Five high school coaching legends to receive CSWA Gold Key Awards

Five high school coaching legends will be honored next spring as recipients of the Gold Key Award from the Connecticut Sports Writers' Alliance.

The honorees are Cookie Bromage (Enfield field hockey), Joe Grippo (Morgan volleyball and girls' basketball), Lou Milardo (Hale-Ray softball), Ricky Shook (Danbury wrestling) and Angela Tammaro (Greenwich Academy field hockey and lacrosse). They will be feted at the 79th Gold Key Dinner on Sunday, April 26 at the Aqua Turf Club in Southington.

Tickets for the Gold Key Dinner are $75 and are available by contacting CSWA president Tim Jensen at (860) 394-5091 or tim.jensen@ patch.com. Proceeds support the Bo Kolinsky Memorial Sports Journalism Scholarship, a $3,000 award named in memory of the noted high school sports editor of the Hartford Courant, who died in 2003 at age 49.

Bromage started the field hockey program at Enfield in 1967 and retired prior to 2019 after 52 seasons. Her teams won Class M state championships in 1983, 1984, 1992, 1993 and 1994.

Grippo coached volleyball at Morgan for 33 seasons and girls' basketball for 35, winning more than 600 games in two girls' sports. His teams captured 12 Class S volleyball championships, including seven straight from 1992-98, and Class S basketball titles in 1996 and 2000.

Milardo spent 31 years as softball coach at Hale-Ray High School in Moodus from 19762006, retiring as the state's all-time victory leader for a softball coach with 552 (since surpassed by Gold Key recipient Judy Deeb of East Lyme in 2013). The Noises posted a .787 winning percentage during his tenure and won Class S state titles in 1993, 2000, 2001 and 2004.

After a standout wrestling career at Danbury High School and 11 seasons as an assistant coach for the Hatters, Shook took over the head coaching reins in 1999 and has led his teams to unparalleled levels. Through the 2018-19 season, Danbury has compiled a record of 364-24, a .938 winning percentage, and captured 16 Class LL championships, 15 State Open titles and two New England championships.

Tammaro was athletic director and coach at Greenwich Academy for nearly a half a century, reaching the 700-victory plateau in both field hockey and lacrosse. She had 747 wins and an .883 winning percentage in 49 seasons in field hockey and 700 victories and an .898 winning percentage in lacrosse. She also won 200 games in 24 seasons of basketball, finishing with a combined coaching total of 1,647 wins and 63 New England and league championships.