ROCCO, MOORE TO BE HONORED AS ATHLETES OF THE YEAR
The Connecticut Sports Writers’ Alliance is pleased to announce that Keith Rocco, the 2010 NASCAR Whelen All-American Series national champion, has been named the Bill Lee Male Athlete of the Year, and Maya Moore, a guard/forward on the national champion University of Connecticut women’s basketball team, has been named the Hank O’Donnell Female Athlete of the Year.
Both athletes will be honored at the 70th annual Gold Key Dinner, which will be held April 17 at the Aqua Turf Club in Southington.
Rocco, who competes in the SK Modified divisions at Stafford Motor Speedway, Thompson International Speedway and the Waterford Speedbowl, earned the national championship based on a formula that ranks performances at short tracks across the country. The best 18 finishes for each driver count toward the championship, and Rocco secured the title with his 18th victory in a full field of cars Aug. 14 at the Waterford Speedbowl. He finished with 22 victories in 2010 and also finished in the top five on in 45 races and in the top 10 in 56 races.
A native of Wallingford who lives in Meriden, Rocco is the first driver to win The Alliance’s Bill Lee Male Athlete of the Year award since it was first given out in 1973.
Moore had a team-high 18.9 points per game and 150 assists in 2009-10 for the Huskies, who won their seventh NCAA championship following a 39-0 season. She ranked in the top 12 in the Big East in 10 statistical categories and had 14 double-doubles, and was named the 2010 Final Four Most Outstanding Player and the 2010 State Farm Wade Trophy Player of the Year.
A native of Collins Hill, Ga., Moore is currently a senior at UConn. She is the sixth UConn women’s basketball player to win the Hank O’Donnell Female Athlete of the Year award since it was first issued in 1984, joining Kerry Bascom (1991), Rebecca Lobo (1995), Jennifer Rizzotti (1996), Nykesha Sales (1999) and Diana Taurasi (2004).
WATERS, SUTMAN TO BE HONORED AS COACHES OF THE YEAR
The Connecticut Sports Writers’ Alliance is pleased to announce that Farmington boys soccer coach Steve Waters and Waterford softball coach Liz Sutman have been named the recipients of the Doc McInerney Coach of the Year award.
Both coaches will be honored at the 70th annual Gold Key Dinner, which will be held April 17 at the Aqua Turf Club in Southington.
Waters has coached boys soccer at Farmington for 28 seasons and led the Indians to six state championships. With a career record of 430-68-33, Waters has also led Farmington to the championship game in four other seasons, winning in 1986, 1992, 1996, 2003 and 2008, and 25 conference titles. A three-time National High School Athletic Coaches' Association regional coach of the year, Waters, from Wethersfield, won a championship playing for the Eagles in 1975 and was an all-New England player at the University of Hartford in 1978 and 1979.
Sutman, the softball coach at Waterford for nine seasons, recently led her team to a 27-0 record and Class L championship in June. The team, the first at Waterford to finish undefeated, scored 199 runs while only allowing seven and defended its 2009 Class L title. Sutman, 179-50 at Waterford, was a pitcher and first baseman at Harvard and played field hockey, basketball and softball at East Lyme.
Both Waters and Sutman are the first coaches to be honored from their high schools since the award was first distributed in 1975. It recognizes coaches who have recently succeeded in their profession with a nod to overall career achievement. Only one recipient was named until 1993, when a coach of the year in a male sport and and a coach of the year in a female sport were first honored.
GREEN, BOTTEON TO BE HONORED WITH COURAGE AWARD
The Connecticut Sports Writers’ Alliance is pleased to announce that Ken Green, who has won five PGA Tour events, and Jamie Botteon, a goalie on the Bristol Eastern girls soccer team, have been selected to receive the Bob Casey Courage Award.
Both athletes will be honored at the 70th annual Gold Key Dinner, which will be held April 17 at the Aqua Turf Club in Southington.
Green, 52, from Danbury, is a former player on the PGA Tour who made his Champions Tour debut in 2008. He won five PGA Tour events (the 1985 Buick Open, The International in 1986, the 1988 Canadian Open, the 1988 Greater Milwaukee Open and the 1989 KMart Greater Greensboro Open) and tied for seventh in the 1997 U.S. Open. He twice won the Connecticut Open - in 1985 and 1992.
While traveling to a Champions Tour event in Meridian, Miss. in June 2009, a tire blew in the recreational vehicle Green was traveling in, causing the vehicle to hit a tree. His brother, William, girlfriend, Jeanne Hodgin and dog, Nip, died in the accident, and Green had his lower right leg amputated as a result of the injuries sustained in the accident. Seven months later, in January 2010, his son, Hunter, was found dead in his dormitory at Southern Methodist University, the result of an accidental drug overdose.
Green, who now lives in West Palm Beach, Fla., returned to competition last year, participating in three Champions Tour events: the Liberty Mutual Legends of Golf tournament in April, where he tied for 26th; the Regions Charity Classic in May, where he tied for 73rd, and the Dick's Sporting Goods Open in June, which he withdrew from due to pain in the leg. He also played in the Connecticut Open at the Country Club of Fairfield in July, where he again withdrew due to pain in his right leg.
Botteon, 17, was diagnosed in Dec. 2009 with acute myeloid leukemia - the same disease that her brother, Wade, died from five years earlier at 13. She overcame the disease the following spring and regained her spot as the starting goalie at Bristol Eastern, eventually finishing with a school-record 31 shutouts before the Lancers (14-4) lost in the second round of the Class L tournament.
The Bob Casey Award, named after the former sports editor of the New Haven Register, is given annually to two individuals who have overcome adversity in an exemplary manner.
LIPSHEZ TO RECEIVE MCGINLEY AWARD
The Connecticut Sports Writers’ Alliance is pleased to announce that Ken Lipshez of the West Hartford Press has been named the recipient of the 2011 Art McGinley award.
Lipshez will be honored at the 70th Gold Key Dinner, which will be held April 17 at the Aqua Turf Club in Southington. The award honors a current or former member of the organization for his meritorious service.
A member of the Alliance since 1995, Lipshez served as the organization’s president from 2000 through 2003 and has been the treasurer since 2004.
He began his writing career at the Burlington Post and Bristol Press in 1991 before moving to the New Britain Herald in 1995, where he covered New Britain’s Double A minor league baseball team for the next 16 seasons. Lipshez also covered high school sports and was honored by the Connecticut High School Coaches Association with induction into its Hall of Fame in 2009.
A 1982 graduate of Southern Connecticut State University, Lipshez worked in minor league baseball for his first six years after graduation, including serving as the general manger of the Glens Falls Tigers of the Eastern League from 1986-88.
SEVEN TO RECEIVE JOHN WENTWORTH GOOD SPORT AWARD
The Connecticut Sports Writers’ Alliance is pleased to announce seven honorees will receive the John Wentworth Good Sport Award at the 70th Gold Key dinner in April.
Tom Bohara of Norwich, Mark and Nancy Cammisa of Danbury, Vin DiLauro of West Haven, Don Nielsen of New Haven, Mike Torres of New Britain and Richard Rothstein of Norwich will receive the award, which has been given since 1988 and honors individuals who unselfishly devote their time to the promotion of athletics in their communities.
A brief look at the honorees:
By his estimation, Tom Bohara has officiated around 10,000 baseball and softball games throughout Eastern Connecticut. Bohara, 85, has been an umpire in the Norwich area since 1947. In 2010, Bohara’s 63rd year behind the plate, he umpired more games (127) than anyone else on the 80-plus member Eastern Connecticut Board of Approved Baseball Umpires. In 1946, after leaving the armed services, Bohara attended the George Barr Umpiring School in Florida. That school was the first of its kind, taught by the Umpire in Chief of the National League. Bohara has been married to his wife, Lorraine, for 63 years. They have two sons, Tom and Ted.
Mark and Nancy Cammisa, from Danbury, have filled numerous leadership roles in amateur wrestling for nearly two decades. Together they developed and have been tournament directors for the Nutmegs series in Connecticut for the past five years. They are also tournament directors for the Nutmeg State Games and for the Connecticut Kids State Championships. Mark is currently the Officials Director for USAWCT, instructing more than 100 officials who range in age from 14 to 18, and was that group’s State Chairperson for more than five years. Nancy has been treasurer for the Danbury Youth Wrestling Association for the past seven years and has been chairperson for the group’s annual golf outing for the past 16 years.
Vin DiLauro’s involvement in the West Haven Twilight League goes back over 50 years to when he was a player (1958-60). He currently serves as the League’s president and is involved in the National Amateur Baseball Federation as a second vice-president. The 68-year old New Haven native is the third-generation owner of Columbus Auto Body, a business known throughout the area for its sponsorship of the Columbus Bears softball team which competed nationally during the 1950s and 60s. DiLauro, a West Haven Rotarian, is also a member of both the Gene Casey (New Haven) chapter of the National Football Foundation and the Walter Camp Football Foundation.
Donald Nielsen, 82, has served the New Haven Gridiron Club since 1979, first as president for four years and then as executive director. The club each year honors current high school stars who are chosen to its Levi Jackson Team and honors stars of the past through its Hall of Fame. It also honors the top college college players in the New Haven area and an outstanding official. In addition, the club awards the Floyd Little Scholarship to a high school player who has shown notable academic improvement and strength of character. Nielsen retired in 1987 as manager of the Meriden data test center of Southern New England Telephone Co., for which he worked almost 40 years. A former hockey, football and baseball player at West Haven High School, he served on active duty in the Korean War era with the Air National Guard. He and his wife of 58 years, Nancy, live in Orange. They have a son and two grandchildren.
When the beleaguered New Britain American Legion baseball program perished amidst in-fighting and dubious leadership in 2005, Mike Torres stepped up the next year and pumped in new life with considerable investments of time and his own money. Two years later, he was granted a Greater Hartford Twilight League franchise so the young men of his city could go on playing organized ball. Both teams are known as the Stingers. Torres, the sound engineer for the New Britain Rock Cats, has also opened his home to the team’s Spanish-speaking players to help them adjust to life in New Britain as they pass through.
Richard Rothstein, 67, of Norwich, organized and ran the Lefty Grand Finale Softball Tournament, which benefited the Baltic and Norwich Little Leagues, for 28 years. He also served as a coach for 23 years in the Norwich Little League, has been the sound engineer at Central Connecticut State University for over 12 years, and was the sound engineer for the Norwich Navigators and the Hartford Fox Force. Rothstein, who is also a magician, lives in Norwich with his wife, Emily. They have two daughters, Esther and Heidi.
