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Warren hall of fame finds home on web
By Denise Kinney Warren Times Gazette
WARREN – If Jay Ferreira ever sets up another website it will never be as important to him as the one he created for the Warren Athletic Hall of Fame. Last week, Mr. Ferreira, a member of the hall of fame committee, unveiled the comprehensive site packed with features from bios and photos of all 86 individual inductees, and 3 sports teams, to information on current events, obituaries and tributes, and interesting tidbits about the hall of fame itself and the talented local athletes it honors.
He had plenty of material to work with.
“When I started on the committee I saw all this information that we had,” said the lifelong Warren resident, the associate director of the Information Technology Department at Roger Williams University.
The idea to collect the information then disseminate it to the public festered and grew. In June, he brought the topic before the board and was pleased when hall of fame chairman Jack Flynn said he had been asked several times if a web site was in the works.
That’s all Mr. Ferreira needed to hear.
“I did some research into how much it would cost and started accumulating information,” he said.
Because his specialty at RWU is software and administrative systems, he was not up to speed on creating a web.
“But I have a lot of contacts,” he said.
Biographical information came chiefly from Mr. Flynn who served “as sort of the editor,” said Mr. Ferreira.
But Mr. Flynn said credit for the site goes to Mr. Ferreira who “has really gotten onto it. This is going to be such a fantastic addition for us,” he said.
For his part, Mr. Ferreira said it has been — and, because it’s a work in progress, still is — a labor of love.
Because he will add new information continually, it will never really be finished, he said.
A Warren High School graduate, Mr. Ferreira never participated in sports.
“But I hung around all the athletes,” he said, smiling. “And everyone on the hall of fame committee has some sports connection, either through family or friends or they played sports,” he said.
The site, which has a web address of www.warrenhof.com, is divided into a number of sections, including the biographies segment which contains a brief overview of the lives and sports careers of the inductees to date.
Another section provides details about the Pete Sepe Scholarship Fund and other current news. Mr. Ferreira, formerly an alternate who became a full-fledged hall of fame committee member when he replaced Mr. Sepe who died earlier this year, said details of the annual hall of fame banquet in April will be posted along with the names and bios of new inductees who will be voted on the first of the year.
Who will be inducted is anyone’s guess.
Because it pays tribute to such diverse athletic accomplishments, the Warren Athletic Hall of Fame is different from those in some other towns, said Mr. Ferreira. While football, basketball and baseball players are well represented, also honored are a drag racer, golfer, arm wrestler, sailor and a marathon runner, among others.
Not everyone in the athletic hall of fame is fleet of foot or nimble of limb. Coaches and contributors have earned spots as well.
The hall of fame also boasts a first class museum/exhibit (second floor at Town Hall) that features original newspaper clippings and memorabilia like uniforms, helmets, trophies, autographed baseballs and much, much more.
“I want to let people know that this exists,” said Mr. Ferreira, pointing to a framed photographs of the late Charlie Burdge. “It’s for Warren and we want to honor our athletes.”
Indeed, Mr. Ferreira hopes the web site entices more people to visit the display and, perhaps donate other items. He also welcomes additional photographs for the website, or replacements for poorer quality pictures there now,
In the meantime, he’s working on a form that will allow folks to make donations to the scholarship fund on-line. Another plan is to create a link to the hall of fame site on the official Town of Warren website.
Hall of fame and website facts
* The Warren Athletic Hall of Fame was founded in 1998.
* The committee is composed of 15 members.
* To date, there are 86 individual inductees, and three sports teams — the 1939 and 1942 Warren High School baseball teams and the 1972 Warren High School (Class C) Championship Football Team.
* The Hall of fame banquet is typically held in April. The next banquet is scheduled for April 23, 2005.
* New hall of fame members are inducted annually.
* About 10 to 15 athletes are inducted into the hall of fame each year.
* Nominations submitted in any category must include verification of accomplishments. To be inducted, a candidate must receive votes from 70 percent of the hall of fame committee membership.
* Hall of fame website address is www.warrenhof.com
* The website also includes a listing of Warren athletes designated All- State from Warren High School (from 1923-1993), and Mt. Hope High School (from 1993-to present). There are 34 male and female athletes so honored.
Sports trivia teaser
In order to engage the public and promote interaction, Warren Hall of Fame website creator Jay Ferreira has included a triivia question/answer section.
Here it is:
All the answers to these trivia questions can be found on this website.
If you would like the answers to these questions or want to take a shot at answering them. You can email me and I will forward you the answers. My address is jayf@warrenathletichalloffame.com
How many can you answer correctly?
* Name the only Warren Hall of Fame member to play in the NFL.
* Name the only Warren Hall of Fame member to play major league baseball.
* Name the only Warren athlete to make All-State in back-to-back years playing for different high schools.
* Which Warren cross-country star never lost a race?
* Which Warren hall of fame member was know as the “Queen of Baseball”?
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01:00 AM EST on Friday, December 31, 2004
WARREN — Everything and anything you ever wanted to know about Warren athletics can now be found on a new Web site: www.warrenhof.com.
According to Warren Athletic Hall of Fame Committee member Jay Ferreira, the Web site was designed to give people a chance to see and digest the many accomplishments of some of the greatest athletes to come out of Warren.
“This is Jay’s idea, his work, his everything,” said John W. “Jack” Flynn, chairman of the hall of fame committee. “I don’t think there’s another town that has a list like this. It’s a lot of work.”
Other area halls of fame seem interested in following Warren’s lead.
“They [Warren] have only been around for six years and look at that, they already have a Web site,” said Richard C. Sousa, vice chairman of the Bristol committee, whose hall is 26 years old. “Their site is very impressive. I think it’s about time we had our own Web site.”
It takes a while to fully appreciate everything the Warren Athletic Hall of Fame Web page has to offer. Flynn, author of the popular book, A Diary of 101 Years of Warren Athletics, of course, has been able to feed Ferreira a great deal of invaluable information.
“Jack gave me all of the content,” Ferreira said. “I looked at other hall of fame Web sites from across the country to get some kind of idea on how to put this thing together, but I created my own Web page. This is my own doing.”
With approximately 200 hours of work already put into the project, Ferreira says, “It’s always ongoing. I call it civic duty. In a sense, it’s a complement to Jack’s book and the amount of work the Hall of Fame Committee puts into this.”
The new Warren Athletic Web site includes a handsome page depicting the legendary Pat Abbruzzi, 1909 Silk Hats baseball stars “Beany” Ryan and “Biddy” Smith, a color photo of Warren Town Hall, and of course, the familiar “Warren Redskin” mascot.
Ferreira’s labor of love also includes a comprehensive listing of every Warren Athletic Hall of Fame inductee to date, complete with photos. Also listed are current members of the Athletic Hall of Fame Committee, the obituaries of Hall of Fame founder Peter Sepe and former Warren baseball great James E. Barry, as well as current news events.
There’s also a section on the new Pete Sepe Scholarship, which Flynn and Ferreira profess will be one of the Web site’s most important additions.
Sepe, who lived in Warren for more than 50 years, served the town as recreation board chairman from 1979 to 2002. He was a founder of the Warren Athletic Hall of Fame, where he had been serving as treasurer since its inception in 1998. He passed away last July at the age of 80.
A $250 scholarship will be awarded to a male and female Mt. Hope High School student from Warren. The recipients will be acknowledged at the Warren Athletic Hall of Fame banquet April 23.
The Web site also encourages people to visit the Warren Athletic Hall of Fame Museum on the second floor of Warren Town Hall.
The museum includes plaques, pictures, banners and artifacts such as Hall of Famer Henry Correia’s umpire’s mask, “Coco” DeBlois’ glove, which he used on Warren High School’s 1939 state championship baseball team, Jack Simister’s Warren uniform from the 1920s Providence Amateur baseball league, and Pat Abbruzzi’s 1953 URI game ball from the Rams’ 19-13 victory over UConn.
A 1975 graduate of Warren High School, Ferreira, associate director of information technology at Roger Williams University, didn’t actually compete in any sport during his high school years, but starred later in the local softball league.
“I’ve been a former Warren Softball League commissioner and director of East Bay USSSA Softball,” he said. “I’ve been a sports nut my whole life.”
RIIL Press Release Bristol County
01/2005 By Manny Correira Special to the Journal
Three of the most recognizable names in the history of the Rhode Island Interscholastic League will be enshrined during the organization’s annual Hall of Fame induction ceremonies May 4 at the Quidnesset Country Club in North Kingstown.
On the induction list are Pat “Doc” Abbruzzi, the former Warren High School All-state running back and coaching legend; Ann Chandler Morris, former physical education teacher, Warren High School coach, league official and administrator, and Karen McAvoy, former Barrington High School multisports star and field hockey and softball coach. Joining them will be other key figures in the state’s school sports history, including Bobby Brooks, Lenore Cranston, Joe Hassett, Frank Morey, Al Morro and Haig Varadian.
Pat Abbruzzi, set a standard for football excellence, both as a player and coach, which is unrivaled. He was named one of the greatest Rhode Island sports figures of the 20th century by Sports Illustrated.
A bruising running back at Warren High School, Abbruzzi was named to the All Class C football team in 1948. He followed in the footsteps, literally, of his older brother, Duke, who gained several All-State honors as an athlete at Warren High a decade earlier.
Pat was a catcher on the 1949 Warren/Bristol American Legion baseball team that won the Eastern United States regional championship, and later that year, as a senior at Warren High, was named to the All-State football team.
After a starring career at URI where he set many rushing and scoring records while being named All-Yankee Conference and Little All-America, Abbruzzi took part in the annual North-South All-Star game and scored on a 52-yard run.
In his first two years at URI, Abbruzzi recorded the longest runs from scrimmage in the nation, 99 yards in 1951, and 98 yards in 1952. As a sophomore, he ran for three touchdowns and 306 yards in a 27-7 defeat of New Hampshire, and during his junior year, he scored on a last-minute TD pass in a victory over Connecticut.
Abbruzzi held 10 all-time URI and New England rushing records for 40 years, including that 306-yard rushing effort against UNH. He was named Little All-America in 1953 and 1954, and was the only player in Yankee Conference history to be selected to the All-Conference team four years in a row.
He was named Rhode Island “Athlete of the Year” in 1954 and was also honored as the Rhode Island Italo-American “Athlete of the Year” in 1953 and 1954.
Abbruzzi was drafted by both the Baltimore Colts of the NFL and the Montreal Alouettes of the Canadian Football League, but opted for the Alouettes, who reportedly were willing to give him a $500 bonus to help pay for his honeymoon.
From 1955 to 1959, Abbruzzi dominated the CFL with his power running. He broke the league’s rushing record in 1955 and 1956 and was named the “Outstanding Player of the Year” in Canada in 1955. He was also inducted into the Canadian Football League Hall of Fame.
Once his playing days were over, Abbruzzi turned to coaching, and in 1961, replaced the great Charlie Burdge as coach at Warren High School.
He led the Redskins to divisional championships in 1964, 1966, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1983 and 1986. He also won the Class B Super Bowl title in 1975. It was during that stretch in the 1970s that his team set an interscholastic league record of 31 victories in a row.
Following two “premature” retirements, Abbruzzi returned as an assistant coach for the Pop Warner Football Junior Midgets, who captured the Northeast League championship in 1993. Abbruzzi also came back to coach high school at Mt. Hope as an assistant under Tom Vendituoli and was part of the Huskies’ 1995 Class B co-championship team. He also had a chance to coach his grandson, All-State back Jason Proulx.
Abbruzzi was named to the URI Athletic Hall of Fame in 1972; honored as the Rhode Island “Schoolboy Coach of the Year” in 1975; and was elected to the Rhode Island Football Coaches Hall of Fame in 1976. He was later elected to the Sons of Italy Athletic Hall of Fame.
He died in June 1998 and in 1999, he was inducted posthumously as a charter member of the Warren Athletic Hall of Fame.
“Pat was one in a million,” said his brother, John Abbruzzi. “To me, he was the best. My brother Duke may have been a better all-around athlete, but Pat gave me my greatest thrills in football. Plus, he was a great coach. I think if he were still alive, he’d be very happy and honored to be a member of the Interscholastic League Hall of Fame.”
Pat’s son, Michael, echoed the same sentiments.
“This would have been very important to my father,” he said. “His one goal was to come back home and make a difference.”
Interscholastic Hall of Fame to induct 3 from
Bristol County
01/2005
BY MANNY CORREIRA
Special to The Journal
Ann Chandler Morris, ever energetic, is still active in gymnastics, and has been a member of numerous athletic organizations in the state of Rhode Island. She’s been a track and field competitor in the U.S. Senior Olympics since 1981.
She was meet director of R.I. Senior Olympics from 1990-1994, still competes in the Senior Olympics in the 100-meter, 200-meter, 400-meter runs and the long jump.
One of the charter members of the Warren Athletic Hall of Fame, Morris said she’s overwhelmed at being one of the newest members of Interscholastic League Hall of Fame.
“I was thrilled to learn I had been elected,” she said. “I’ve spent half my life working with the interscholastic league.”
As a coach, Morris had a remarkable record during the seven years she spent at the then Mary V. Quirk Junior High School and Warren High School. During that period, she coached 15 girls state championship teams in cross country, gymnastics and track.
At Quirk, Morris’ cross country teams won three state championships, while finishing second twice. In gymnastics, her squads won the state title every year from 1972 to 1976, and then won again almost a decade later. Morris’ girls’ track teams added three state championships, while finishing runnerup three times.
Warren High School was the capital of girls’ gymnastics and track in the state during Morris’ tenure as head coach. Her gymnastics team won the state title in 1975, while her track squads won three consecutive state championships from 1973 to 1975. Morris’ teams also produced a number of fellow Warren Athletic Hall of Famers, including Pat O’Blenis Lachance, Karyn McCahey Monti, Beth Penkala and Laurie Figureid Ross.
She also coached gymnastics teams at YMCAs in Barrington and Fall River, and was an assistant gymnastics coach at URI for three years.
She’s been a gymnastics judge at virtually every level: state and regional, junior high to college, as well as gymnastic clubs, since 1970. She’s still going strong.
Morris also served as a member of the Rhode Island Interscholastic League’s girls’ athletics subcommittee for 28 years. She was the league’s director of cross country, gymnastics, and track for a combined total of 22 years.
She also served on the executive board of the Rhode Island Association for Girls and Women’s Sports for 30 years, and as an official with the Rhode Island Senior Olympics in the 1980s and 1990s. She was the executive director of the Rhode Island Association of Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance, and served as a game/meet official in basketball, field hockey, gymnastics and track.
She received an award from Rhode Island athletic directors for outstanding contribution to girls’ athletics in 1975, the Rhode Island Association of Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance meritorious service award in 1976, the URI High School Girls’ Coach of the Year award for 1978,and the Brown University honorary referee award for track in 1991. She was inducted into the Bridgewater State College Athletic Hall of Fame in 1988.
In addition, Morris was inducted into the Rhode Island Cross Country and Track Coaches Hall of Fame in 1993, and the New Agenda Northeast Women’s Hall of Fame in 1994. She also received the A. Lenore Cranston award for service to girls’ sports in 1996. In 2003, she was named Rhode Island’s Female Athlete of the Year.
Morris received a bachelor of science degree in education with from Bridgewater State and did graduate work at Rhode Island College, URI and Brown.
“I’m in good health and I still officiate now,” said Morris, “I assign for judging in gymnastics, and I love what I do.”
One of Morris’ favorite athletes was Elizabeth Penkala, who remembers her former coach as a woman of great energy and enthusiasm.
“She always pushed us to do better,” said Penkala. “She made a great impact on all of us.”
“She was like a mother to a lot of us,” she said. “At times, Ann would pack us into her station wagon. She would pick us up and drop us off at home. She helped us with things that went way beyond coaching. I know she inspired me to be the league fast-pitch softball director from 1980 to 1985.”
Morris said she still has fond memories of her days in Warren.
“Pat (Abbruzzi) and I were inducted together in the first class of the Warren Athletic Hall of Fame,” she noted. “What a thrill that was. We worked together for 28 years at Warren High School.”
“She was the godmother of girls sports in Warren, and possibly Rhode Island,” sais John W. “Jack” Flynn, chairman of the Warren Athletic Hall of Fame Committee.
“There wasn’t another school in the state that had a 1-2 punch like Pat and Ann. Between the two of them, they won 10 state titles during the early 1970s. Quite an achievement.”
Morris is married and the mother of five children, ages 38 to 45.