes he has accomplished in the athletic arena. Despite being consistently considered the likely go-to guy no matter the sport, Arena has always had a way of deflecting his successes onto his teammates.

“Even during his freshman season at Amherst, I’m pretty sure I put Jack out regularly on the first line and I know I put him out there on our power plays and our penalty kills. Heck, I had him out there on the ice every opportunity I could,” admitted Dennis Daly, Amherst’s coach during Arena’s heyday, as the Randolph, Mass. native chalked up 32 points his rookie season to give his mentor a sneak peak at what was to come.

“Even as a freshman, Jack did so well that the players … and that included many of the older guys on the team … really came to look up to him,” added Daly. “And that respect didn’t come about just because he could put the puck in the net, either. Their respect for him came about because of the way he played the game. He always hustled, whether it be lifting weights, land training, on-ice practice or games, he always hustled.

“He was always upbeat, always had his teammates’ backs, was always

complimentary of his teammates and had a knack of making everyone … even that guy who hardly ever got off the bench … feel as though they were an integral part of the team,” added Daly. “And that, I think you’ll find, were the reasons why he was a unanimous choice when the team came to vote for a captain his senior year.”

Arena has brought that same brand of humility into the coaching ranks as well, just step into his office and see or not what we’re talking about. The walls of his office serve as a permanent home for many of the players who were responsible for hoisting those seven banners at the far end of the rink.

The first thing that catches your eye as you walk through the door are the pair of Sid Watson Awards that honor the two National Div. III Player of the Year recipients Arena has coached at Amherst. Next are the nine plaques paying tribute to the four players and five teams that were NCAA Div. III Statistical Champions during his reign. Mounted on the wall behind his desk, meanwhile, are eight other plaques that serve as accolades for former players who earned All-American status.

“I’ve never been one to make a big deal of personal accomplishments,” said Arena. “I get excited seeing what achieving success means to the players.” So, that, “despite my family’s dismay,” is why you won’t see even a hint of Arena’s personal successes throughout his office unless you ask to see the evidence.

The closest thing you’ll find to a clue of Arena’s coaching success is the Amherst game jersey that appears to have the

Commemorating Jack Arena’s 500th win at Amherst.

MILTON ACADEMY MEANS THE WORLD TO ME, IT’S PAVED THE WAY FOR EVERYTHING AS FAR AS I’M CONCERNED

number 40 on it that’s neatly folded across the back of a chair. When Arena holds it up for display, however, the jersey reveals the number 400; a souvenir presented to him more than 100 wins ago.

As for his two National Coach of the Year Awards, they sit on the floor in a corner to the right of his desk. The two awards, although in plain sight, could easily pass for a pair of huge glass vases in need of water and a couple dozen long-stem roses. As for the two NESCAC Coach of the Year awards: they’re buried amongst a host of memorabilia on his bookshelf, while on an adjoining shelf, covered under more mementos, the fabled Hobey Baker Award finally gets to see the light of day but only briefly.

When you shake the Arena family tree, you had best duck, because its branches don’t bear fruit they bear footballs, baseballs, golf balls, field hockey balls, lacrosse balls and oh yes, hockey pucks.

Jack’s wife, Diane, who is the associate dean of students at Northfield Mount Hermon School, has enjoyed a highly successful life as both a player and coach. Her high school playing days took place at Pentucket Regional School (Class of 1980) in West Newbury, Mass. where she was a four-year letter winner in both field hockey and tennis. She also earned league all-star status in both sports as well as being named team MVP in field hockey following her junior and senior seasons.

She then attended Amherst College (Class of 1984), where she played field hockey and lacrosse. Once again, she excelled in field hockey and earned both all-star and all-league recognition as a sophomore, junior and senior. She was also named team captain and team MVP her junior and senior years. She would later culminate her career at Amherst by being the first woman to ever be named winner of the school’s Hitchcock Fellowship, just one year after husband-to-be won it.

Her coaching resume found her making a two-year stop to tutor field hockey and lacrosse at Hopkins School, as well as an 11-year stay to coach both sports at Stoneleigh Burnham School. She has been at NMH since 1998, where she has coached lacrosse and currently heads up the JV field hockey program.

Being married to Diane would make Tom Flaherty Jack Arena’s father-in-law and Flaherty has made quite a name for himself as well in the world of the New England Prep School Athletic Council and Massachusetts high school sports.

Flaherty served as athletic director at Milton for 26 years but he didn’t stop there. He coached the Mustang varsity baseball program for all 26 seasons he was on campus and coached the varsity football squad for 10. Off the field, he proved to be one of the key NEPSAC board members who helped introduce postseason football in 1989.

Flaherty, who now has a NEPSAC Bowl named after him, saw the postseason games begin with just a pair of title matches while today, that number has risen to five. Flaherty also left his mark on NEPSAC by founding the New England Private School Football Coaches Association and in 2010, NEPSAC figured it was time for payback and presented him with its Distinguished Service Award.

Over on the public school side, Flaherty served as athletic director at Pentucket Regional School for 16 years prior to his stint at Milton. He coached the football team there for 19 years and chalked up well over 100 victories. Later, Flaherty was inducted into the Massachusetts High School Football Coaches Hall of Fame.

Other branches of the family tree are occupied by the Arenas’ sons, Patrick and John. Patrick, who graduated from Amherst in 2016, played hockey for his father, while John (2018) served his dad as director of hockey operations at Amherst and played golf for his father when Arena was coaching the Mammoth golfers.

Their youngest daughter, Ellen, is an assistant lacrosse coach at Amherst. She attended Hobart and William Smith Colleges where she was a four-year starter in lacrosse. During her career, she earned all-league laurels as a sophomore and senior and MVP honors as a junior. Their oldest daughter, Emily, is married to Kevin Czepiel, the NMH boys hockey coach. She played field hockey in college. She played as a freshman and sophomore at St. Lawrence University while she started her junior and senior years at Wheaton College in Norton, Mass.

“You don’t know Amherst hockey without knowing Jack Arena,” said Daly, who felt blessed to have had Arena on his roster for four of the five years he coached the Amherst program. “He was truly an outstanding hockey player. He was smart … he had a head for the game … he always knew where he was on the ice in relation to his line mates and was a constant threat to either score or set up his line mates to do the same,” added Daly of his charge, who rang up 140 points through 88 games for an average of 1.59 points per game during career with the Mammoths.

“A knack for scoring and setting up others to score weren’t Jack’s only assets, however” added Daly. “He was an outstanding skater as well and although he wasn’t big, he was tough to defend against. It seemed as though every time a defender would think he had him covered, he’d squirm away and get free for a shot and those qualities … plus his leadership abilities … are the reasons why I nominated him for the Hobey Baker Award.

When Daly said “Jack really put Amherst on the map as far collegiate hockey is concerned when he won the Hobey,” he wasn’t kidding. Prior to that event, the best adjective to describe Amherst’s hockey program would be “struggling.” During Daly’s five-year stay, he registered a record of 49-59-0, while a half-dozen prior mentors

YOU DON’T KNOW AMHERST HOCKEY WITHOUT KNOWING JACK ARENA … HE WAS TRULY AN OUTSTANDING HOCKEY PLAYER. HE WAS SMART … HE HAD A HEAD FOR THE GAME … HE ALWAYS KNEW WHERE HE WAS ON THE ICE IN RELATION TO HIS LINE MATES AND WAS A CONSTANT THREAT TO EITHER SCORE OR SET UP HIS LINE MATES TO DO THE SAME

hadn’t even shown that well as Amherst’s hockey record was standing at 229-367-8 when Arena took over the program.

“Jack’s winning the Hobey Baker really turned things around here at Amherst,” added Daly. “It gave the program some notoriety … some promotion … it told aspiring hockey players ‘we can play hockey here.’” And under Arena’s reign, they have, to the tune of an overall record of 505-374-82 through Jan. 14, 2023.

“Knowing Jack the way I did as a player, I knew, despite his lack of experience, he’d be an exceptional coach,” said Daly. “I knew he’d do an outstanding job because as a captain, he was an outstanding leader and I knew the players would buy in to his approach and they still are 40 years later.”

It’s doubtful the NCAA keeps such records, but if it did, it’s quite likely Arena would hold the mark for the shortest span of time it took for someone to go from player to head coach of the same team. In Arena’s case, that progression took about six months.

“It was crazy,” said Arena of that time span. “I’d accepted the Hitchcock Fellowship in the spring. Amherst gives out one each year to a graduating senior which allows them to stay on for another year to serve as an assistant coach during all three seasons and study for their master’s degree while doing so. In my case, I would have served as an assistant in football, hockey and baseball.”

During the summer, however, Daly opted to take a sabbatical the following year, which would have caused him to miss the second half of the upcoming hockey season. “So,” said Arena, “Peter Gooding, who was Amherst’s athletic director at the time, asked me if I’d be interested in serving as interim head coach, which I agreed to.”

As the 1983–84 school year approached, Daly’s future took another turn when he dropped his plans for his sabbatical and decided to take a Division I collegiate lacrosse coaching job at Washington & Lee University instead. As a result, Arena and Gooding found themselves meeting once again in the early fall.

“This time, Peter asked if I’d be interested in being the head coach … to forget about the interim part,” said Arena. “And again, I said ‘yes.’”

“You might think that I’d have been in full panic mode when I met with Jack that second time … but I wasn’t,” remembers Gooding. “To the contrary. I’ve always enjoyed hockey and I spent a lot of time watching our team play throughout the years. I remember having been very impressed with the way Jack always conducted himself on the ice as well as off it. His senior year, he was team captain and from everything I’d seen and heard about his leadership qualities, I felt very good about offering the job to him.

“Today, I still feel good about my choice,” added Gooding. “In fact, I’d have to say it was one of the best appointments I ever made during my 29 years as Amherst’s AD. Jack always demonstrated a love for the game, a love for competition, yet he always maintained a thoughtful, calm approach to coaching. In fact, I can’t ever remember hearing him raise his voice during a game or a practice. To me, he’s exactly what a Division III coach is all about.”

“That first year coaching was a little crazy,” recalled Arena. “I ended up coaching about three-quarters of the guys I’d played with the year before. I feel lucky, though, we won our first six games that season (and finished at 17-6-1) and I think that helped the players buy in to the program a bit quicker than if we’d struggled at the start.”

So, there you have it, a case opting for a new name: Orr-Arena Rink. And you can tell the newbie the name’s not redundant. After four decades, it’s a no-brainer.

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NESCAC to NEPSAC and back:

An intercollegiate athletics historian offers perspectives on the important connections between the two organizations by Dan Covell

Not sure if you meant for this to come to me here at NEPSAC.

This was the message Laurie Sachs, communications specialist at the New England Preparatory School Athletic Council, sent back to me after I emailed her to inform the NEPSAC membership of my new book, The New England Small College Athletic Conference: A History, published by McFarland Press. The conference, as many reading this already know, consists of 11 four-year primarily undergraduate institutions: Amherst College, Bowdoin College, Bates College, Colby College, Connecticut College, Hamilton College, Middlebury College, Trinity College, Tufts University, Wesleyan University, and Williams College. Collectively, they are widely acknowledged to be among the most prestigious institutions of higher education in America, and also field some of the strongest athletics programs in the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s Division III. And yes, all but Hamilton are located in New England.

Laurie’s query was a reasonable one, since the way I too often write emails quickly and sloppily one could easily surmise from my message that I had conflated the two organizations based on the variance of two misplaced letters because I had absentmindedly typed “PS” for “SC” between the “NE” and the “AC.”

But for those who know these two athletics governing bodies even in passing, the fact that one might mistake one for the other is not solely due to a lack of proofreading and/or shoddy typing skills, but in fact because of the strong and long-standing connections between the two. Once I had clarified in a follow-up email that I was indeed looking to connect with NEPSAC, Laurie and I chatted by phone, and verified these bonds through our own academic and professional lineages she from Connecticut College and now working at the Rivers School, me from Colby (via my dad Waldo Covell’s time coaching there from 1969 to 1985), the Northfield Mount Hermon School (NMH) as a PG, back to NESCAC as a Bowdoin football student-athlete, then back to the NEPSAC realm through the work life of my spouse, Pam Safford, who is the Assistant Head for Admission and Enrollment at the Ethel Walker School, having served previously in similar roles at NMH and Concord Academy. My dad also did a NEPSAC stint as the dean of students and athletics director at Maine Central Institute from 1990 to 2000, and my brother Brian Covell has worked in administrative and coaching positions at both the Cardigan Mountain School and NMH. I have also collaborated on athletics consulting projects with the Eastern Independent League, Milton Academy and the Hackley School.

For my NESCAC book, I asked former Williams and Dartmouth AD Harry Sheehy about the connections between NESCAC and the Ivy League, and Harry stated that “Dartmouth is Wesleyan on steroids. The Ivy’s physical plants are bigger, the budgets are bigger, but I think that a lot of the same caring about the student-

athlete experience is present at both places” (p. 79). Given what I have lived and observed, it’s fair to say that there’s a similar adjusted transivity in place with NESCAC and NEPSAC, and that Wesleyan, Amherst and Trinity are larger scale versions of NMH, Milton, and Concord, with comparable if not precisely identical versions of their athletics mission.

A quick check of any NESCAC team roster bears out these connections further. The Conn College field hockey team has ten NEPSAC alums, Middlebury football has 20, and Tufts men’s lacrosse has eight and a head coach who came to Medford directly from the Taft School after a college career as a three-sport letterman at … Tufts. Take a look at the rest of the NESCAC rosters yourself. I’m betting the same ratios will be there across most if not all programs Then, take a look at the coaching staffs at your school and across NEPSAC. The proportion of NESCAC representation is, I’ll wager again, equally substantial.

While my book shows that in crafting their “gold standard” brand of athletic success and academic primacy, NESCAC leadership most notably school presidents often made

Are you sure you don’t mean NESCAC?”

managerial decisions that were short-sighted and institutionally self-serving. Nonetheless, today’s NESCAC is still seen by many observers and stakeholders as upholding a vision of intercollegiate athletics of which they approve. Suffice it to say that no organization is perfect, even NESCAC, and much can be learned by NEPSAC’s practitioners from the challenges faced by NESCAC management.

For me, there would have been no Bowdoin without NMH. My academic performance during my first two years at my hometown high school was lackluster, and not surprisingly, the college admit picture following my senior year was not what I had hoped. I learned of NMH from the alumnae spouse of one of my dad’s coaching colleagues at Colby, applied and was admitted. I was a two-sport participant (football and baseball) and experienced a social and academic atmosphere that allowed me to grown and to thrive and to gain admission to Bowdoin.

Toward the end of my year at NMH, I was discussing my future with my Classics teacher, Bob Cooley. “I can see you coming back

to a place like this someday,” he presaged. What exactly he saw in me I don’t know, but his prediction was, for the most part, on target. Upon graduation from Bowdoin, I headed to the Midwest for a “triple threat” teaching-coaching-dorm parent (and part-time summer Zamboni driver) position at Shattuck-St. Mary’s School in Faribault, Minnesota. Back then, SSM was not the high-profile athletics enterprise it is now, but rather a small, struggling school trying to stay afloat in a market unfamiliar with the values of independent boarding schools and the NEPSAC model with which I was familiar. To survive, SSM created a specialized and rarified environment to cultivate elite ice hockey players, and the market responded so well that the school expanded the model to include soccer, lacrosse and others. SSM made this transformation under the headship of a Bowdoin alumnus, Nick Stoneman.

But SSM was far from that then, and when I was there the school had to enter into co-op agreements to maintain its football, baseball and ice hockey programs. When I became head football coach in my final year there, I dusted off my Bowdoin playbook, and proceeded to go 0-8. I don’t blame the players. Four years later, Pam Safford and I returned to New England, she to the NMH admissions office, me to the AD position at Bellows Fall Union High School in Vermont.

My revolving NESCAC/NEPSAC experiences have afforded the opportunity to observe the work of dozens of administrators and coaches, and the best, most committed coach I ever saw was Max Good, the men’s PG basketball coach at Maine Central Institute (MCI). My dad brought Max to MCI in 1989 after Max, a native of nearby Gardiner, Maine, had been dismissed from the head job at Eastern Kentucky University. MCI is one of the handful of schools in the region that while private, also serves as the de facto public high school for the towns in the immediate vicinity. For MCI, that meant its student body was a mix of kids from Burnham, Detroit and Pittsfield, along with a cadre of elite Division I football and men’s basketball prospects from across the country and around the globe.

The PG basketball program had experienced some success prior to Max’s arrival, but after he decamped to his dorm apartment on campus (yes, he chose to live in the dorm to be in close proximity to his charges) to embark on his “triplethreat” career change, the program took off. Division I coaches across the country knew they could send their recruits to Max, and they would get, in Max’s words “nothing but a pair of shoes and a hard

He is #52, 3rd row, second from right.

Dan Covell at Northfield Mount Hermon.

time.” If they could play for Max, they could play for Jim Boeheim, John Calipari, Gene Keady, Phil Martelli or any other D-I coach.

Max’s secret was not in the X’s and O’s but in his commitment to helping these blue-chip kids buy in to a year in very rural Maine to improve not only their game but their academic profiles. This was at a time when changing NCAA initial eligibility legislation meant more prospects were in need of additional academic preparation prior to matriculation. In many ways, the kids who came to MCI were looking for the same thing I was in attending NMH: An opportunity for betterment to improve their college prospects. MCI did that for them as NMH had done for me.

Max also wanted to win (once I saw him surreptitiously spill water on the court to get a stoppage of play when he was out of time outs), and legend has it after the team played poorly and lost in the final game of a tournament in Virginia, he loaded the team up on the 15-passenger van (of which he was the sole driver), and didn’t stop until they arrived back on campus in Pittsfield 10 hours later. I don’t know if that’s true, but knowing Max, it’s entirely plausible. Max’s teams compiled a record of 275–30 (a winning percentage of .902) over his decade as head coach, as MCI won five NEPSAC championships. His teams went undefeated three times, and from 1989 to 1992, MCI won 79 straight. Near the end of this run in March 1992, Sports Illustrated ran a four-page profile on the program, focusing in detail on the academic program in place to help players qualify academically for NCAA eligibility. The magazine was about to celebrate its fortieth anniversary, and while it had ceded some ground to the likes of burgeoning media giant ESPN, according to a later historian, SI was still the “authoritative surveyor of the American sporting scene to its many readers.”

And in an act of significant publishing coincidence, two years later SI ran the article “Pure and Simple” by staff writer Douglas Looney. The rhapsodized about the idealized campus settings in which NESCAC athletics reside. “The Amherst College campus is too collegiate,” he writes, “the ambience too New England, the whole picture too Norman Rockwell. The grass is cut, and the flower beds are weeded. There is no trash. The sky is true blue,” and then cites the experiences of a Middlebury football player who “spent many a fall afternoon looking out over Vermont’s Green Mountains, resplendent in the fall red produced by sugar maples, and pondering the Middlebury experience.” Given SI’s status and its dedication to covering sporting events and personalities of both national and international import, the overwhelmingly positive article was a tremendous boon for the cultivation of ideal image of NESCAC. The piece complete with over a dozen full-color photos of NESCAC fall sports action served as a landmark homage and touchstone for NESCAC stakeholders around the world. It was as complementary of NESCAC as it had been of MCI two years prior.

Given the talent level of MCI’s players, the program was seldom sending kids to play for the NESCACs or the Ivies. When one MCI player asked about his chance of being admitted to one of them, Max told him bluntly but without malice, that based on his academic profile: “You can play AT Harvard, but you can’t play FOR Harvard.” Some within the NEPSAC universe thought MCI and some others were rules breakers and renegades, that these schools admitted kids with suspect academic profiles and funneled them cash to enroll. My dad fumed when some schools like NMH and others refused to schedule MCI because of these perceptions.

Maybe it was just because MCI was too good, but the results spoke volumes: Dozens of MCI alums playing at in the ACC, Big Ten and Big East, and more than a few advancing to play in the NBA. Based on this track record, Max left MCI in 1999 to return to the college ranks, serving as head coach at Nevada-Las Vegas, Bryant (leading them to the NCAA Division II finals in 2005) and Loyola Marymount. The above examples point to the “big tent” reality under which NEPSAC operates. Not every NEPSAC student-athlete has designs on a NESCAC or Ivy playing career, and it is to the great credit of those who help manage the operations of NEPSAC that it can function so well given the diversity of its membership. It is a skillset that colleges, universities and private secondary schools will need now more than ever as the accelerating commercialized interests of the NCAA’s so-called “Power Five” conferences will soon lead to an entire dismantling of the NCAA, leaving the rest of the membership and others connected to it to face an uncertain athletics governance future. When that happens, after the Power Five have taken their money and assumes a position next to the NFL, the NBA, MLB and the NHL in the North American pro sports firmament, all the revenue derived from events like the NCAA’s March Madness will be gone, and with it the funds that sustain activities like the Division II and III national championships. It is then that I believe the fortunes of NEPSAC and NESCAC will become more closely aligned than ever, especially as the NESCACs continue to seek to attract students who have the types of academic, athletic and social backgrounds they prize in a recruiting environment where privately managed youth club sports programs that focus on little more than developing athletics proficiency in a highly specialized and undoubtedly commercialized atmosphere continue to supplant public school-based athletics programs as developmental feeders for those at the intercollegiate level.

And in this not-so-distant intercollegiate athletics future, when NCAA D-II and D-III national championships no longer exist, and many prospects, due to immersion in non-school-based athletics programs, lack the positive attributes NESCACs value, I believe the tenets of the NESPAC experience that I have seen and experienced social, athletic and academic growth and development will stand out in comparison. The NESCACs will find that combination more attractive than ever.

And thanks again, Laurie. I hope this clears up the confusion about for whom my message was intended. Maybe the “PS” and “SC” are interchangeable after all.

Dan Covell is a professor of sport management in the College of Business at Western New England University. He earned his undergraduate degree in Studio Art from Bowdoin College in 1986 (where he also lettered in football). After working in public and private secondary education as a coach, teacher and athletic administrator, Covell earned his MS in sport management from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst (UMass) in 1995. After a oneyear administrative internship in Harvard University athletic department, Covell then earned his PhD from UMass in 1999. His latest book is The New England Small College Athletic Conference: A History, published by McFarland Press.

Corinthia Benison ’05 Delivers Social Justice Through Wellness

by Greg Kwasnik

When Corinthia Benison ’05 left her home in Harlem to enroll in Holderness School at the age of 13, she found herself adjusting to a completely new environment. Corinthia, a basketball standout for the Bulls who went on to earn a full athletic scholarship to the University of Delaware, says going to Holderness was a privilege and opportunity that “changed the trajectory of my life.” But it wasn’t an entirely easy transition.

“I learned a lot about myself. Looking back, I wish I was a little more sociable,” Corinthia says. “Coming from the city, being the only brown girl in my class, those are things I look back on and say ‘You know, you were doing something that no one else was really doing at the time.’ I kind of have to cut myself some slack.”

Today, Corinthia is back in New York City and she’s still doing things others aren’t. In this case, she’s working tirelessly to create an entirely new, community-based mental health and behavioral health clinic in Harlem. It’s called Renaissance Center of Mastery, and it will provide addiction counseling, therapy, and career development programs to underserved populations in her community. “We want to be right in the neighborhood. You don’t have to take two trains to a bus,” Corinthia says. “There are a lot of barriers in why people don’t seek treatment for therapy. We want to break a lot of those barriers and be right where the need is.”

The idea for Renaissance Center of Mastery came to Corinthia during the COVID-19 pandemic, when she, like so many others, found herself questioning her career path and mission in life. Having spent the previous decade working at Mount Sinai Medical Center, most recently as a physician access services coordinator, she was well-versed in the administrative ins-andouts of the healthcare system. She also knew just how broken the system was especially for patients on managed care who often have to wait longer for services and suffer from a lack of access. Corinthia knew that she could do

something to help address those problems. “You know how to build networks, how organizations should partner. You know the healthcare system,” she recalls telling herself. “Do something that is not completely a redesign, but a new niche for a population that needs it, particularly youth. I just went from there.”

The need for a clinic like Renaissance Center of Mastery is greater than ever. During the first year of the pandemic, the global prevalence of depression and anxiety increased 25 percent, according to a March 2022 report by the World Health Organization. It’s an increase that is disproportionately borne by young people who, according to the report, are at a greater risk of self-harming behavior or suicidal thoughts. At the same time, New York City and many other areas across the globe have seen a marked increase in crime. In February of 2022 alone, overall crime in New York City was up 58 percent over the previous year, according to the New York Police Department. It’s a trend Corinthia has observed firsthand in Harlem, where gun violence and other forms of crime are on the rise. “Every other day we have a shootout, we have police getting shot,” Corinthia says. “The victims are young and the assailants - these people are under 25, in most cases. What’s really going on here?”

While sociologists and psychologists will likely spend decades studying the relationship between the pandemic, crime, and mental health outcomes, Corinthia knows one thing for sure: the young people

Corinthia was a basketball standout for the University of Delaware.

in her community aren’t receiving the services they need. As a child, Corinthia benefitted from youth service organizations like The Harbor for Girls and Boys, and SCAN Reach for the Stars, which helped her pursue her Holderness education. “A lot of these programs don’t exist anymore,” Corinthia says. “There’s not enough to meet the needs of the youth.” Beyond the lack of services available to young people, Corinthia says, there is a stigma against seeking mental health care in Harlem and other communities of color. The Renaissance Center of Mastery seeks to break that stigma. “I want youth to know that seeing a therapist, talking about your issues whether you’re having anxiety or depression, whether you’re discovering your sexuality all of those things you can speak about in a safe space, and it’s ok.”

Renaissance Center of Mastery will be unique in that it will offer young people between the ages of 12 to 24 a more comprehensive clinic experience where they can see a therapist, receive substance abuse counseling if needed, and take part in career development programs to gain skills like coding and web design. Few organizations offer all of these services in the same location. “We want to grow programs where kids are like ‘Ok, this is what I’m into, this is attractive to me, and I’m also getting therapy in the same space,’” Corinthia says. “We want to raise the bar on what a clinic experience is, in every sense.”

Corinthia is fully committed to making her vision for Renaissance Center of Mastery a reality. She left her job at

Mount Sinai Medical Center in early 2021, and since then has devoted all of her time and energy to consulting with experts, assembling a board of directors, and scouting clinic space in Harlem. This spring, Corinthia who will serve as the organization’s executive director will begin a fundraising campaign to truly get the project off the ground. “Right now I’m really trying to cultivate relationships and starting a fundraising campaign,” Corinthia says. “It really is about relationships. It’s about trust, it’s about people believing in your vision, and getting out there.”

While Corinthia is devoted to making positive change in Harlem, she has also found time to give back to the Holderness community. On a visit to campus last winter, she reconnected with her old teachers, met with the basketball team, and re-lived her happy campus memories. Looking to the future, Corinthia hopes to help mentor and recruit students with backgrounds similar to hers. “I still love the game of basketball and if I could be a bridge with any kid who would want to take on that experience, that’s capable of that transition, being able to help in that way,” Corinthia says. “I think about young people like myself who could really benefit from an opportunity like Holderness, and seeing how I could help with that young generation.”

To learn more about Renaissance Center of Mastery, visit rcmxsocialjustice.com

IT REALLY IS ABOUT RELATIONSHIPS. IT’S ABOUT TRUST, IT’S ABOUT PEOPLE BELIEVING IN YOUR VISION, AND GETTING OUT THERE

Derby Academy Teacher Inspired Her Students to be Successful, Including Her Own Children

by Carol Britton Meyer, Hingham Anchor | photos courtesy Lesley Visser

Former Hingham residents Lesley and Chris Visser attribute their successful careers to their late mother, Mary Visser, who taught them and many other students when she was a fourth-grade teacher at Derby Academy in the 1960s and set a good example for them all.

In the year 1962, she actually taught both of her children Chris in the spring of 1962, and her younger daughter, Lesley, in the fall. Both Lesley and Chris went on to have successful careers in sports reporting and broadcasting.

“My mother was the same kind of woman as my sister is fearless and extraordinary,” Chris told the Hingham Anchor. “She loved literature, history, and sports and could discuss with you Wordsworth and Shakespeare and Carl Yastrzemski, Rico Petrocelli, and Bill Russell all with the same fluency. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that both of her children went into sports-related careers.”

Lesley is known as the most highly acclaimed female sportscaster of all time, with many “firsts” to her credit -- including being the first female NFL analyst in both radio and television; first woman on the network broadcasts of the NBA Finals, World Series, and Final Four; and the first woman enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Lesley was also voted the No. 1 Female Sportscaster of AllTime by the National Sportscasters of America.

Her legendary career began at the Boston Globe in 1975 after she won a Carnegie Foundation Grant based on the paper she wrote about her desire to be a sportswriter awarded to only 20 women in the country with the goal of getting into careers that at that time were held almost exclusively by males.

Lesley has covered the NFL since 1974 and is still a sports journalist with CBS. Among her mentors were her late mother, Mary, and the legendary sportswriters from the Boston Globe Bud Collins, Peter Gammons, Will McDonough, and Bob Ryan and her sports editor Vince Doria.

“It was like working with the ‘27 Yankees. Everyone was the best at his position in the history of the sport,” she said. “I used to cover Wimbledon or the Super Bowl and say, ‘Hi, I’m Lesley Visser, I work with Bud Collins, or Will McDonough,’ and the heavens would part. They all gave me time and opportunity, for which I don’t have enough thanks. My brother and I were raised with an attitude of gratitude.”

Lesley was elected to the Sportswriters Hall of Fame for her work at the Boston Globe, magazines, and CBS.com and was voted to the Sports Broadcasters Hall of Fame for her work at CBS, ABC and HBO.

In 2016, Lesley won the Newseum Award for Lifetime Achievement, which was first awarded to Walter Cronkite, and

had the honor of reporting from the Fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and of throwing out the first pitch for her beloved Red Sox in 2013. There are many other accolades, recognitions, and awards that are too numerous to mention.

Lesley just turned from Central Asia. She was invited by the U.S. State Department to speak to women journalists, athletes, and entrepreneurs in Uzbekistan.

“It was profound,” said Lesley, whose experience [was] shown on CBS’ “We Need To Talk” on Wednesday, Dec. 7. “Uzbekistan is only 30 years from being a repressed Soviet Republic, and progress is slow, but they’re trying to become more Western. I found young women full of enthusiasm to try and change some policies.”

DERBY ACADEMY AND MY MOTHER ABSOLUTELY SHAPED WHO I AM

Lesley even had a taste of home while there. “The U.S. Embassy in Tashkent had Thanksgiving for me,” she said. “They all wanted to hear about Thanksgivings on the MaddenCruiser and John Madden’s six-legged turkey!”

Chris’s career has involved producing more than 3,000 broadcasts, most of them sports-oriented, including the Super Bowl for 36 years straight.

“I’ve had the privilege of working with many famous athletes, including Muhammad Ali, Arnold Palmer, Bill Russell, Wayne Gretzky, and John McEnroe,” he said.

Both he and Lesley were sportswriters in college, which led to careers in the sports field. Chris was the sports editor of a college paper in Florida and segued into producing college football broadcasts, getting his start from Curt Gowdy through a connection he had with Lesley.

Chris went on to produce NFL and baseball broadcasts for 18 years for Fox Sports and started his own sports marketing company Anterosports in 1995.

In his work, he has traveled to 62 different countries and interviewed six presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter, and both Bushes who were involved with specific events that he was broadcasting.

Chris interviewed Nixon as part of an ABC tribute to Don Shula, Ford at a number of golf events, and Reagan during a U.S. Olympics volleyball press conference.

“My mother realized that a well-educated citizenry is the best hope for our nation’s future not only for her children but for every child,” Chris said. “She wanted us both to have as many experiences as she could provide us with, both in and outside the classroom. My sister and I benefitted greatly from how we were raised and educated in Hingham, by a very remarkable woman, teacher, and mother.”

Hingham resident Tom Bright was in Mary Visser’s 4th-grade class with Chris. “She was very innovative and lively,” Bright remembers. “We had a debate on the topic of which did more to further the cause of American liberty the American Revolution or the Civil War,” he recalled. “It was a great exercise.

We worked as a team, came up with ideas, wrote speeches, and debated in front of the rest of our class and the fifthgrade.”

Bright called Mary Visser “a memorable teacher who adored Harry Belafonte. Her classes were always fun. She was a natural teacher,” he said. Bright enjoyed seeing Chris and Lesley at a Derby alumni event a few years ago.

During the late 1950s and early 1960s, women didn’t have the same opportunities that Lesley was on the forefront of later on, Chris noted, “so my mother poured all of her energy into Lesley and me and other children to help them be successful. That was her legacy. This is a tribute not only to my mother but to Derby Academy.”

Mary Visser passed on in 2002 after serving as a teacher for 35 years, several of them at Derby Academy.

“Derby Academy and my mother absolutely shaped who I am,” Lesley said. “At Derby we learned how to write thank-you notes and how to shake someone’s hand and look them in the eye. It was a fantastic education.”

She recalls a day before her family moved to Hingham from Quincy when she, Chris, and their mother were taking the bus home from Derby Academy and Mary discovered they were eating a candy bar, which she knew she hadn’t given to them.

The truth that they had taken it without paying for it from a pharmacy in Hingham Square came out, and they all took the bus back to Hingham “to apologize to the owner and pay him the

Lesley Visser wearing her Derby Academy scarf for CBS interview

Chris and Lesley Visser at a Kentucky Derby event

five cents for the candy bar, and then take the bus back home,” Lesley remembered.

Both Chris and Lesley recall that they were not allowed to call their mother “Mom” when they were each in her class for one year Lesley was one year behind but rather, “Mrs. Visser” during the school day. “She was such a fair person that she wouldn’t even help us with our homework!” she said.

Chris said their mother was “very proud to have been a member of the Derby faculty.”

Lesley recalls that as children, Chris was “the perfect older brother, ignoring me in school where he was always the captain of sports teams and then taking me to Fenway Park. He taught me how to score baseball.”

Their mother was also a big sports fan. “She lived to watch Big East triple-headers. She loved all sports, which was unusual at that time,” Lesley said. “Growing up in the Boston area, our childhood was all about the Celtics, Ted Williams, and Bobby Orr.”

Later, throughout her career, their mother would laugh with Lesley “when I embarrassed myself, and she would help me put it all into perspective,” she recalled. “Our mother would also champion our successes.”

This article first appeared on hinghamanchor.com. Reprinted with permission.

Class photo - 4th grade Mary Visser - Lesley Visser to her left (white headband)

100 Years of Hockey: Exploring the Program’s History and Future

by New Hampton School

In Jacobson Arena, forest green and white championships banners of years of accolades present a living history of the success of the men’s and women’s hockey teams. History is told on the lobby wall in trimmings of glass plaques, aluminum, and archival photos. To be sure, celebrating 100 years of hockey is another special moment in the School’s history. The New Hampton School hockey program began in 1923 when several young men formed a team that met regularly to play hockey on Kimball Pond. At that time, weather dictated the groups’ ability to play, and seasons were often limited due to warming temperatures. The first men’s hockey team at New Hampton School called themselves the Varsity Pucksters. From the onset, the Varsity Pucksters modeled strong play and sportsmanship, which continued through the 20s and 30s. As the team solidified and talent boomed, the coaches sought a better practice venue and often traveled up the road to Holderness School to play. The program saw its first New England Division I Championship in 1945. In 1950, Lansing Bicknell coached two seasons of varsity men’s hockey, including the Lawrenceville Invitation Hockey Tournament, and “although they did not win, they fully enjoyed the experience and the opportunity of seeing Princeton.” The team held practices behind Randall Hall while playing games on the pond.

Building momentum

Coach Skip Howard joined the New Hampton Hockey program in the 1960s, and the hockey program began to grow once more. Shortly after that, the rink moved in front of Frederick Smith Hall. However, the sun’s direction often affected the playing surface, causing significant melting challenges. The natural rink did not deter New Hampton from establishing its program and enthusiasm for the sport. In 1973-1974, with a 16-4 record, the varsity men won another Lakes Region Championship. The program continued to flourish under coaches Mike McShane, Joe Marsh, Charlie Molloy, and Mark Trivett. The hockey program gained momentum and began attracting top level talent from all over New England. The men’s team went on to win the National Prep School Championship in 1977 and again in 1988. From 1977 to 1984, the New Hampton Hockey program won the Lakes Region title for eight consecutive years. After a few lean years in the 90’s and mid 2000’s the Men’s Hockey Program took another step forward thanks to the leadership of Head Coach Michael Levine ’00 who

helped lead the Huskies to a New England Division II runner-up in 2008 and a Championship in 2009. Today, the Huskies remain competitive in NEPSAC Division I Hockey thanks to the leadership of former Head Coaches Matt Wright and Casey Kesselring and current Head Coach Connor Gorman.

In 1981, just a decade after becoming coeducational again, New Hampton School’s women’s team joined the hockey program. This effort was led by Anne Barach ’77, Anne Chase, and Anne Thompson. The team would gain momentum over the years to follow, establishing their teamwork and commitment on the ice year after year.

In 1982, F. Merrill Lindsay ’29 became the major contributor to a new hockey rink named in his honor. The following year, the season’s highlight was completing the new cement floor and roof on the rink. With the addition of locker rooms, a functional Zamboni, and a roof to cover the surface, the Merrill Lindsay Arena served as a home to the Huskies for many years.

By the early ’10s, Lindsay was showing its age, and a call went out to “Think Rink” among alumni. Through the generosity of several individuals, including lead donor and New Hampton School Trustee Dean Jacobson ’68, funds were generated, and construction began on a new arena in 2015.

Stepping into the modern era

At the time of Jacobson Arena’s opening in 2016, the women’s varsity hockey team was ranked sixth in New England. And for

New Hampton School’s first hockey team took to the ice in 1923.

the first time in its history, the women’s team made the Division I tournament due to the team’s strength, including former assistant coach Erica Shapey and current Head Coach Craig Churchill. The women’s teams have achieved 6 Lakes Region Championships and won the title in the 2017 NEPSAC Division I Championship. The 2022 Huskies earned second in the Division I Championship after facing a highly competitive schedule throughout the season and tournament. The women’s teams have seen players frequently go to Division I NCAA schools, in addition to several graduates playing, coaching, and managing in professional leagues within the United States and Canada.

After winning the 2017 Lakes Region Championship, shown here, the women’s varsity hockey team went on to claim the Division I NEPSAC Championship for the first time in the program’s history.

Similarly, the varsity men’s hockey team is an annual playoff contender in the New England Prep School Athletic Conference and routinely graduates players to top NCAA schools. The men have two varsity squads, demonstrating the strong call that the program continues to hold on upcoming hockey players. Modern-era coaching teams, from Mike Levine ’00 to Casey Kesselring and current Head Coach Connor Gorman ’11, have led the Huskies to successful seasons and knowledgeable leaders to test their skills.

As we enter this 100th year of hockey, we look forward to celebrating the many who have made this program so successful, the alums who brought it to new heights, and the current studentathletes who seek their legacies in this joyful and gritty sport.

This article discussing a brief introductory history of the hockey program first appeared in the Fall 2022 edition of Hamptonia, the Magazine of New Hampton School. The full issue may be found online.

In this 1964 image, we get a great view of the outdoor rink of the time.

Jacobson Arena was dedicated in November 2016 in time for the 2016-2017 hockey season.

Leading the Miami Heat

by Zach Schonbrun ’05 | photos courtesy Miami Heat

Like many sports fans, Eric Woolworth ’83 recalls exactly where he was on the night of March 11, 2020, as the world began to realize the gravity of the surging COVID-19 pandemic: He was in Miami, watching the Heat play the Charlotte Hornets, when phone rang. It was the league office calling.

“[Utah Jazz center] Rudy Gobert just tested positive,” he was told. “The NBA is shutting down.” Woolworth says the first words out of his mouth were, “What the hell does that mean?”

As the president of business operations for the Heat, Woolworth says he is responsible for “all the outwardfacing elements of running a sports and entertainment operation,” which includes booking non-basketball events for Miami’s FTX Arena. Instantaneously, in-person events went from desirable to impossible. He was in command of a 20,000-seat ghost town.

Woolworth called a meeting with staff the next day and said, “I’ll see you in a couple of weeks.”

“Obviously,” Woolworth says, “that dragged on, and on, and on.”

The NBA returned later in the summer, but only in a virtual “bubble” environment in Orlando. It would be nearly a full year before the Heat would welcome basketball fans back into its arena.

In the intervening months, Woolworth says, his mindset remained focused on the day that live events would return, and he made sure his staff maintained their regular meetings over Zoom.

“A lot of people in the industry, once it became clear it was going to be a longer-term issue, they laid off staff or had people take pay cuts,” Woolworth says. “We remained confident that eventually we were going to come back. And the organizations that were going to do well were the ones that were ready.”

Last April, the NBA recognized the Heat with the league’s sales and marketing “Team of the Year” award, which covered its business performance over the previous 24 months. Woolworth accepted the award from NBA commissioner Adam Silver.

“He said to me, ‘Congratulations, you won the pandemic,’” Woolworth says.

Miami has gotten used to winning. It might surprise some people to learn that the Heat owns the NBA’s second-longest active sellout streak, with a capacity crowd at every home game since

2010. That record has remained intact even after the departures of superstars LeBron James, who played for the Heat from 2010 to 2014, and Dwayne Wade, who retired in 2019.

“When I got to Miami, everyone I met said, ‘It’s a football town,’” Woolworth says. “Now, we sell T-shirts that say, ‘Basketball Town.’”

In addition to three NBA championships in 2006, 2012, and 2013, the Heat won the league’s inaugural Inclusion Leadership Award in 2018, given to the organization with the strongest record and commitment to diversity and inclusion. At the time, the Heat’s full-time workforce was 70 percent minority and 33 percent women.

But Woolworth says the franchise’s commitment to diversity was nothing new.

“Miami is an incredibly diverse place,” he says, adding that he always felt like the organization should reflect that. “No matter

Eric Woolworth ’83, Miami Heat president, business operations, addresses HEAT Academy students and teachers at a year-end celebration at FTX Arena. HEAT Academy, now in its 24th year, is an afterschool program and the NBA franchise’s flagship community initiative that provides approximately 300 students in three inner-city schools with extra exposure to reading, writing, math and science.

where you were from or what group you associated yourself with, when you came to the arena, you would find somebody that was like you.”

Woolworth wasn’t always a hoops fanatic. A tri-sport varsity athlete at Taft, lettering in soccer, hockey (cocaptain in 1982–83), and track, his parents had tickets to the New York Giants, Yankees, and Rangers games—but neglected the Knicks.

Attending Georgetown University during the Patrick Ewing heyday of the mid-’80s changed his opinion of the sport. But Woolworth planned to pursue a career in environmental law after finishing Georgetown Law School.

His father-in-law was at the time the chief operating officer of Carnival Corp., the cruise line, and he desperately wanted Woolworth to move to Miami. Woolworth resisted, saying Florida was “just for old folks,” and the only thing that might change his mind was if he could work in professional sports.

Two months later, Carnival’s chief executive, Micky Arison, assumed majority control of the Miami Heat in 1995, and Woolworth, then 30, became one of his first hires, as the team’s general counsel.

Woolworth with the Miami Heat’s three Larry O’Brien Championship trophies, earned in 2006, 2012, and 2013

Arison simultaneously brought in a slightly more credentialed name to handle the basketball side: Pat Riley, the championshipwinning former coach of the Los Angeles Lakers and New York Knicks.

Riley and Woolworth have now worked side by side for 28 years. Not bad for a guy who says he could never really dribble with his left hand.

“It’s been an incredible ride,” Woolworth says, “to get in on the ground floor and be part of the growth of one of the premier sports leagues on the planet has been incredible.”

During the Heat’s annual Veterans Day Renovation project—one of several community efforts the team hosts—Woolworth helped repaint the home of a retired vet.

Woolworth addresses Miami Heat season ticket members during a town hall event at FTX Arena.

Celebrating a Remarkable Career Kenneth M. Martin III ’65 Rink Dedicated at Belmont Hill

by Belmont Hill School | Photos by Adam Richin

On January 5, 2023, Belmont Hill held the formal dedication of the newly named Kenneth M. Martin III ’65 Rink. The dedication honors the extraordinary legacy of Coach Martin, both as a teacher and legendary coach of Belmont Hill hockey. Mr. Martin’s greatest supporter, his wife, Linda, performed the ceremonial puck drop to officially launch the rink.

Coach Martin is a 1965 graduate of Belmont Hill. He joined the faculty in 1972 and served the School for 50 years. During his years of service, he has been a teacher of Latin, Chair of the Classics Department, Head Form Advisor, Athletic Director, NEPSAC President and has coached football and baseball in addition to hockey.

Coach Martin retired from coaching varsity hockey at the conclusion of the 2010-2011 season after 39 seasons as head varsity coach. During his tenure as head varsity coach his teams won 15 Independent School League titles, 2 New England Championships,

and earned numerous postseason tournament berths, including NEPSAC Tournament berths in each of his last six years as coach. His teams captured 13 Lawrenceville Tournament titles and were 8 times runners up and they won 9 NicholsBelmont Hill Tournament titles. He is a member of the Massachusetts Hockey Coaches Hall of Fame and his 707 wins at Belmont Hill have made him the winningest coach in Massachusetts state history.

BELMONT HILL SCHOOL | BELMONT, MASSACHUSETTS

Head of School Greg Schneider (left) and Athletic Director George Tahan (right) flank Linda and Ken Martin.

He coached 1020 games and completed his varsity coaching career with a record of 707 wins, 270 losses and 43 ties for a winning percentage of 71%. In 2010 he was inducted into the New Hampshire Hockey Hall of Fame and in 2013 he was inducted into the Massachusetts Hockey Hall of Fame. Twelve of his players have gone on to play in the NHL, with several more playing elsewhere professionally, and countless others playing at colleges throughout the country. Coach Martin is a graduate of Bowdoin College, where he captained the varsity hockey team in his senior year and is a member of the Bowdoin Athletic Hall of Fame.

On Thursday, October 13th the School celebrated Coach Martin’s career at Belmont Hill with a program in the Chapel that included two Alumni speakers from Coach Martin’s first varsity hockey team, David E. Kelley from the Class of ’75 and General Mark Milley, the 20th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, from the Class of ’76. At the culmination of the celebration, it was announced that the ice rink at Belmont Hill would be named in Coach Martin’s honor. Thanks to the generosity of two anonymous alumni donors, from this point forward the ice rink at Belmont Hill will be known as the Kenneth M. Martin III ’65 Rink.

The ceremonial puck drop was done by Belmont Hill Hockey’s most faithful supporter, Coach Martin’s wife, Linda.

The Eren Family Tennis Center at Rumsey Hall School

by Classic Turf

On October 15th, the Classic Turf family went to the grounds of Rumsey Hall School in Washington, Connecticut to attend Founders Day Weekend, celebrating 122 years of the independent boarding and day school. The weekend was attended by current students and their parents, alumni, faculty and staff, and marked by discussion panels, class reunions, athletic events, and many different social gatherings.

On a beautiful Saturday afternoon surrounded by family, friends, and alumni holding cold glasses of champagne, with the familiar colors of autumn in New England as the backdrop, Classic Turf VP John Eren unveiled a new addition to Rumsey’s grounds: The Eren Family Tennis Center: four state-of-the-art post tension tennis courts to be enjoyed by the students and faculty of Rumsey for years to come. The courts were donated to the school by the Eren family and John acknowledges that his connections to Rumsey made the donation important to the Erens and Classic Turf.

“Rumsey has been a part of my life since I was in the 3rd grade,” says John. “It continues to play an important role in my family’s life today.”

The connections to Rumsey run deep at Classic Turf. John is a Rumsey Hall alumnus, graduating in 1997, and is a member of the Rumsey Board of Trustees. Kate Eren, Classic Turf’s Director of Finance, is the treasurer of the Rumsey Circle Parent Association, and John and Kate’s daughters, Avery and Alexandra, attend Rumsey. Director of Sales Ryan Conroy is also an alumnus of

the school. The picturesque scene, including the foliage and the extended Classic Turf family standing alongside the blue sign and white lettering announcing “The Eren Family Tennis Center” brings about feelings of family, connection, and legacy.

“I have to thank my parents,” John says, noting that their beliefs in the importance of education, of hard work and dedication to a goal, of love and support, and sharing with others the fruits of success, were instilled in him from a young age.

“My parents worked hard to provide me with the best education in the Northeast and have continued pushing me to keep learning and evolving,” John says. “My father (Classic Turf’s President, Tumer H. Eren) founded Classic Turf over 40 years ago, and it’s from his hard work and dedication to the sports industry that we are able to donate this amazing tennis facility today.”

Beyond the new outdoor facility pictured here, Classic Turf installed its patented Sports Surface at Rumsey Hall School in the early 2000’s, recently returning to the school to re-coat the indoor courts for the first time. Athletics is an important part of the tradition of Rumsey, and Classic Turf and the Eren family were honored to contribute to the Blue Dog Spirit a belief in effort, courage, and perseverance.

According to John, “With the new outdoor courts and the refurbished indoor courts, I can say without question that Rumsey now has one of the best tennis facilities out of all the private schools in New England.”

“It has been an honor contributing to the school,” says John. “Rumsey has been such a big part of my life for such a long time, and it is our hope that these facilities will help Rumsey promote and obtain future students for years to come.”

5 Ways to Ensure Your Athletes are Competing Well

As a coach, you have the ability to either help or hinder your athletes’ pursuit of success in sport, as well as their overall wellness. A good coach ensures that mental and physical wellness are prioritized for their athletes, even if it means de-prioritizing performance and wins. This might mean reworking your definition of success, but in the long run, your athletes will perform better and be healthier, happier humans as a result.

When it comes to supporting physical and mental wellness, your goal should be helping athletes develop healthy habits, rather than quick fixes and win-at-all-costs mentalities. Here, the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency’s Chief Science Officer, Matt Fedoruk, PhD, shares his top five ways to ensure your athletes are competing well and able to thrive in all areas.

1. PRIORITIZE REST AND RECOVERY

“We’re conditioned to take this ‘more is better’ type of approach across the board, whether it’s around training, supplements, or gear. But for a young athlete, we know adequate rest and recovery is more important than extra training hours,” says Fedoruk. Overtraining is common, especially for serious teen athletes who are focused on getting an athletic scholarship—but while training extra hours may pay off at first, it can have consequences that can take athletes out of the sport for the season or for life.

2. ENCOURAGE MULTI-SPORT ATHLETES

“These days, there is a lot of pressure to specialize in sport from a very young age,” says Fedoruk. As a coach, it’s tempting to want your athletes to be fully committed to your team and your sport. But that’s not the best long-term approach to success in sport or in life. “I know from the scientific literature as well as from personal experiences working with athletes that the best athletes are the most well-rounded athletes,” says Fedoruk. “Multi-sport athletes learn technical skills and gain the experience they need to figure out which sport is right for them. Multi-sport athletes are also more likely to stay in sports longer, which is especially important now as kids are dropping out of sport at very high rates.”

3. SKIP THE SUPPLEMENTS

Supplements have become a common cure-all for many people and athletes in particular. It might be tempting to buy into the big promises that supplements make, but in doing so, you’re encouraging the idea that a solution can be found in a pill—which we know isn’t the case!

“There are no magic bullets, and no supplement will be a shortcut to success. I think there’s a lot of pressure these days to cut corners, and we’re all pressed for time,” says Fedoruk.

“But at the end of the day, parents and coaches need to take a step back and ask, ‘How do I best fuel my athlete to be successful?’” He suggests focusing on a food-first approach try more red meat for athletes who may need more iron or an extra serving of chicken or dairy for those looking to build muscle and leaving any supplement recommendations to a physician or dietitian.

If you do find that a supplement is ultimately necessary, try to stick to third-party certified supplements to reduce the risk of contamination and exposure to harmful ingredients.

4. INVEST IN MENTAL HEALTH

As a coach, you play a huge role in the mental health and wellbeing of your athletes. You can create positive change by bringing mental health experts in to speak to the team about game day nerves, goal-setting, and dealing with stress and anxiety. You can also create an open door policy to encourage athletes to talk to you about anything they’re struggling with. And you can share resources with them that improve their understanding of what it means to be mentally well. Lastly, make sure that there is space for athletes to simply have fun during practice and even within competition. “Sport

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can help solve a lot of problems, but only if you as a coach are taking a holistic, positive, and fun approach to it,” Fedoruk adds.

5. FOCUS ON GROWTH INSTEAD OF OUTCOMES

As coaches and parents, we know that sports can not only teach young athletes how to score a goal or run a mile, sports can teach them life lessons like leadership, perseverance, and goal-setting. An outcome-focused coach with a ‘win-at-allcosts’ mentality might see early results—but as the season wears on and athletes become tired, overtrained, or simply mentally exhausted from so much pressure to perform, the wins will start to wane and the athletes will suffer. Focusing on sustainable growth for your team, with an emphasis on effort and hard work rather than results, will result in athletes who bring more to their team and their community.

TAKEAWAY

It’s tempting to simply push your athletes to win competitions and games at any cost, but the better long-term strategy is to focus on wellness, which leads to more happy, healthy lifelong athletes. That means ensuring athletes have the information and resources to make smart choices around food, mental health, rest, recovery, and even playing other sports.

TrueSport®, a movement powered by the experience and values of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, champions the positive values and life lessons learned through youth sport. TrueSport inspires athletes, coaches, parents, and administrators to change the culture of youth sport through active engagement and thoughtful curriculum based on cornerstone lessons of sportsmanship, characterbuilding, and clean and healthy performance, while also creating leaders across communities through sport.

For more expert-driven articles and materials, visit TrueSport’s comprehensive library of resources

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Last school year was a first for bBIG Live and we produced 341 live games providing NEPSAC families, fans, alumni and coaches with professional live broadcast coverage and postgame film. For those that are not familiar with our services here are just a few of the benefits:

• bBIG Live offers professional broadcasting services for a variety of events for parents, grandparents, students, alumni and fans to catch all the action, live or on-demand.

• bBIG Live provides downloadable post-game film for coaches to upload to Hudl or other preferred coaching software.

• As a bonus, bBIG Live can also make special announcements, including general school announcements, reminders or shout outs to specific family members or alums watching to personalize the experience. Contact Mark Igo: 617-823-2492