Groton Inducts Members into Athletic Hall of Fame

Groton, Massachusetts and Cooperstown, New York may be more than 200 miles apart, but they just got a little bit closer.

Peter Gammons ’63, a baseball writer honored in Cooperstown’s National Baseball Hall of Fame, was inducted into Groton’s Athletic Hall of Fame during Reunion Weekend, along with several other standout athletes from the Groton community. Besides Gammons, the honorees included sailing Olympian Isabelle Kinsolving Farrar ’98, platform tennis champion Gordon Gray ’51, lacrosse star Gillian Thomson ’88, ice hockey player Stephen Maturo ’93, and the members of the undefeated 1983 girls ice hockey team.

Formmates and visitors enthusiastically feted the new inductees and, earlier in the day, cheered Gammons as he threw out the first pitch in Saturday's varsity baseball game (a lucky start to a 5-1 win). Gammons made his name in sports through media, first writing for Groton’s Third Form Weekly, and eventually writing for or appearing on-air for the Boston Globe, Sports Illustrated, ESPN, and the Major League Baseball Network. He was voted National Sportswriter of the Year three times by the National Association of Writers and Broadcasters and voted into its Hall of Fame in 2010. He received the C.C. Johnson Spink Award and honored in the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2005. Of his gloried career, Gammons proudly points to a 1994 article about Jake Congleton’s final game as Groton School’s head football coach as one of his most important stories.

The other inductees have gloried athletic careers as well, though not behind the scenes. Gordon Gray ’51 played varsity baseball for four years at Princeton, but also was a national men's platform tennis champion from 1969 to 1971, and a mixed doubles champion from 1966 to 1968. He was inducted into the National Platform Tennis Hall of Fame in 1996. At Groton, Gray played offensive and defensive left end on the undefeated, record-breaking 1950 football team. Then Coach Larry Noble called Gray the best end in his 20 years of coaching. Gray also captained the basketball team, played left field on the baseball team, and captained the tennis team. He was awarded the Reginald Fincke, Jr. Medal, awarded to a Sixth Former for perseverance, courage, and unselfish sportsmanship.

The 1983 girls ice hockey team landed in Groton’s Hall of Fame not only for its 14-0 record, but because its impressive accomplishment helped legitimize girls hockey at Groton and in the Independent School League. Captains Ann diBuono and Kassy Flood and their fellow Sixth Formers Sarah Barnes, Holly Hegener, and Anne Mosle led the young team, many of whom played for two more years, compiling a cumulative three-year 40-5-1 record.

Inductee Gillian Thomson ’88 was a three-sport athlete at Groton, and, at Princeton, received seven varsity letters in field hockey and lacrosse. In lacrosse, she was named Ivy League Rookie of the Year, followed by three years on the All-Ivy First Team. In her senior year, she captained the lacrosse team, earned First Team All-American honors, and received the Emily Goodfellow Women’s Lacrosse Award for contributions to team unity, morale, and spirit. Her speed and determined play helped Princeton reach the NCAA Division I semifinals during her freshman and senior years. In 1997, Thomson captained the Canadian National Women’s Lacrosse team at the World Cup in Japan. At Groton, Thomson earned All-League honors in field hockey, basketball, and lacrosse. She captained the basketball and lacrosse teams, and was awarded the Cornelia Amory Frothingham Athletic Prize. She currently coaches high school girls’ lacrosse in Ohio.

New Hall of Famer Stephen Maturo ’93, a pediatric otolaryngologist, lettered for four years on the United States Air Force Academy’s ice hockey team. As co-captain his senior year, he was a finalist for the Humanitarian Award, given to “college hockey’s finest citizen,” and earned distinguished graduate honors. At Groton, Maturo collected 13 varsity letters—in soccer, football, ice hockey, and baseball—and was captain of the football, hockey, and baseball teams. He was named All New England in hockey and, like Gordon Gray, received Groton School’s Reginald Fincke, Jr. Medal.

This year's youngest inductee, Isabelle Kinsolving Farrar ’98, was a member of the U.S. sailing team from 2001 through 2012 in the Women’s 470. She placed fifth at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens and won the 2008 Women’s 470 World Championships in Melbourne—part of the only American 470 team to win a World Championship since 1991. She and her teammate won the International Sailing Federation (ISAF) World Cup in 2011 and placed first in ISAF world rankings. Farrar earned eight varsity letters at Groton, in soccer, ice hockey, and crew. During Sixth Form, she co-captained ice hockey and rowed for Groton’s first boat, which won the NEIRA Championships. She played ice hockey and sailed at Yale, and was captain of the Yale varsity sailing team in 2000.

Groton School inaugurated its Athletic Hall of Fame last year; its mission is to honor “past student athletes, faculty, staff, and friends who have brought distinction through athletics to Groton School and themselves.”

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