By Dan­ny Barletta
MassLive
April 17, 2021

Ware quar­ter­back Dil­lon Slat­tery runs up the mid­dle in a big win against Northamp­ton. Pho­to by J. Antho­ny Roberts, MassLive

On a day the Ware foot­ball pro­gram hon­ored its 11 seniors before their final home game, the team bond­ed togeth­er to knock off one of the top teams in West­ern Massachusetts.

“Emo­tions were high for us,” head coach Mike Fazio said after the game. “Our kids have been play­ing foot­ball togeth­er for 12 years most of them … I was very excit­ed that they were able to end their senior day with a win, espe­cial­ly against a real­ly good pro­gram like Northamp­ton. That was a real­ly sol­id win for us.”

Northamp­ton entered the con­test as the No. 5 team in the region, but the Indi­ans rose to the chal­lenge on Sat­ur­day, com­ing up with a 22–12 vic­to­ry to move to 4–1 on the sea­son. Quar­ter­back Dil­lon Slat­tery, one of the senior cap­tains, had a big game on the field, but before that, start­ed to feel the emo­tions of his last home game.

“I felt sick as a dog, I had the but­ter­flies in my stom­ach walk­ing up the stairs in the begin­ning,” Slat­tery said. “I was talk­ing to my oth­er senior cap­tains, I was like ‘This is it for us. We got to leave it all out there’ and that’s what we did.”

Ware came out strong, forc­ing a Blue Dev­ils three-and-out before march­ing down 82 yards for its first score. Andrew Soltys got the Indi­ans on the board with a four-yard touch­down run, then caught a pass from Slat­tery in the end zone for the two-point con­ver­sion to make the score 8–0.

When Soltys caught the ball, he had noth­ing but green in front of him, tak­ing it to the house for a 76-yard touch­down. The extra point made it 15–0, and the Indi­ans were mak­ing a state­ment on their home field.

After that score, Ware went on a long, method­i­cal dri­ve led by Slat­tery and Soltys, but were stopped by Northamp­ton on fourth down inside the five yard line. The Blue Dev­ils’ ensu­ing dri­ve also stalled out at the Indi­ans 25. Ware need­ed just one more first down to seal the game and on a 3rd-and‑5, Slat­tery put the team on his back one last time.

“I walked over to the offen­sive coor­di­na­tor, and I said ‘Give me the ball. I’m gonna get us a first down and end this game,’” Slat­tery said.

That’s exact­ly what he did with a tough nine-yard run through mul­ti­ple defend­ers. Slat­tery end­ed up rush­ing for 33 yards and a touch­down, while com­plet­ing four of his five pass attempts for 145 yards and a touchdown.

“He just runs so hard,” Soltys said. “Me and him are com­plete oppo­site run­ners. I run fast, and I try to avoid peo­ple real­ly. He looks for con­tact, and he gets the tough yards.”

Both styles of run­ning were very effec­tive for Ware on Sat­ur­day, as Soltys rushed for 56 yards and a touch­down. In addi­tion, he was on the receiv­ing end of all 145 of Slattery’s pass­ing yards. Every time the Indi­ans need­ed a big play, they seemed to go to Soltys in some form.

“Andrew Soltys is a real­ly good ath­lete, a hard, hard-work­ing kid,” Fazio said. “He was able to get in some space ath­let­i­cal­ly … He runs hard. He did a good job.”

It was a spe­cial day for Ware foot­ball, and the team came up with its biggest win of the sea­son for the seniors.

“It’s awe­some play­ing on the field with some of my best friends,” Slat­tery said. “It’s a feel­ing that I’ll nev­er for­get being on this Ware team. We’re a bunch of hard­core grit­ty play­ers. It was just amazing.”

By Dan­ny Barletta
The Dai­ly Campus
April 6, 2021

UConn quar­ter­back David Pin­dell throws a pass in a game against UMass on Oct. 27, 2018. Pho­to by Char­lotte Lao, The Dai­ly Campus

For­mer UConn quar­ter­back David Pin­dell has been on quite a jour­ney since grad­u­at­ing in 2019, but now he is final­ly back on the field play­ing for the fans — literally. 

Pin­dell is the quar­ter­back for the Glac­i­er Boyz of Fan Con­trolled Foot­ball, a new sev­en-on-sev­en league based in Atlanta where fans call the plays through an app in real time. Yes, the fans watch­ing on Twitch get to vote on what play a team should run next. The quar­ter­backs’ coach then gath­ers the results of the vote on an iPad and relays the win­ning play his play­ers through the micro­phones in their hel­mets. It’s a bizarre twist on America’s most pop­u­lar sport. 

Even though it’s not quite what Pin­dell had in mind for his first pro­fes­sion­al snap in a live game, he’s mak­ing the most of the oppor­tu­ni­ty and hav­ing a good time. 

“I enjoy it,” Pin­dell said. “I just missed being able to have that cama­raderie with the guys and being around prac­tice com­pet­ing, trash talk­ing and stuff like that … It’s fun just being out there play­ing football.” 

Pin­dell has wait­ed far too long for that. When he left UConn, he had the expec­ta­tion that he would play pro­fes­sion­al foot­ball. He had just set school records for rush­ing yards (1,139) and touch­downs (10) by a quar­ter­back in a sin­gle sea­son, and he added almost 2,000 yards and 19 touch­downs through the air as well. He had also been in con­tact with mul­ti­ple NFL teams ahead of the draft. 

“The like­ly chance of me get­ting signed to a team was pret­ty high,” Pin­dell said he was told. “They said I could go from [a] late sev­enth-round draft pick to a pri­or­i­ty free agent signing.” 

But nei­ther of those things hap­pened. Pin­dell did get a cou­ple of brief oppor­tu­ni­ties, but noth­ing panned out. He was invit­ed to mini-camps with the Min­neso­ta Vikings and Tam­pa Bay Buc­ca­neers, who want­ed him to play oth­er posi­tions like run­ning back, wide receiv­er and punt return­er. Pin­dell tried his best, but hav­ing nev­er played those posi­tions before, he end­ed up get­ting cut. 

“I had no back­ground or no knowl­edge of the run­ning back posi­tion or receiv­er in terms of play­ing it,” Pin­dell said. “I didn’t even know how to take a hand­off. I didn’t even know how to catch punts and stuff like that … It was like, dang. It felt like all that draft train­ing went to waste, because all that train­ing as a quar­ter­back just for me not even to be able to show one small snap as a quar­ter­back. It was a lit­tle frustrating.” 

But Pin­dell nev­er stopped train­ing and was always dri­ven by the goal of play­ing at the next lev­el. For those who know him best like Chris Brooks, Pindell’s train­er and men­tor since high school, that came as no surprise. 

“David is a hard work­er,” Brooks said. “I like his path. It prob­a­bly could have been a lit­tle bet­ter, but you got to take advan­tage of the oppor­tu­ni­ties and sit­u­a­tions that come to you. At no point in time would David ever let his hard work be relinquished.” 

Pin­dell did get an oppor­tu­ni­ty as quar­ter­back when the Mon­tre­al Alou­ettes of the CFL signed him at the end of the 2019 sea­son. He was the team’s back­up for the final three games, but he nev­er actu­al­ly got to play and was released fol­low­ing the sea­son. He con­tin­ued to train and was sched­uled to work out for the Dal­las Rene­gades of the XFL and a few oth­er CFL teams when COVID-19 hit and put every­thing on hold. 

Dur­ing the pan­dem­ic, Pin­dell got a job at a ware­house com­pa­ny but con­tin­ued to work out as much as he could. He post­ed all his train­ing videos on social media, hop­ing some­body would notice. 

Well, it turns out some­body did notice. In ear­ly 2021, rap­per Qua­vo, best known as one of the mem­bers of Migos, mes­saged Pin­dell on Insta­gram ask­ing him to join his team in FCF. Pin­dell was hes­i­tant when he saw how dif­fer­ent the league was — only sev­en play­ers, a 50-yard field, no spe­cial teams, etc. At first, he made up excus­es to not play because he thought it was a fake league, but when Qua­vo was per­sis­tent, he decid­ed to give it a shot. 

“I was like you know what? I’ll just do it because I’m not los­ing out on any­thing else,” Pin­dell said. “It’s Qua­vo, a big-time name, and they pay. So even if it’s good or bad foot­ball, I’m get­ting paid to play foot­ball. I got down here, and it’s some­what decent football.” 

There are some big names attached to this league. Besides Qua­vo, oth­er own­ers of teams include for­mer WNBA star Renee Mont­gomery, for­mer NFL star Mar­shawn Lynch and cur­rent NFL cor­ner­back Richard Sher­man, who is actu­al­ly a co-own­er of Pindell’s Glac­i­er Boyz. Notable play­ers include for­mer Heis­man Tro­phy win­ner John­ny Manziel, for­mer Flori­da State quar­ter­back Deon­dre Fran­cois and for­mer All-Pro receiv­er Josh Gor­don. The pay is pret­ty good as well. Pin­dell makes $1,450 a week as a start­ing quar­ter­back plus bonus­es for things like win­ning the game or being the game’s MVP. 

Pin­dell has per­formed well in the league’s first sea­son. He actu­al­ly scored the first touch­down in FCF his­to­ry, a nifty 10-yard run through defend­ers that brought him back to his days at UConn. Over­all, in the four-game reg­u­lar sea­son, he rushed for 135 yards and three touch­downs and threw for 176 yards and four touch­downs. He helped lead the Glac­i­er Boyz to an appear­ance in the league’s first cham­pi­onship game, deemed “The People’s Cham­pi­onship,” where they lost to the Wild Aces. 

Pin­dell is hope­ful that his play will open up anoth­er oppor­tu­ni­ty at a high­er lev­el, but he knows that may not hap­pen because the league is so different. 

“I’m a real­ist, I’m real with myself,” Pin­dell said. “The stuff we do here in terms of quar­ter­back play, I wouldn’t say it’s as real as 11-on-11 … So I would say it’s kind of hard to get film from this, but at the end of the day, you still got to make plays and stuff, so that’s what I try to do.” 

Pin­dell has been liv­ing in the FCF bub­ble at a hotel in Atlanta. He said the play­ers spend all their time in the hotel except when they go to the prac­tice facil­i­ty or to Infi­nite Ener­gy Are­na, where the games are held. At the hotel, he said the play­ers can hang out in the ball­room and play games, or they can go to the weight room and work out. But, a lot of time he just relax­es in his room. He said he doesn’t mind it at all. He’s just tak­ing this oppor­tu­ni­ty for what it is. 

The biggest dif­fer­ence in Pindell’s atti­tude now com­pared to when he left UConn is that he’s no longer depend­ing on foot­ball for sta­bil­i­ty in life. The rea­son for that is because he has found new pas­sions: teach­ing and coach­ing. Between a cou­ple of his foot­ball gigs back in 2019, Pin­dell had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to help coach foot­ball at his alma mater, Oak­land Mills High School in Colum­bia, MD, where he also got to serve as a sub­sti­tute teacher. 

“I nev­er imag­ined myself teach­ing, but when I did it, I real­ized how fun it is and how much I enjoy being around kids and talk­ing to them,” Pin­dell said. 

Brooks believes that Pin­dell would thrive in that type of coach/teacher role because of his lead­er­ship skills. 

“His best attribute is that he is a great leader,” Brooks said. “I think lead­er­ship isn’t just vocal. It’s phys­i­cal, vocal, doing the right things. That’s what allows you to be a great mentor.” 

It seems like Pin­dell has found his call­ing when­ev­er his foot­ball career is over, but that hasn’t hap­pened just yet. Pin­dell said he will con­tin­ue to chase his NFL dream for the rest of this year, with a spe­cif­ic focus on the XFL’s return in 2022 for his next oppor­tu­ni­ty. If that doesn’t work out, then he said he’ll be ready to hang up the cleats and move on to his next chap­ter with no anxiety. 

“I want to play foot­ball to have fun, and I know there’s some­thing else that I can do as far as teach­ing and train­ing kids,” Pin­dell said. “If foot­ball doesn’t work out, I’ll be sta­ble doing that.” 

By Dan­ny Barletta
The Dai­ly Campus
April 23, 2020

Alex Put­ter­man is a jour­nal­ist for the Hart­ford Courant who tran­si­tioned from cov­er­ing sports to cov­er­ing COVID-19. Pho­to: Hart­ford Courant

By Dan­ny Barletta
MassLive
Jan­u­ary 18, 2021

Ben and Bec­ca Hyjek of Gate­way Region­al both earned All-State recog­ni­tion in their final sea­sons with their soc­cer teams. Pho­to: MassLIve

Bec­ca Hyjek’s soc­cer career began when she played on the boys team with her twin broth­er Ben at the age of 6.

They con­tin­ued to play togeth­er on boys teams grow­ing up, often coached by their dad. Accord­ing to Ben, Bec­ca was always one of the best play­ers on the team. She recalled the two of them hav­ing a spe­cial twin chem­istry between them that led to a lot of goals.

“A lot of the times, we would play for­ward togeth­er just because we had that chem­istry,” Bec­ca said. “I can just remem­ber we would always score goals togeth­er and it was very fun. I think every­one was a lit­tle jeal­ous of that.”

“Every time that we got up the field, it kind of seemed like two hur­ri­canes going down there,” Ben added.

Now, as seniors at Gate­way Region­al High School, they fin­ished their careers as Gators as Divi­sion IV soc­cer All-State selec­tions for their respec­tive teams. The hur­ri­canes are still swirling, although at sep­a­rate times on the pitch.

It was a chal­leng­ing sea­son due to the new pro­to­cols put in place due to the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, but they made the most of their final year of high school soc­cer as the lead­ers of their teams.

Bec­ca felt the same.

“They’re not the ones putting up all the stats, but they’re the glue and they’re the gears that keep the wheels turn­ing. That’s Bec­ca Hyjek,” Bonen­fant said.

Ben agreed, say­ing he was actu­al­ly more hap­py for Bec­ca being named All-State this sea­son than him­self. He felt she deserved it just as much as he did last sea­son. Bec­ca said, how­ev­er, she didn’t care about what hap­pened in the past, she was just real­ly excit­ed to make All-State along­side her brother.

Bonen­fant, who also serves as Gateway’s ath­let­ic direc­tor, said hav­ing two play­ers rep­re­sent the small school on the All-State teams is incred­i­ble, but to have two play­ers with the char­ac­ter of Ben and Bec­ca is what real­ly makes it special.

By Dan­ny Barletta
The Dai­ly Campus
Octo­ber 29, 2020

James Bouknight han­dles the ball for the UConn men’s bas­ket­ball team in a win against Prov­i­dence. Pho­to by David But­ler II/USA Today

UConn is back in the Big East con­fer­ence, where it was an orig­i­nal mem­ber from 1979–2013. We’ve known this for a while now, but on Wednes­day, the Big East bas­ket­ball com­mu­ni­ty got togeth­er (vir­tu­al­ly) for the first time with UConn includ­ed for media day with the men’s bas­ket­ball programs. 

UConn was a top­ic of con­ver­sa­tion around the con­fer­ence, with most­ly every­one wel­com­ing the Huskies back with open arms. 

“We could not be hap­pi­er to have the Huskies back at home,” Big East com­mis­sion­er Val Ack­er­man said to open the day. “For the first time since our realign­ment sev­en years ago, we have a new school, but it real­ly is an old school … The tran­si­tion of UConn back into the Big East — coro­n­avirus notwith­stand­ing — has gone very smooth­ly, and we’re cer­tain that Husky bas­ket­ball, men and women, will help allow us to main­tain our high perch in the col­lege bas­ket­ball world for many years to come.” 

Dur­ing his avail­abil­i­ty, head coach Dan Hur­ley talked about what it means for the con­fer­ence to have UConn back. 

“UConn is gonna add one of the most pas­sion­ate fan­bas­es in the coun­try,” Hur­ley said. “You’re adding a recent tra­di­tion in the last 20 years, which is top five in the coun­try in terms of Nation­al Cham­pi­onships and pro­duc­ing lot­tery picks and first round picks [in the NBA Draft]. I see UConn doing noth­ing but enhanc­ing the league.” 

Many of the coach­es around the con­fer­ence agree with that sen­ti­ment, includ­ing the Big East’s longest tenured and most respect­ed head coach, Jay Wright of Villanova. 

“The beau­ty of the Big East is the authen­tic­i­ty of the Big East that every school is a bas­ket­ball school,” Wright said. “We are bas­ket­ball schools, it’s the biggest thing that’s hap­pen­ing on cam­pus. So to add UConn to that, which is a great bas­ket­ball school … it just mul­ti­plies the val­ue of the Big East.” 

DePaul’s head coach Dave Leitao, who spent two sep­a­rate tenures as an assis­tant coach at UConn under Jim Cal­houn, also praised UConn’s return, as well as Hurley’s rebuild of the program. 

“Them enter­ing back into the Big East is mon­u­men­tal because of the suc­cess that they’ve had as a major force in this league,” Leitao said. “The things that UConn has stood for, [Hur­ley] has quick­ly returned to, as well as hav­ing a real­ly good team … I’m look­ing for­ward to see­ing some old faces and just enjoy­ing the expe­ri­ence, because I know the pos­i­tiv­i­ty of UConn in the Big East has been such a won­der­ful thing nation­al­ly for col­lege basketball.” 

In addi­tion, head coach Ed Coo­ley from Prov­i­dence, UConn’s most local oppo­nent in the con­fer­ence, is look­ing for­ward to renew­ing the region­al rivalry. 

“Excit­ed to have Con­necti­cut back as it’s a region­al game for us,” Coo­ley said.“They’re an orig­i­nal Big East mem­ber. It’s a nat­ur­al fit. It’s gonna be excit­ing to com­pete, to go to Gam­pel and/or Hart­ford. The fan­base on both sides will be excit­ed to play one anoth­er … It’ll be a lot of fun, and I’m look­ing for­ward to com­pet­ing against a very, very good bas­ket­ball team.” 

Head coach Travis Steele from Xavier, who beat UConn last year in a dou­ble over­time thriller in the Charleston Clas­sic, said he told Hur­ley after the game that it was a pre­view of the Big East. He said it just feels right now that UConn is offi­cial­ly back. 

“I think it was only right that UConn’s in the Big East, it should be,” Steele said. “You think of all the great play­ers, coach­es … all the big-time shots at Madi­son Square Gar­den dur­ing the Big East Tour­na­ment. UConn’s had huge moments and is a huge part of the Big East and the his­to­ry of the Big East. To get them back is awe­some. We’re excit­ed. It’s only gonna make the best league in the coun­try even that much better.” 

The excite­ment doesn’t stop with the coach­es either. Both James Bouknight and Isa­iah Wha­ley, two of UConn’s expect­ed top per­form­ers this sea­son, said that play­ing in the Big East means a lot to them. 

“Being from New York, play­ing in the Big East has always been a dream of mine,” Bouknight said. “Just being able to play at home in front of my fam­i­ly … Just play­ing in the North­east has always been a dream of mine.” 

“For me, being some­one who stud­ies the his­to­ry of bas­ket­ball and col­lege bas­ket­ball, know­ing the rival­ries between the Big East schools, it’s super excit­ing,” Wha­ley said. “Espe­cial­ly being a part of it is gonna be real­ly excit­ing for us. So just know­ing the his­to­ry makes it a lot more exciting.” 

Bouknight added that the move to the Big East fac­tored into his deci­sion to return to UConn for his sopho­more year. 

Oth­er play­ers around the con­fer­ence expressed their excite­ment to play UConn, includ­ing the pre­sea­son pick for Big East Play­er of the Year, Mar­cus Zegarows­ki from Creighton. He grew up in Hamil­ton, Mass­a­chu­setts, and became very famil­iar with UConn when his broth­er Michael Carter-Williams played at Syra­cuse, the Huskies’ old Big East rival. 

“I think it’s a great addi­tion,” Zegarows­ki said. “UConn is a great pro­gram. They were in the Big East. I grew up watch­ing them. I grew up watch­ing Kem­ba [Walk­er] … It’s awe­some. They’re a great pro­gram, they got a lot of great play­ers and I’m excit­ed for the battles.” 

For some play­ers like Xavier senior cap­tain Jason Carter, it’s the mem­o­ry of play­ing UConn in the past that gen­er­ates excitement. 

“I know for me per­son­al­ly, see­ing the fan­bas­es and how into the game they were, espe­cial­ly it being a neu­tral site, the fan­bas­es showed up [in Charleston] and made that game so much more intense,” Carter said. “I know I’m excit­ed to play them twice a year now. I think they’re a great add for the con­fer­ence, and I think it’s gonna be a great rival­ry going for­ward. I know I can’t wait for those games.” 

For oth­ers like St. John’s sopho­more Julian Cham­pag­nie, it’s more of the sense of famil­iar­i­ty with both indi­vid­ual play­ers and the pro­gram as a whole that makes him eager to play against UConn. 

“It’s cool stuff,” Cham­pag­nie said. “Grow­ing up, I watched UConn a lot. I know a cou­ple of play­ers on UConn and some of the coach­es. So hav­ing them back in the con­fer­ence is gonna be fun. It just adds anoth­er team to the list that we can’t wait to play.” 

Cham­pag­nie said he knows Bouknight, Richie Springs and Tyrese Mar­tin either from high school or through mutu­al friends. Hur­ley said this region­al famil­iar­i­ty with play­ers is exact­ly what makes recruit­ing and engage­ment bet­ter in the Big East. 

Hur­ley knows the Big East extreme­ly well, grow­ing up in New Jer­sey, play­ing at Seton Hall and spend­ing the entire­ty of his coach­ing career in the North­east. He said the best part of play­ing in the Big East is that every game is high-profile. 

“Everyone’s watch­ing Big East bas­ket­ball,” Hur­ley said. “This is nation­al stage games. This is absolute­ly no nights off home or away. You could lose any game because top to bot­tom, there’s just no nights off in a con­fer­ence like this.” 

It seems that everyone’s on board with UConn return­ing to the con­fer­ence where they had so much suc­cess for over two decades. The Huskies will offi­cial­ly make their “re-debut” in the Big East when they host St. John’s on Dec. 11. There was a lot of talk about UConn at media day, but per­haps nobody summed it up bet­ter than Bouknight. 

“UConn belongs in the Big East. Every­one knows that.” 

By Dan­ny Barletta
The Dai­ly Campus
Feb­ru­ary 24, 2020

After a hot start to the game, the Huskies went into a drought in the sec­ond and third peri­ods. All that mat­tered was the final score though, as a cou­ple big goals earned the Huskies a 3–2 win Fri­day. Pho­to by Kevin Lindstrom/The Dai­ly Campus.

By Dan­ny Barletta
The Dai­ly Campus
Sep­tem­ber 2, 2020

Paige Bueck­ers pos­es on the cov­er of Slam mag­a­zine. Pho­to cour­tesy of @paigebueckers on Instagram

It has been well doc­u­ment­ed that UConn fresh­man Paige Bueck­ers is a wiz on the bas­ket­ball court. She was the top-ranked recruit in the coun­try for her high school class and is expect­ed to be a spe­cial play­er for the Huskies over the next four years. 

Her arrival to UConn has been built up with much hype since she announced her com­mit­ment back in April of 2019. Dur­ing her senior sea­son at Hop­kins High School, Bueck­ers was prob­a­bly the most pop­u­lar high school bas­ket­ball play­er in the coun­try, along with Bron­ny James. She gained a mas­sive fol­low­ing on social media and even appeared on the cov­er of Slam mag­a­zine.  

With this new pub­lic sta­tus came a plat­form, and in the wake of George Floyd’s bru­tal death at the hands of a Min­neapo­lis police offi­cer, Bueck­ers real­ized what she would use that plat­form for: to pro­mote the mes­sage that Black Lives Matter. 

“I par­tic­i­pat­ed in a bunch of march­es,” Bueck­ers said when address­ing the media last month. “I donat­ed in food dri­ves just to try to use my image to make a pos­i­tive impact.” 

“There’s been a lot of dif­fi­cult con­ver­sa­tions with the Black Lives Mat­ter cam­paign and how peo­ple go against it and how peo­ple are sup­port­ive of it. I’m one of the sup­port­ers. I mean like they say, ‘All lives can’t mat­ter until Black Lives Mat­ter,’ and I’m huge for it.” 

Bueck­ers was born and raised in the Min­neapo­lis sub­urb of Edi­na, Min­neso­ta, a city that was almost 90% White in the 2010 cen­sus. But despite being a young, White woman from a pre­dom­i­nant­ly White area, racism is very per­son­al to her, and to know why you have to know about Drew. 

Drew Bueck­ers is Paige’s 7‑year-old lit­tle broth­er and her best friend. He is also bira­cial, which means he will like­ly have to face racism head-on when he gets old­er, and that’s not OK with Paige. 

“I just want him to grow up in a world that accepts Black peo­ple and doesn’t judge them based on the col­or of their skin,” Bueck­ers said. “So I’m all for [Black Lives Mat­ter], and if I lose sup­port­ers because they don’t agree with it then I don’t need those peo­ple any­ways on my side.” 

Bueck­ers has made quite a few posts on the top­ic of racial injus­tice on her Insta­gram, but her most recent — post­ed in the midst of yet anoth­er wave of protests after Jacob Blake was shot sev­en times in the back by a police offi­cer in Kenosha, Wis. — was the first to specif­i­cal­ly talk about Drew. 

“At what point do they stop look­ing at my lit­tle broth­er as a cute lit­tle boy and instead as a threat to soci­ety?” the post reads. “It scares me. I’m going to work for change lit­tle broth­er. I want you to grow up in world that accepts you for who you are. I am com­mit­ted to help mak­ing a change for the bet­ter. It’s time to step up and act in uni­ty because WE ARE THE CHANGE” 

Bueck­ers said it is real­ly hard to have con­ver­sa­tions with Drew about how he needs to act in cer­tain sit­u­a­tions because of his skin col­or, espe­cial­ly since he is only 7 years old. It’s not pos­si­ble for her to just sit back and accept the racial inequal­i­ty in this coun­try when some­one she loves so much is a per­son of color. 

“I’m scared for him,” Bueck­ers said. “Just hav­ing that fear of one wrong judg­ment and his life could be on the line, it’s super scary and it’s some­thing I want to help change. It’s not just me liv­ing in fear, it’s every­body who’s relat­ed to a per­son of col­or. So any­thing I can do and any­thing to make this world a bet­ter place for Black peo­ple, it’s huge for me. That’s why I try to use my plat­form as much as I can.” 

Her coach Geno Auriem­ma, who has also attend­ed protests this year, said he is very proud of the work being done by Bueck­ers and the rest of his play­ers to try and make a change. He said back in the 1960s, it was col­lege kids and young peo­ple who led the charge for change, and now 50 years lat­er, it’s hap­pen­ing again. 

“They’re liv­ing in a very sub­tle, very com­plex world that they’re grow­ing up in,” Auriem­ma said. “And they have opin­ions, they have views. They’re rad­i­cal­ly affect­ed by it in a way that only kids can be … I think they’re smart and they’re social­ly conscious.” 

Specif­i­cal­ly, Auriem­ma believes that Bueck­ers can make a change because she tru­ly sees the big pic­ture in all of this. 

“Paige is a very insight­ful kid,” he said. “She’s very much aware, and she’s not self-absorbed.” 

So look out for Paige Bueck­ers not only on the bas­ket­ball court, but also out in the com­mu­ni­ty bring­ing aware­ness to social issues like so many of the UConn greats that came before her — Bre­an­na Stew­art and Sue Bird just to name a cou­ple. And every time you see that, remem­ber that she’s fight­ing not for her­self, but for Drew. 

“I’m just try­ing to use my image and my plat­form to try to pro­mote the Black Lives Mat­ter cam­paign and just bring jus­tice and equal­i­ty in the world as much as I can,” Bueck­ers said. 

By Dan­ny Barletta
MassLive
Decem­ber 2, 2020

Cesar Alvan cel­e­brates after his 100th career vic­to­ry. Pho­to: Mark M. Murray/The Republican

On Sept. 22, 2019, Cesar Alvan was doing what he loved.

He was at a wrestling meet in New York for his off­sea­son club MetroW­est Unit­ed, and he was hav­ing a sol­id day on the mat. He was on his fourth match of the day and was up 9–1 on a tough oppo­nent. Alvan stepped to make a take­down move, but his left knee bent in the wrong direction.

He felt and heard a snap.

“Peo­ple think I’m exag­ger­at­ing when I say this, but it real­ly felt like a rub­ber band snap­ping in my knee,” Alvan said. “It made a loud gun­shot noise. Every­body heard it … It was pret­ty scary.”

Ulti­mate­ly, Alvan suf­fered a torn ACL, MCL, menis­cus and a par­tial­ly torn LCL. He was dev­as­tat­ed and also scared, know­ing that the injury put a pre­ma­ture end to a thor­ough­ly suc­cess­ful high school wrestling career and could jeop­ar­dize his future in the sport.

Alvan knew he had a long road to recov­ery, but his jour­ney as a wrestler had pre­pared him for what lay ahead.

The Path

After he began wrestling in the third grade with the Lud­low Youth Wrestling pro­gram, Alvan even­tu­al­ly took a few years off dur­ing mid­dle school to focus on oth­er sports — like soc­cer. As an eighth grad­er, Alvan was eli­gi­ble to join the Lud­low High School wrestling team. He returned to the sport at the encour­age­ment of some of his old­er friends who were on the team.

“I joined the team and I loved it, and I did real­ly well, espe­cial­ly for an eighth grad­er,” Alvan said.

He went 36–12 that sea­son, mak­ing it all the way to the West­ern Mass­a­chu­setts finals for his weight class, an impres­sive feat for any­one, let alone an eighth grad­er fac­ing high schoolers.

The next sea­son as a fresh­man at Lud­low High, he took off, going 52–5 and becom­ing the first fresh­man in Lud­low his­to­ry to win the state cham­pi­onship. As a sopho­more, he went 50–9 and was the run­ner-up in the state tour­na­ment. He also took fourth place in the New Eng­land tour­na­ment that year.

Head­ing into his junior year, Alvan trans­ferred to Cen­tral for per­son­al and fam­i­ly rea­sons — a move he felt was a good switch both for aca­d­e­mics and ath­let­ics. That year, he had his best sea­son, going 56–2 and win­ning the state tour­na­ment, the all-state tour­na­ment and the New Eng­land tour­na­ment while fin­ish­ing third at the nation­al tournament.

Alvan entered his senior year just six wins shy of 200 for his career, and he was primed for a huge fol­low-up to his incred­i­ble junior year. But his knee injury robbed him of that chance.

Over his high school career, though, Alvan devel­oped a love for wrestling that wouldn’t be ham­pered by an injury.

“I start­ed to find a pas­sion for the sport that I nev­er real­ly knew I had,” Alvan said. “It’s a very spe­cial sport to me because it’s a tough and aggres­sive sport, and that’s real­ly some­thing I like.”

While, the injury could have end­ed Alvan’s wrestling career, but he was deter­mined to work his way back to the top.

The Recov­ery

Alvan start­ed his rehab two days after his injury.

He didn’t have surgery on his knee until ear­ly Decem­ber, but he said rehab­bing before­hand to strength­en his mus­cles gave him a head start on the process. He start­ed with basic things like just lift­ing his leg off the ground and grad­u­al­ly built up after his surgery.

He walked again nor­mal­ly about two months after surgery, and he start­ed adding a lit­tle bit of weight to his work­outs at about the three-month mark.

All the while, despite not being able to wres­tle, he was with his team for every prac­tice and every tournament.

“I had surgery I think on a Mon­day, and I was right back there in the room on Tues­day,” Alvan said. “My coach want­ed to take me in as kind of like an assis­tant coach with the team, help them out as much as I could. … I enjoyed being with the guys. They wres­tled real­ly well. They had a great season.”

Alvan, how­ev­er, knew he want­ed anoth­er year of wrestling before col­lege, so he began look­ing at options for a post­grad­u­ate year.

Zachary Bates, the wrestling coach at North­field Mount Her­mon first saw Alvan com­pete when he was a fresh­man. Bates tried to recruit Alvan ear­ly on in high school, but he wasn’t ini­tial­ly inter­est­ed in prep school. It wasn’t until after his injury that he began seri­ous­ly con­sid­er­ing a post­grad­u­ate year at NMH.

“It wasn’t so much he need­ed it for an ath­let­ic stand­point or even an aca­d­e­m­ic stand­point,” Bates said. “He just want­ed to be in his best form when he arrived to a col­lege cam­pus … A post­grad­u­ate year allowed him anoth­er year for recov­ery so he wouldn’t have to rush that process.”

From Bates’ point of view, it was a no brain­er to have him join the pro­gram at NMH.

“He’s a great stu­dent and a great ath­lete and a great kid,” Bates said. “We want those types of kids here.”

With that plan in mind, Alvan con­tin­ued to work his way through rehab. He began lift­ing in the weight room again after about six months and start­ed more sports-enhanced rehab — run­ning, turn­ing, cut­ting, etc. — at the eight-month mark.

Through­out the whole recov­ery process, Alvan said his par­ents were the most impor­tant peo­ple because they helped to keep him moti­vat­ed even when he was down.

“It’s a very hard process,” Alvan said. “It’s a long process. In the begin­ning, it’s hard to see the end of the road, but you just got to believe and keep work­ing at it, and even­tu­al­ly you’ll be there.”

Soon after he arrived at NMH in Sep­tem­ber, he was cleared to return to wrestling. He eased his way back into it in the first cou­ple of months, but in the last two weeks, he’s ramped up at practice.

Bates said he’s been real­ly impressed since coach­ing Alvan as he’s worked him­self back to near­ly full strength.

“He’s patient, which I real­ly love,” Bates said. “He doesn’t rush his body. … More than a lot of his peers, he real­ly under­stands his own body because he’s been an ath­lete for so long.”

The Future

Now that Alvan has worked his way back from such a dev­as­tat­ing injury, there’s only one thing left for him to do: compete.

The COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, how­ev­er, has put this wrestling sea­son in jeop­ardy. The Office of Ener­gy and Envi­ron­men­tal Affairs clas­si­fied wrestling as a high risk sport last month and did not approve it for com­pe­ti­tion in the state.

Luck­i­ly for Alvan, Bates said NMH has cre­at­ed a bub­ble on its cam­pus, so they have at least prac­ticed as a team safely.

“Kids like Cesar real­ly are depend­ing on the sport of wrestling as well as oth­er fac­tors to get them to where they want to be in col­lege,” Bates said. “It’s impor­tant, and peo­ple here under­stand that, but we also under­stand the risk fac­tor. So we’re try­ing to mit­i­gate risk while still allow­ing kids to prac­tice in the sport they real­ly care about.”

Bates said it doesn’t seem as though the New Eng­land Prepara­to­ry School Ath­let­ic Coun­cil is going to have a reg­u­lar wrestling sea­son, but he said as of right now, the Nation­al Prep Tour­na­ment is on for the mid­dle of March. Alvan hopes that hap­pens because he’s been work­ing for a long time to com­pete again, and doesn’t want to miss anoth­er season.

“If I were to have to sit out two years in a row and not have a nation­al tour­na­ment or some­thing like that … I was going to be dev­as­tat­ed, very sad,” Alvan said.

Next year’s tour­na­ment means a lot to Alvan, but regard­less of what hap­pens, he has a bright future ahead. He has schol­ar­ship offers for Divi­sion I wrestling and is cur­rent­ly decid­ing between three Ivy League schools: Colum­bia, the Uni­ver­si­ty of Penn­syl­va­nia and Brown.

After col­lege, Alvan said he might look to be part of the Olympic wrestling team, but his main goal is to fight in the UFC. His dad Mar­co trains UFC fight­ers, so he has been around it for most of his life, and he has long had a goal to get there.

“Per­son­al­ly, that’s what I want to do real­ly bad after col­lege,” Alvan said. “It’s been a goal for a while now, espe­cial­ly in the past cou­ple of years that I think it’s reach­able and possible.”

Bates agreed, say­ing that the com­bi­na­tion of Alvan’s back­ground in jiu jit­su and judo and his excel­lence as a wrestler makes him an “excit­ing com­peti­tor” in mixed mar­tial arts.

For now, though, he’ll con­tin­ue his come­back, over­com­ing the chal­lenges of his injury and the pan­dem­ic en route to a con­tin­ued future in the sport.

By Dan­ny Barletta
UConnHuskies.com
March 6, 2020

Chris­t­ian Vital and Alterique Gilbert were hon­ored at Gam­pel Pavil­ion for Senior Night, and they helped lead the Huskies to a big win over a ranked Hous­ton squad. Pho­to cour­tesy of UConn Athletics

Chris­t­ian Vital could­n’t have picked a bet­ter way to drop the mic on his UConn bas­ket­ball career at Gam­pel Pavilion.

Fig­u­ra­tive­ly and literally.

The Huskies’ senior guard gave a heart­felt speech to the sell­out crowd at Gam­pel after he and his team­mates pulled off a stun­ning 77–71 upset of No. 21 Hous­ton on Senior Night on Thurs­day in the final home game of the reg­u­lar sea­son and, bar­ring a pos­si­ble home game in the NIT, the last home game of Vital’s record-filled career. He poured in 26 points to lead the win.

An emo­tion­al Vital thanked God, his team­mates, his coach­es and the UConn faith­ful, just about all of whom remained in the stands to cel­e­brate the vic­to­ry with him.

“I appre­ci­ate y’all,” Vital said as he waved to the fans.

“Sniper out,” he said, drop­ping the mic.

Among the rest of the hon­orees Thurs­day were four-year walk-on Temi Aiyeg­busi, stu­dent assis­tant coach and for­mer play­er Mamadou Diar­ra, grad­u­ate head man­agers Paul Wet­te­mann and Justin Ead­dy, and, of course, the team’s two vet­er­an lead­ers – Vital and Alterique Gilbert.

Both play­ers would turn in mem­o­rable per­for­mances on their spe­cial night, help­ing the Huskies pick up their biggest win of the season.

Gilbert had nine points, three rebounds, two assists, a steal and a block, and he real­ly helped pace the offense as the pri­ma­ry ball­han­dler. His best moment was fak­ing a Hous­ton defend­er out of his shoes with a crossover and going around him for the easy layup.

Even though Gilbert has a year of eli­gi­bil­i­ty left as a red­shirt junior, he was hon­ored as a senior with Vital, since both will grad­u­ate in May. The two came in togeth­er four years ago, and Vital said shar­ing that moment was special.

“That’s my boy, he’s been through a lot,” Vital said. “He came in a McDon­ald’s All-Amer­i­can, high­ly tout­ed, went through some injuries, but he per­se­vered … I learned a lot from Al since our time being here: how to per­se­vere, how to face adver­si­ty head on. It’s gonna hit you some­times. You’re gonna have hard times, it’s nev­er gonna just be per­fect straight through. But the way he played tonight, that’s the Al I know.”

Gilbert has had a very unique career at UConn to this point. Mul­ti­ple shoul­der surg­eries required him to miss all but nine games of his first two sea­sons in Storrs, but in the past two years, he’s become a valu­able con­trib­u­tor to this pro­gram, both as a play­er and as a leader.

But the hero of Thurs­day’s big win was Vital, whose 26 points includ­ed eight con­sec­u­tive clutch free throws in the final minute to ice the game. He was able to show off for the fans at Gam­pel one last time on the night that his career and accom­plish­ments as a Husky were honored.

“It meant a lot,” Vital said. “Just every­thing the pro­gram has been through, some of my team­mates have been through, some of the stuff that I’ve been through per­son­al­ly, to be able to win like that in front of a crowd like that on a night like this, it meant a lot. I’ll remem­ber it for a long time.”

Vital has qui­et­ly put togeth­er one of the best four-year careers in UConn his­to­ry, and the admi­ra­tion that the fan base has for him was evi­dent by the stand­ing ova­tion he received when address­ing the crowd after the game. He thanked them for their sup­port through the ups and downs but made sure to note that the team is not fin­ished yet.

Includ­ing Thurs­day’s per­for­mance, Vital has now amassed 1,707 points, 657 rebounds, 268 assists and 213 steals, mak­ing him one of the most ver­sa­tile play­ers in pro­gram his­to­ry. No oth­er play­er with over 1,700 points in a UConn uni­form can also boast 650 rebounds, 250 assists and 200 steals.

With his 26 points on Thurs­day, Vital moved into the top 10 all time in UConn scor­ing, sur­pass­ing his good friend and three-year team­mate Jalen Adams (1,706).

“That’s a lit­tle crazy, right?” Vital said. “That’s my broth­er ’til the end. That’s my broth­er until we take our last breath. He means a lot to me. He had to car­ry a large load that was­n’t the eas­i­est dur­ing his time here. I wish we could’ve end­ed it bet­ter for his senior year, but tonight was kind of for him, too.”

Vital is also third all-time in steals and sec­ond all time in 3‑pointers made with 262. How­ev­er, he does­n’t want to be remem­bered for his stats.

“[I want to be remem­bered] just as a guy who did­n’t quit, who believed in him­self from day one and refused to not believe in him­self,” Vital said. “But also put in the work to see those results come to reality.”

Although Gilbert and Vital had­n’t been a part of a win­ning sea­son dur­ing their times at UConn until this year, head coach Dan Hur­ley said they dras­ti­cal­ly impact­ed the program.

“They’re the foun­da­tion of what’s gonna hap­pen next for us, which is gonna be a lot more nights like this,” Hur­ley said. “They’ve helped us instill a stan­dard that in last year’s tran­si­tion year, we could­n’t get to that point with the group because we had­n’t spent enough time together.”

Specif­i­cal­ly, Hur­ley said Vital will always have a spe­cial place in UConn history.

“He’s a guy that we’ll talk about both in the near future with teams and down the line when we get back to being what UCon­n’s sup­posed to look [like] and say that this was the year that the stan­dard got back to being the stan­dard,” Hur­ley said.

It was cer­tain­ly a spe­cial night in Gam­pel. The fans came out in mass­es to sup­port Vital, Gilbert and the rest of the seniors, and the atmos­phere real­ly willed the team to a huge win.

“I’ve been in this build­ing when Jim [Cal­houn] was the coach,” Hous­ton head coach Kelvin Samp­son said. “It sound­ed like the old days in there tonight.”

Out of the 126 games that Vital has played in so far in his career, where does this one rank?

“Num­ber one,” he said. “For now.”

By Dan­ny Bar­let­ta
The Dai­ly Cam­pus
Jan­u­ary 27, 2020

There was def­i­nite­ly a spe­cial buzz inside Web­ster Bank Are­na for the first day of the inau­gur­al Con­necti­cut Ice tour­na­ment on Sat­ur­day. The stands were pret­ty full for both games, and the media room was even fuller. 

“Look at this room right here,” UConn head coach Mike Cavanaugh said after the game. “We haven’t had a room in Con­necti­cut packed with media like this in a long time.” 

It was a dif­fer­ent atmos­phere for sure, and it didn’t have as much to do with the games them­selves as it did the over­all event. Quin­nip­i­ac beat UConn 3–2 in the first game and Sacred Heart clob­bered Yale 6–2 in the sec­ond. But more impor­tant­ly, per­haps a new col­lege hock­ey tra­di­tion was born. 

Coach­es from the schools were very pleased with the turnout, and they expressed a desire for the tour­na­ment to con­tin­ue for many years. 

“I hope it’s infi­nite,” Quin­nip­i­ac head coach Rand Pec­knold said. “I think we should run this tour­na­ment every year for the next 30, 40, 50 years … I think it’s great for the state.” 

“This is some­thing that needs to hap­pen every year,” Cavanaugh added. “I’m real­ly thank­ful that SNY was able to get this off the ground, and I want to make sure we con­tin­ue to grow it and grow it.” 

In addi­tion to the col­lege tour­na­ment, the week­end also pro­vid­ed youth hock­ey play­ers in Con­necti­cut an oppor­tu­ni­ty to par­tic­i­pate in games and clin­ics. There were high school hock­ey games played on Fri­day as well. Pec­knold said he thinks this event could real­ly help to keep young hock­ey play­ers in the sport. 

“The biggest thing we bat­tle in USA hock­ey right now is keep­ing the best ath­letes,” Pec­knold said. “They have so many options. They can play oth­er sports. If they’re not hap­py with hock­ey, they’ll go play lacrosse or golf or what­ev­er. So what­ev­er we can do to make kids have a great expe­ri­ence with hock­ey and keep them play­ing hock­ey is good for our sport.” 

Quin­nip­i­ac cap­tain Nick Jer­main, who is from Nor­walk, Con­necti­cut, said he wished they held this event when he was play­ing youth hockey. 

“I wish this was around when I was a lit­tle guy,” Jer­main said. “I see all the lit­tle kids run­ning around in track­suits rep­re­sent­ing their teams. This would’ve been awe­some to come to as a young kid, but I’m real­ly hap­py to be a part of the first one … I can only see it get­ting big­ger and bet­ter from here, and it’s just great for hock­ey and great for hock­ey in Connecticut.” 

The turnout for both games was impres­sive. It wasn’t a sell­out, but there were many more occu­pied seats than emp­ty ones. For a lot of the play­ers, includ­ing Sacred Heart senior Jason Cot­ton, this was one of the biggest crowds they had ever played in front of. 

“I’ve been here four years and that was the most fans I think I’ve ever seen at our game for home,” Cot­ton said. “It was a great turnout.” 

Sacred Heart head coach C.J. Marot­to­lo said that Sat­ur­day was just the begin­ning of some­thing real­ly special. 

“I think you saw a pret­ty good glimpse of it tonight and this is only day one,” Marot­to­lo said. “I think this fes­ti­val has so much more to grow. With the way the event was run tonight and the games, I think the sky’s the lim­it for this event.” 

The gold stan­dard for col­lege hock­ey reg­u­lar sea­son tour­na­ments is the Bean­pot, played annu­al­ly since 1952 between Boston’s four most sto­ried col­lege hock­ey teams (Boston Col­lege, Boston Uni­ver­si­ty, North­east­ern and Har­vard). Cavanaugh, who was an assis­tant coach at BC pri­or to com­ing to UConn, spoke pre­vi­ous­ly about how he feels Con­necti­cut Ice can emu­late that. 

“It’s some­thing that’s not going to be a flash in the pan,” Cavanaugh said at the begin­ning of the sea­son. “I hope it’s some­thing that’s here to stay because I know how spe­cial that Bean­pot is to the Boston area and there’s no rea­son why [Con­necti­cut Ice] can’t devel­op into some­thing very sim­i­lar here in Connecticut.” 

Being from Greater Boston, I grew up watch­ing the Bean­pot, and I’ve seen its impact on col­lege hock­ey in my area. It’s some­thing that every hock­ey fan, young and old, looks for­ward to watch­ing every year. To the peo­ple from that area, the Bean­pot means more than the Frozen Four because of the local significance. 

The Bean­pot doesn’t mean a lot in terms of stand­ings and play­off posi­tion­ing, but it means so much to play­ers, coach­es and fans because of the brag­ging rights and the idea that “We own col­lege hock­ey in Boston.” 

In this case, it would be, “We own col­lege hock­ey in Con­necti­cut,” a laud­able achieve­ment in a state with four pro­grams of nation­al recognition. 

“I have no doubt that the state of Con­necti­cut will ulti­mate­ly real­ly grav­i­tate towards this event and make it some­thing that we can be real­ly, real­ly proud of as a state,” Marot­to­lo said. 

Obvi­ous­ly, it will take some time for Con­necti­cut Ice to get to that lev­el, but it has all the pieces it needs to become a Bean­pot-like tra­di­tion: Qual­i­ty hock­ey pro­grams, region­al sig­nif­i­cance and, most impor­tant­ly, a pas­sion­ate fan­base. To get the type of crowd we saw in Bridge­port on the first day of the inau­gur­al tour­na­ment shows that peo­ple in Con­necti­cut have a real inter­est in this event. 

If han­dled cor­rect­ly, Con­necti­cut Ice could become col­lege hockey’s next great tournament. 

“For years to come, we’re all going to have com­pet­i­tive teams,” Cavanaugh said. “If we con­tin­ue to grow it and grow it, it’s only going to be great for the state of Con­necti­cut and all the hock­ey fan­base here.”