2 Special Award Recipients Announced By CSMA For 83rd Gold Key Dinner

CONNECTICUT — Two honorees from opposite ends of the Connecticut sporting spectrum will be recipients of special awards from the Connecticut Sports Media Alliance (CSMA) at the 83rd Gold Key Dinner in October.

Peter King, a 1975 graduate of Enfield High School who went on to become three-time National Sportswriter of the Year as senior NFL writer for Sports Illustrated, will be presented the President’s Award. Considered one of the most authoritative and respected football journalists in America, King covered the league for three decades, as a magazine writer and as a contributing member of NBC’s Football Night in America. He also launched TheMMQB.com, which set the pace for the future of sports platforms, drawing on his access to players, coaches, league officials and others around the game.

Since his retirement from a media career last year, King has worked tirelessly to raise funds aimed at restoring the middle school and freshman sports programs in his former hometown of Enfield, which were cut due to budget restraints.

The Bo Kolinsky Special Recognition Award, given in memory of a former Alliance president and high school sports editor of the Hartford Courant, will be presented to Dolores Sawchuk, 94, of Colchester. She has been a champion of Bacon Academy athletics since her graduation from the school in 1948 – and even before that as a cheerleader for the Bobcats. Sawchuk is an active member of Bacon Academy’s Board of Trustees, which bestows a Founder’s Day award annually to a graduate of the school who has gone on to become accomplished in his or her area of expertise. The board surprised Sawchuk with the award in 2016.

Sawchuk attends Bacon Academy’s home girls’ basketball games and was in attendance at Mohegan Sun Arena on March 15 when the Bobcats won the Class M state championship. She has also thrown out the first pitch at a Bacon baseball game, and is an avid fan of the Boston Red Sox and the UConn men’s and women’s basketball teams.

King and Sawchuk, along with the 2025 Gold Key Award honorees, will be feted Oct. 26, 2025 at the Aqua Turf Club in the Plantsville section of Southington. More award winners will be announced in the coming weeks.

Gold Key recipients are former Masuk High School and Louisiana State University softball pitcher Rachele Fico, former Stratford High School football star and Super Bowl champion Nick Giaquinto, longtime Yale University men’s basketball coach James Jones, World Series champion pitching coach Dave Wallace and NCAA, WNBA and Olympic champion Kara Wolters.

Tickets for the Gold Key Dinner are $80, and are available by contacting CSMA president Tim Jensen of Patch Media Corp. at 860-394-5091 or tim.jensen@patch.com. Proceeds support the Bo Kolinsky Memorial Sports Media Scholarship, a $3,000 annual award.