Enfield Athletic Hall Of Famer Receives Prestigious Statewide Honor

SOUTHINGTON, CT — When Kate Mullen left Elms College in 1992 to become women's basketball coach at Wesleyan University, she knew what she was getting into. The Cardinal program had not been particularly strong; in fact, in the previous 16 years, three head coaches had compiled a 103-185 record, a paltry .358 winning percentage.

Mullen’s first three seasons were vastly improved, with a 35-32 cumulative record, but a lengthy rebuilding process started in the 1995-96 campaign, in which the Cardinals lost all 22 games. Just one defeat was by a single-digit margin, a 49-45 loss to Mullen’s former team, Elms College. A 29-game losing streak was finally snapped on Dec. 7, 1996, with a 70-43 rout of Elms.

After a two-season stretch in which Wesleyan posted just one victory in 43 games, "I wondered if there would be a third season," Mullen quipped. Never in her wildest dreams did she imagine she would one day stand in front of more than 400 people and accept one of Connecticut's most prestigious sports honors: the Gold Key.

Yet there she was Sunday at the Aqua Turf Club in Plantsville, receiving accolades from the Connecticut Sports Media Alliance alongside high school coaching legends Larry Ciotti, Brian Crudden and Linda Dirga and award-winning pioneering sportscaster George Grande.

"I have always considered it an honor to be someone’s college coach," Mullen told the audience. "I take on this role seriously and with great pride. For almost all of my players, this will be the last opportunity to compete in a highly competitive basketball program. It’s exciting to be deeply involved during the four years of a student-athlete’s college career, a time when you can both impact and shape who they are, and who they may become, as they approach adulthood."

Mullen has been "someone's college coach" for more than four decades now, and on Tuesday began her 33rd season at the helm of the Cardinals. After those tough early seasons, the team showed gradual improvement over the next three years, and reached a turning point with the dawn of the new millennium.

Beginning with the 2000-01 season, Wesleyan recorded nine straight years with winning records, including a program-best .840 winning percentage in 2002-03 (21-4). The Cardinals went 20-4 and 22-5 the next two seasons, earning bids to the NCAA tournament each time, and advanced to the Sweet Sixteen in 2005.

The decade of the 2000s proved most fruitful, with a 153-69 record for a .689 winning percentage. The program entered another rebuilding phase in 2010, but has rebounded to achieve double-digit victory seasons each year since 2017-18.

Mullen enters the 2024-25 campaign with 479 victories as a college coach, including 367 at Wesleyan, which ranks her among the top 50 all-time in NCAA Division III history. She earned New England Small College Athletic Conference Coach of the Year honors in 2002-03.

She was inducted into the Enfield Athletic Hall of Fame in 2007, the Central Connecticut State University Hall of Fame in 2010 and the Connecticut Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame in 2011.

Most players would be lucky to have a Gold Key winner as a coach, but Mullen had the rare opportunity to play for not one, but two recipients of the prestigious award. A 1974 graduate of Enfield High School, she played field hockey and basketball for the legendary Cookie Bromage, a 2021 Gold Key honoree who was one of eight Enfield hall of famers in attendance Sunday. She went on to Central Connecticut State College, where she was coached in basketball and softball by the late Brenda Reilly, a 1988 honoree.

"Cookie instilled in us a fierce will to win," Mullen said. "She packaged that fierce will to win in caring and class. In her long and very successful coaching career, Cookie always won and lost with grace, a lifelong lesson to us as young athletes. Brenda Reilly strongly influenced my decision to become a college coach. Brenda demonstrated the teacher-coach model and set a high standard of professionalism. As a coach and PE professor, she taught us to play the game as it should be played with no shortcuts, using cutting edge best practices in conditioning and skill development. Brenda wisely blended her sternness with caring and humor, and modeled life-long fitness."

A beaming Bromage told Patch, "Kate was so well-liked by her classmates and teammates, and continued to blossom her whole career. It's fun to go to her games to see her in action. I was so proud to be included."