Enfield Athletic Hall of Fame Inducts Benevolent Class

Before Joel Arnold, the words wrestling and Enfield rarely appeared in the same sentence. After years of service to his community, Arnold, credited with kick-starting the establishment of the sport in town and coaching programs at each of Enfield's secondary schools, can be called the father of Enfield wrestling.

His pioneering efforts, which made two Enfield and one Fermi wrestling state championships possible, were honored Saturday during the Enfield Athletic Hall of Fame’s 2011 induction ceremony at the Holiday Inn.

With about 200 people in attendance, Arnold was posthumously honored as the one-hundredth inductee into the Hall, along with four other new inductees, for his contributions to the community.

“He so enjoyed watching his young men grow up to be promising citizens,” said Arnold’s widow, Lora Arnold, who accepted the honor on his behalf.

Having coached programs at Kennedy Junior High School, Enfield High School and Fermi High School during his career, Arnold lived to encourage the development of young men through the sport that he loved. In addition to his positions as a director of the New England and Connecticut Olympic wrestling camps and co-chairman of the U.S. Wrestling Federation Kids Wrestling Program, he received the Man of the Year Award from the Connecticut State Coaches Association in 2000.

His service and accomplishments exemplified the nature of contributions to the town of Enfield on behalf each member of the Hall’s class of 2011 – a class Enfield Athletic Hall of Fame Chairman Michael Cotnoir said is defined by giving back.

“Many of [the inductees] are coaches and they continue to give back,” he said. “They were definitely grounded in the Town of Enfield to not only gain the recognition, but take their time and give it to someone else.”

The import of a coach's contribution was most evident Saturday in the induction of Enfield High School’s 1979 wrestling team. The team won the ’79 Class L State Championship by a 24.5 point margin – proof of the squad’s dominating performance.

“For us in 1979, to achieve the success that we had, first you have to understand that programs that are successful don’t just erupt, they are built and developed… over time,” said Lenny Pazik, a member of the ’79 team.

“We set the goal of being champions by the end of the season,” Pazik continued. “Were we ready? No. But what a good coach does… [is] first makes us believe that we can be [champions] and then guides us to that goal… making the impossible possible. That’s what Coach [Kirk] Parker did for us.”

“Our ’79 team was courageous, fiercely competitive and mature for their ages,” Parker recalled. “Because of their physical and mental toughness, they recorded the finest season in Enfield wrestling history… they were champions then, and in my eyes they are champions now.”

One of the finest female athletes in Enfield history was also honored Saturday. Sharon (Leonard) Curtis excelled in basketball and field hockey for Enfield High School. Curtis became the first female basketball player in Enfield to score 1,000 career points, including an Enfield-record 36 points in a single game, which stood for decades. Curtis averaged 18.4 points per game as a senior, and her numbers on the field hockey pitch weren’t that bad either – the former four-time selection as Enfield High’s female scholar-athlete of the year recorded more than 20 shutouts in her career as a goalie, earning second team All-State honors.

Coached in field hockey by legendary 1996 Enfield Athletic Hall of Famer Cookie Bromage, the importance of a coach’s guidance was not lost on Curtis, particularly her father’s. Curtis recalled that it was Bromage who taught her “to win with honor and lose with dignity,” and it was her father, who spent hours hurling baseballs toward his daughter in goal in the backyard, that taught her the significance of hard work and a parent's involvment in youth sports. Curtis now coaches her own children.

Two more stellar athletes-turned-coaches were inducted with the class of 2011 Saturday: former Enfield High football standout Keith Emery and Enfield High soccer star Tony Conte.

Now head football coach at Western New England University, Emery’s football roots began in Enfield where he earned All-CCC East honors on the defensive and offensive line. Emery thanked the staff and faculty at Enfield High School for “providing me with many leadership opportunities on and off the field,” including his first coaching opportunity as an assistant at Stafford High School.

Emery took that first opportunity and ran with it, coaching as an assistant at Kenyon College and rising to the position of associate head coach at Johns Hopkins University before taking the reins at Western New England.

Conte is currently the general manager and player coach of the Wellfleet Breakers of the Oceana Soccer Club on Lower Cape Cod, MA. A 1978 graduate of Enfield High, Conte recalled football being King in Enfield when he was growing up in town. He played midget football as a youngster, but “it was those early Enfield High [soccer] teams that totally turned me on to soccer,” he said. Conte remembered being captivated by those early teams, saying they “were fast, they were athletic, they had an Italian style of play – they were physical. They were so much fun to watch,” he added.

Once on the team at Enfield High, Conte created his own share of fun. He was an All-CCIL player whose career continued on the national stage as captain and second leading scorer of the Providence College Friars, which broke into the national Top 20. Conte was also most valuable player and leading scorer with the Chatham Fog of the Cape Cod Soccer League in 1984.

Rounding out the class of 2011 was Jeff Spanswick, a standout pitcher at Enfield High who, like Conte, made his mark in college on the national stage. Accepting the honor on behalf of Spanswick, 2001 Enfield Hall of Famer and Spanswick's baseball coach Bob Bromage recalled that his ace was “a superb pitcher” and “someone who did everything by example.”

Spanswick was an All-CCC selection on the diamond before playing one year at the University of New Haven. But it was at American International College, Bromage recalled, that Spanswick reached his full potential. At AIC, Spanswick set a school record for wins in a single season with a record of 11-1, and led his team to the Division II World Series. Spanswick is still fifth all-time for ERA (2.06) and career strikeouts (168) at AIC.

The Enfield Rotary Club was honored with the George Daly Special Recognition Award for more than six decades supporting youth sports in Enfield.

Click here for a video of Saturday night's induction ceremony.