Local high school hockey teams skate in a league named after Bob Berry, a city and Springfield College athletic hall of famer.
Westfield and West Springfield squared off in a Berry Division clash earlier this year, with Westfield's Neil Parrow, left, looking for a rebound against the Terriers' Nicolas Brosseau.For 30 years, Bob Berry of Springfield was involved in football, basketball and baseball – first as an athlete, then as a high school coach.
Yet, for all of that, he is best remembered as the man for whom the Berry Division of Western Massachusetts high school hockey is named.
Berry served as director of health, physical education and safety in the Springfield schools from 1949 to 1969. It was while he was running the city’s public-school athletic program in the mid-1950s that he was asked to take on an added duty – president of the WMass Hockey League. During his tenure, the league expanded, and when high school hockey coaches deemed it time to form two divisions, they named one for Berry and another in honor of two hockey devotees – Henry Fay, Chicopee High School principal, and Stanley Wright, West Springfield’s superintendent of schools.
When Berry graduated from Springfield Tech in 1921, he could look back on a stellar career in which he earned 10 varsity letters and made All-City in each of his sports. He moved on to Springfield College, where he captained the baseball team as a senior and made All-New England in three sports.
After his graduation, he went to work as a physical education teacher and coach of three sports at Trade. He spent nine years there, then became a coach at Classical. Altogether, Berry had a 43-year career in the Springfield school system.
In 1938, he went back to Springfield College and obtained a master’s degree in physical education.
He was enshrined in the Springfield College Athletic Hall of Fame in 1974. When the Springfield Public Schools Hall of Fame was formed in 2007, he was elected as part of its first class.
Among his other honors were the Edward Norris Tarbell Medallion, awarded in 1963 for notable service to Springfield College; and the Ed Hickox Award, presented in 1989 by the Hall of Fame Tip-Off Classic for his years of dedication to youth and athletics in the city.
In 1990, the Putnam Vocational gym was named in his honor.
Bob Berry died Feb. 4, 2000, at 96.
Garry Brown can be reached at geeman1918@yahoo.com