CGA turns something old into own Taj Mahal
New London If powers of observation are worth anything, here is what 25 years' worth of time spent at Coast Guard Academy yields:
Its esprit de corps is incomparable, particularly within athletics, where the terms "employees" and "co-workers" don't exist. It starts here: They are friends. Some lifelong. Their support exceeds mere words. They attend each other's games, share a pint or two at Mr. G's. They care. It's not like that everywhere else. Or perhaps anywhere else.
And yet until this week, the threads were less tangible. Coast Guard athletics — the people, achievements and memories — had no village green. Nothing to conjugate their passion. Then Thursday happened.
Whoa. Venerable Billard Hall, the old communal center, has become Taj Mahal, New London chapter, redefined as the Otto Graham Hall of Athletic Excellence. It is ornate. Yet it is earnest. It is glitter. Yet it is substance. It is the once and future home of everything Coast Guard Academy ever wanted to say about itself.
And they celebrated into the night Thursday at the Athletic Hall of Fame and Alumni Association Awards Dinner, rattling with the walls with "Go Bears!" and happy schlepps through history. Care to come along? The shrine to Graham, a pro football Hall of Famer and later a coach and athletic director at the Academy, includes a bust and Ring of Honor mural. Every football helmet Coast Guard players have ever worn. Plaques of all Hall of Fame members and a kiosk with more information on all of them. Illuminated primers on all varsity
teams. Tributes to Arnold Palmer, boxer Jack Dempsey and astronaut Bruce Melnick, all with ties to Coast Guard.
It gives pause to all of us in this corner of the world. We are privileged to have a military academy among us, not merely with people who do its name proud, but now with a shrine to the memories.
"I take no idea whatsoever for the idea. That goes to Bill Thompson," Coast Guard athletic director Tim Fitzpatrick said, alluding to a linebacker on Coast Guard's Tangerine Bowl team of 1963 and still ardent supporter. "It began with Bill as a more global perspective, something to formally commemorate coach Graham.
"I had two similar experiences (in previous jobs) at Army and Indiana. From Bill's vision, we began to work on what-ifs and recognize how important Billard Hall is to people who went here.
“Billard was their life. It was escape from barracks, phys ed, recreation, sports, dances and theater. We wanted to transform Billard, not change it."
The night went splendidly. Food, fun, friends. All with a blue and orange hue.
"I'm not sure it could have gone any better," Fitzpatrick said. "The feedback I got all day (Friday) was 'home run.'"
Beyond the upper deck, off the façade.
The hall also trumpets an exhibit of Coast Guard's 20 best teams of all time, including the personal favorite, the 2008 basketball team that made the Elite Eight of the NCAA Division III tournament.
Oh, the memories. Not the least of which was the team bus driver, a man who claimed to be Reggie Jackson's cousin, deciding to take a shortcut home after the Bears lost in the Elite Eight. The bus clipped the side of a house. (No, really). We got home at 6 a.m. (No, really). Yet no team ever epitomized the mission of the place better: diligence, passion, loyalty, camaraderie.
And no athlete ever did than one of the night's Hall of Fame inductees, former basketball player and now retired commander Mark Harris, class of 1996.
Harris, a ferocious gentleman on the court, is the only player in program history with 1,000 points and 1,000 rebounds. Leave it here: This is the ideal of what Coast Guard wants to produce.
"In one word, 'wow,'" Harris said of the night. "This is completely more than I would have even imagined. Everything here brings in the history of Coast Guard, yet it yells of the future and so many things to come."
Among the things to come: prospective recruits who may walk into Billard Hall ... and not walk out without committing to the military hamlet by the Thames. Many Division I schools don't have what Coast Guard does now.
"When kids visit colleges, they visit with their eyes," Fitzpatrick said.
That's all they'll need. This is the opinion of Day sports columnist Mike DiMauro