The former Ludlow High School and Westfield State coach died Tuesday from injuries sustained when was hit by a pickup truck while bicycling in Westfield.
John Kurty, shown in 2007 at Holyoke Community College Bartley Fitness Center where he took care of student idWhen they were kids in Ludlow, Nundy Batista and John Kurty lived one street apart. They were neighbors, friends – and paperboys.
“After school, while we’d be waiting for the bundles of papers to be dropped off for our paper routes, we’d play catch, and John would be serious about it. He was a couple of years older, and he showed me how to throw a curveball. He wasn’t kidding around, either. He made me work at it,” Batista said.
So it was with Kurty then, and so it would be with him throughout his life. As a teacher and coach at Ludlow High School and then at Westfield State, he helped countless young athletes learn how improve their play while stressing that they be good teammates and good citizens.
Kurty’s life came to a tragic end Tuesday. He was hit by a pickup truck while taking an afternoon bicycle ride on Western Avenue in Westfield, and died that night in Bay State Medical Center in Springfield. He was 86.
“I was devastated by the news. John was like a brother to me, and I had great admiration for him,” Batista said. “He did so much for everybody. He was always trying to help kids.”
Kurty also knew how to win. As a Ludlow High School senior in 1943-1944, he played on an undefeated soccer team, made All-Valley Wheel as a basketball guard and All-Western Massachusetts as a baseball catcher.
He served for two years in the Navy in World War II, then attended Mohawk Junior College in Utica, N.Y., for two years before entering the physical education program at Penn State, where he played soccer and baseball. He served as a starting fullback on Penn State’s national championship soccer teams of 1949 and 1950.
As a coach of boys soccer back in his hometown, he had teams that went 150-20-19. Over a 10-year span, they won five Western Mass. titles and shared four others.
In 1963, with the help of Ludlow principal George Russell, Kurty convinced the Massachusetts Headmasters Association to start a state soccer tournament. His teams responded by winning it in 1963-64-65.
From 1962-65, Kurty’s teams went 72-5-6 – the best four-year run in the school’s considerable soccer history.
His players included Tony Goncalves, who went on to have a coaching career at Ludlow High much like Kurty’s.
“Many of us went into coaching because of the influence John had on us,” Goncalves told The Republican in a 2008 interview.
As Ludlow’s basketball coach for 11 seasons, Kurty had teams that won the Valley Wheel three times, and the Western Mass. Small Schools Tournament in 1961 and 1965.
In March of 1961, Kurty’s Lions pulled one of the major upsets in the history of the tourney, which was played in Curry Hicks Cage at UMass.
Facing a 15-1 Longmeadow team in the final, Ludlow’s Valley Wheel champs toughed out a 41-38 victory with a lineup featuring Bob Dvorchak, Dave Szabla, Pat Pasquini, Dick Kolodziey and Bill Koscher.
In 1965, All-Western Mass. guard Jim Rooney led Ludlow to another Small Schools title.
Bill Kolodziey, himself a longtime coach at Ludlow High, played basketball for Kurty from 1957-60, and well remembers his coaching style.
“John was a great disciplinarian, with out having to be a screamer,” Kolodziey said. “In his own quiet way, he got his points across and commanded respect. You knew that you’d better come to practice, work hard and be a team player.
John Kurty, left, former soccer coach at Westfield State College at a game in 1969. Photo from 1970 college yearbook.
Kurty left his hometown in 1966 to become Westfield State’s soccer coach, a position he held for 11 years. His teams went 153-38-12. The peak came in 1974, when Westfield reached the Final Four of NCAA Division III.
In 1988, he retired from a career as a physical education teacher which had begun in 1951 at Amherst Junior High School.
When the Ludlow High School Athletic Hall of Fame was established in 2005, Kurty was elected as both athlete and coach. He also was elected to the Westfield State University Hall of Fame, and the Massachusetts Coaches Hall of Fame.
Some of Kurty’s close friends will tell you that while he had a special love for soccer, baseball actually was his best sport as a player. He stayed in touch with the game by becoming an umpire, working local high school and college games.
“I got to know John through his umpiring,” said recently retired Chicopee Comprehensive coach Dan Dulchinos. “He was a class guy, a special guy, a real gentleman. As an umpire, he knew the kids came first. As a coach, his players loved him.”