By Kim J. Harmon

It still exists more in our hearts and minds than in any physical sense, but the Newtown Sports Hall of Fame has brought two new members into the fold – former Newtown High School golf coach Jim Casagrande and former Newtown High School quarterback Mike Newman.

Coach Casagrande was the true face of golf at Newtown High for 23 years and in that time amassed more than 200 wins and seven league championships … not to mention a host of awards. Newman was the first great passing quarterback at Newtown High and even though he set school records in career passing yardage and career touchdowns 30 years ago, those records are still standing today.

Let’s take a look –

Jim Casagrande

For 23 years, the face of Newtown High School golf – heck, of Connecticut golf – bore an amazing likeness to Jim Casagrande. The list of accolades he has earned is long and impressive.

Wins: 261

Division titles: 10

League titles: 7

Connecticut High School Coaches Association Coach of the Year in 1994

Region I Coach of the Year finalist in 1997

Region I Coach of the Year in 2000

Nominee for National High School Athletic Coaches Association Coach of the Year in golf for 2003-04

CHSCA Hall of Fame inductee in 2004

Now, on top of all of that, he has been named to the Newtown Sports Hall of Fame and joins better than 50 other coaches, players, organizers and supporters who have had an impressive impact in the sports community.

Coach Casagrande took over the Newtown High School golf team from coach Bert Boyce in 1980. Through the late 1960s and 1970s, the team – coached by Lou DePaul, Chuck Mann, Rich Pesce and Boyce and featuring players like John and Jeff Kocet, Jim Traub  Kevin Cragin and Dan Baker (former tournament director of the Canon Greater Hartford Open and the Buick Championship) – was always pretty good.

But soon it became great.

In 1981, with Joe LaCava (now a caddy on the PGA Tour), Bob Gibbons and Frank Bolander leading the way, Casagrande earned his first Western Connecticut Conference championship as the Indians amassed 12 wins.

After a brief respite in 1982 (the team was 9-1 before losing three of its last four matches), Casagrande earned his second WCC title in 1983 when the Indians finished with an unblemished 14-0 record and captured the title by overcoming Weston, Masuk and Central Catholic in the conference tournament.

The following season coach Casagrande had his third title when Matt Kaye fired a 78 at the WCC tournament to lead the Indians past New Milford. Over the course of the next two years, the Indians went 22-9-1 but finished third and second, respectively.

In fact, coach Casagrande would go eight years between conference championships … three of the last four of those years being particularly dismal. But when the Indians returned to the top of the heap, they returned with a vengeance.

They went 14-4 in 1990, 15-0 in 1991, 16-2 in 1992, 12-5 in 1993 and 12-2 in 1994. Conference championships were earned in 1991, ’92 and ’94. Bobby Snyder, David Brookes, David Hufner, Brian Gorman, Tony Costa and Jared Tendler had an awful lot to do with that amazing five-year run when the Indians amassed 69 wins.

He once said, “I don’t think the Newtown program won anything until I got to be coach … but it’s not because I had stronger players. The competition was so much stronger backs in the ‘60s. The golf was fantastic back then.”

But coach Casagrande – a former member of Racebrook and five-time club champion at Heritage Village Country Club – was not just concentrating on Newtown golf. In his years with the program, he also served as a member (and chairman) of the CHSCA’s golf committee and had been a consultant to the CIAC on golf for some 10 years while serving on the Prep AA National Committee.

Coach Casagrande has also been a CIAC state tournament site director for both boys’ and girls’ tournaments while also serving as the golf committee chairman for the Western Connecticut Conference. Even better, he served as chairman of the CHSCA scholarship committee and chaired the golf committee for two national conventions.

He joined six other coaches and one athlete last year at the 28th annual CHSCA Hall of Fame inductions at the AquaTurf in Southington. But since he retired, he did not go into hiding and could often be seen at Newtown High – on the hill overlooking Wasserman Way (making sure no one sneaks in to the football games) or behind the scorer’s table at basketball games griping about when he is going to get his new calendars.

Mike Newman

Mike Newman owns the record for the most career passing yardage (3,405) and owns a share of the record for most career touchdown passes (40) and while Jason Stevens may have been the first passing quarterback at Newtown High School, it was Newman who set the standard.

Because of that standard, which has been so hard for others to meet for the last 30 years, Newman has been named to the Newtown Sports Hall of Fame.

Newtown High School first joined the Western Connecticut Conference in 1965 and about six years later Stevens had what was – to that point – the most prolific season at quarterback with 1,600 passing yards and 24 touchdowns.

But that was in Stevens’ senior year and when he stepped aside, it was Newman’s turn to take over.

Only a sophomore, Newman was taking over a fairly young team … but a young team that had All-State end Courtenay Hough still running all over the field. Sure, the Indians (as they were known then) lost their first four games and only finished 4-4, but Newman tossed 14 touchdown passes (seven of those to Hough) along the way.

Newman was showing signs early in the season, but in a 26-16 loss to Central Catholic he started to break out with scoring strikes of 21 yards and nine yards to Bill Cavanaugh and Hough. In a 14-7 win over Weston – the Indians’ first of the year – Newman hit Hough with a 14-yard scoring pass.

And then Newman exploded.

In a 34-0 win over Immaculate, the sophomore quarterback was 14-of-24 for 300 yards with touchdown passes of 79, 74 and 23 yards. And in a 14-6 win over Masuk, he was 13-of-23 for 189 yards with a 64-yard bomb to Hough.

But his finest game was still to come.

In a 54-6 season-ended win over New Milford, Newman was only 9-of-21 for 131 yards, but he threw four touchdown passes – to Cavanaugh, Doug Newberry, Brad Saxton and Hunter Stevens – and ran in a touchdown to finish with five scores on the day.

That was the springboard.

In 1972, Newman led the Indians to a 7-1 record and a co-championship with Joel Barlow (the only team to pin a defeat on the Indians). Newman tossed 13 touchdowns (his favorite target was Mike Trosan, who grabbed eight of those TD aerials) and ran for two others.

For Newman, his best efforts were the bookend games.

In a 38-6 win over Bethel to start the season, Newman was 14-of-22 for 175 yards and two touchdowns. And in a 42-14 win over New Milford to end the season, Newman had his finest day yet, going 15-of-20 for 218 yards and three touchdowns.

Newtown scored 213 points on the year, averaging 26.6 points per game.

And as good as he was in his junior year, Newman just got better.

In 1973, Newman led the Indians to an undefeated 8-0 record and – with an 8-6 win over previously undefeated and previously unscored upon Joel Barlow – a WCC championship. Newman passed for 1,232 yards and 13 touchdowns while running in for three more touchdowns.

In wins over Brookfield (22-8) and Central Catholic (34-0) to open the season, Newman was 26-of-38 for 404 yards and six touchdowns. In a 42-14 win over Bethel, Newman was 17-of-22 for 245 yards and two touchdowns (one rushing) and in a 47-8 win over Immaculate to close out the undefeated season, Newman (whose favorite target all year was Kurt Geerer) was 10-of-21 for 192 yards with scoring passes of 66 and 29 yards.

In the 8-6 win over Joel Barlow, Tom Saint – who rushed for 1,187 yards and 14 touchdowns on the year – scored the only touchdown of the game and Newman added the eventual game-winning two-point conversion.

In his three years at the helm, Newman led the Indians to a 20-4 mark. His 3,405 passing yards has stood as the standard since then and that record has only been challenged twice – once by David Brookes, who finished with 2,840 yards in 1991, and again by Pete Ivey, who finished with 2,927 yards in 1997.

But Ivey did tie Newman’s school record of 40 touchdown passes. Only Brookes (36) stands within hailing distance of that record.

Back in 1975, coach Pete Kohut called Newman, “The best passer in the school’s history.” And while that comment may have been a just little bit facetious with a program only 10 years old, 30 years later that comment – amazingly – has held up.