Mike DiMauro: New London’s sports history rooted in Thanksgiving – NewsBreak

New London — It has been suggested that we study history because history doesn’t stay behind us. It helps us understand how events in the past made things the way they are today.

This is why very few New London stories are (or should be) told without proper historical reference. The city and its spirit frequently hearkens the old days, in a place where ethnicity, characters and tradition helped make things the way they are today.

No other holiday illustrates that more profoundly than Thanksgiving, once the No. 1 sports day of the year in the 06320, for reasons beyond high school football. Thanksgiving in old New London gave sports their foundation in a resolute sports town.

Happily, we still have Rich Conover among us to frame the stories. Conover, known to us as a successful high school and college basketball coach, was the quarterback on the first New London High School football team to play on Thanksgiving. The year was 1955. And yet the tradition of playing football here on Thanksgiving started way before that.

“In the 40s and 50s, as a kid, I’m 10 years old,” Conover was saying earlier this week. “On Thanksgiving mornings, we snuck into the game, climbed the fence at Mercer Field.”

“The game,” in this case, was Shaw Street vs. Fort Trumbull, the battle of the city’s two Italian neighborhoods. They borrowed equipment from the local high schools, Conover said, mentioning Chapman Tech and Billard Academy. And they’d come by the thousands to watch Patsy Cannamela, the man for whom the current high school football field is named, Hank Secchiaroli and others whose names are still quoted here reverently.

“There’d be 3,000 fans,” Conover said, “and every guy wore a sport jacket so he could keep his half a pint of whiskey in the breast pocket. You know. To keep warm.”

This was a time when ethnicities mostly designated New London’s neighborhoods. The Italians lived at Fort Trumbull and Shaw Street. Conover, who is part Polish, said the Polish section was “east New London” near Riverside Park. The Jewish section was the “sixth ward,” or more commonly known today as “SoHo,” or south of the hospital toward the water.

“One of the things that still strikes me is the industriousness of the people from Fort Trumbull and Shaw,” Conover said. “They somehow knew something about California. Like Patsy. If you’re a resident of California, you can go to college free in the junior college system. And a lot of them did that. Patsy played for Ventura Junior College and then later was recruited at USC.

“There’s a lot of these side stories. Hank Secchiaroli always threw a perfect spiral. Good quarterback. Patsy told all the coaches at Ventura about him. Hank was a wonderful guy, but kind of shy. When he heard they were coming to recruit him, the story goes he hid in the locker so they couldn’t find him.”

The football game was just the beginning of the day. After Thanksgiving dinner, many of the people watching football in the morning went to Ocean Beach at night for basketball and the annual opening of the famed City League. Conover played in that league of several notables, including Jack “The Shot” Foley of Holy Cross lore and legend.

High school football on Thanksgiving in New London began in 1955.

“Everybody thought we’d play NFA on Thanksgiving because it’s the oldest rivalry in the country,” Conover said. “But in 1951, I believe I was in eighth grade, New London High had just started. There was a big incident in the New London/NFA game. I remember being on the hill near Vet’s Field. I think it’s Dow Street, watching it from there. Don Scott, a famous halfback for NFA, went around the right end, got tackled out of bounds on the New London side and got in a fight with Tom Flanagan, the New London coach.

“Scott got up and punched Flanagan. New London and NFA broke off relations for like three or four years. So when Harlan Sturgis, the football coach at New London during my era, knew of the Thanksgiving game between Fort Trumbull and Shaw Street, he knew there was a lot of money to be made. So he decided to have a Thanksgiving Day game. NFA refused, so we played Fitch at Vets Field.”

Conover is still proud to say the final was New London 20, Fitch 12.

“I think we had lost to Fitch the year before. The Thanksgiving Day game was at Veterans Field because Fitch didn’t have a lot of stands,” Conover said. “I was the 135-pound quarterback, and Lou Caldrello was the 125-pound halfback. He was very good. John Contoulis (later played for the football Giants), Joe Sachatello. Very good team.”

The Whalers of 2024 also have an opportunity to plant a flag in the city’s historical garden this Thanksgiving. A win over NFA very likely gets the Whalers into the Class M state playoffs. Perhaps a fitting way to keep history current in the spunkiest city of them all.

This is the opinion of Day sports columnist Mike DiMauro