By Kim J. Harmon

 

It is hard to imagine that the sport of lacrosse has existed in Newtown for less than two decades and there are a lot of people to thank for bringing the game from its humble beginnings in the mid-1980s to its present-day position with better than 350 athletes in several divisions, girls and boys, playing in-house and travel schedules.

Bob Stampp gets credit for bringing the game to Newtown in the first place and many people have carried the torch since then to help the program evolve and grow not only at Newtown High School but also in the youth ranks as well – people like Mark Feltch.

He has helped introduce the ancient game to hundreds of local kids and his influence has certainly been felt … especially this past spring, with the Newtown High School girls’ lacrosse team, where he assisted head coach Maura Fletcher and helped lead the Lady Nighthawks to the South-West Conference championship while helping goaltender Kerrie Canavan earn the SWC championship game Most Valuable Player award.

For these efforts, Mark Feltch has been named the 2005 Newtown Bee Sportsman of the Year. A dinner in his honor was held on Sunday at Ondine’s Restaurant in New Fairfield.

From Texas To Connecticut

Blame it on Natalie Hoeffel.

Mark Feltch and his wife, Ann, came to Newtown in 1994 after many years in Texas. Ann was an accountant (still is) and Mark was a professional actor (film, stage, commercials) and chose to step away from that career to take care of the kids (daughter Libby was only three while son Charlie had just entered the world).

Back in Texas, Mark – who grew up as a baseball player, but saw his future in athletics in another field – began playing lacrosse with the Texas A&M club team and remembers fondly the first game against the Houston Lacrosse Club.

“The first game I ever played (against the Houston Lacrosse Club) the guy guarding me was 60 years old … but the goalie was the No. 1 goalie in the country,” said Mark. “It was from another planet!”

That goalie was Les Matthews – now Dr Les Matthews, a former All-American at Johns Hopkins University who is now an associate team physician there as well as for the U.S. World Lacrosse Team. Mark, meanwhile, went on to become head of the Dallas High School Lacrosse Club in 1988. From 1989 through 1994, he coached Houston High School Lacrosse.

 When the Feltch family moved to Newtown, the game of lacrosse was still in it relative infancy and the youth program was small. Two years later, though, Mark was back at it.

“I only got involved, though, because Natalie Hoeffel offered to baby sit my kids,” he said. “Oddly enough, I played and coached against Natalie’s brother, Drew Hewitt, in Texas for 15 years.”

In the mid 1990s. the Newtown youth lacrosse program encompassed only 60 or so boys and girls. About 10 years later, that number has swelled to some 350 kids and Mark Feltch had a hand in that amazing development.

He has also had a hand in the development of the high school lacrosse program, assisting with the boys’ program for a couple of years and then with the South-West Conference championship girls’ team this past spring.

“He is totally on top of everything,” said head coach Maura Fletcher. “He has years of dedication to the youth program in town and was a huge help with us this year. He didn’t get a dime for doing it, either. He was there because he loves lacrosse.”

But as if he is stepping up to the podium at the Academy Awards, Mark is adamant about passing on credit for his efforts onto others – such as Bob Stampp and Eric Bottrill (“no one coaches or plays it not for Bob Stampp and Eric Bottrill picked it up at the youth level”); Ken and Heather Law and Tom and Cindy D’Agostino (they put in tons of hours and a lot of hard work to get the youth program built up”); coaches like Jim Bauer, Bob Marusi and Jack Read (“you can expand without good coaching. It lets you grow”); Mike McNamara (“he opens the snack shack at Hawley and every Sunday it seems like every boy third through eighth grade is playing lacrosse and it’s like a festival atmosphere”); Dr Paul Kelly (“he put together the in-house program … and it’s a blast. It gives kids who play other spring sports the chance to try lacrosse”); Jim Ryan and Chris Body (“I taught Kerrie Canavan things that Jim Ryan taught me. The vast majority of what I learned from coaching keepers I learned from him and I’ve been talking with Chris Body and the stuff they are doing at Western New England”); Maura Fletcher (“Mrs Fletcher has been my boss since 2002 and there hasn’t been a thing I taught in girls’ lacrosse that she didn’t teach me”); other coaches like Sara Strait, Brian Micena and Chuck Chido (“I do what these people tell me to do”); and a host of former players like Tom Ryan, Casey Kirch, Kyle Kirch, John Oliver, Chris Body, Matt Kelly, Brendan Kelly, Mike LaPerch, Brian Sharnick and Dan Mallen who help with coaching and training (“I don’t call them – they call me. ‘When does it start and when do you need me?’ There were days during our winter program in Brewster, at six in the morning, when I had more coaches than players”).

Lacrosse has become what it has become in Newtown largely through the efforts of people like Mark Feltch … who one day may be introducing the sport to a bunch of youngsters and another day helping bring a conference championship to Newtown High School.

But he most certainly could not have done it without the support he gets at home.

“My wife has two brothers who played lacrosse in college at a very good school,” said Mark. “She knows how the sport can open doors for kids, so she’s always been supportive of all the time I’ve put in over the years.”

And no doubt will be over the years to come.