Coach Duran Awarded M.D. Nadal Award for Sportsmanship
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his year at Thanksgiving Vespers, the entire Ethel Walker School community had the chance to celebrate Coach Mimi Duran as she accepted the M.D. Nadal Award for Sportsmanship given annually by heads of school and athletics directors from the Founders League, an athletic league of eleven independent schools from Connecticut and eastern New York. Instead of quietly presenting the award to Coach Duran earlier this spring while the students were in distance learning, the whole community took the opportunity to celebrate Coach Duran’s accomplishments while all of the students were on campus and before they returned home for holiday break. Coach Duran is a member of the Connecticut Field Hockey Hall of Fame and boasts a 304155-40 record over the course of her coaching career. On November 2, 2019, she marked her 300th win in a 4-0 victory against Wilbraham and Monson Academy. In her 13 years coaching at Walker’s, Coach Duran always put her athletes first, whether on the field or off. She goes to great lengths to be sure her teams have adequate time and activities together, such as team dinners, pumpkin carving and outdoor adventures, to bond both on the field and off. Many of her field hockey players go on to play Division I, II and II at the college level with some also embarking on coaching careers of their own using the wisdom and mentorship of Coach Duran. During her 35 years of coaching, Coach Duran has been named Coach of the Year by the Connecticut High School Coaches Association (CHSCA) and she was selected to the Northeast Women’s Hall of Fame. Under Coach Duran’s guidance, Walker’s has won the Connecticut Independent School Athletic Conference (CISAC) League and tournament titles every year from 2007-2014 as well as being named Class C champions n the Western New England Preparatory School Field Hockey Association for four years, including the three most recent seasons.She also has taken her team to the New
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England Preparatory School Athletic Council (NEPSAC) tournament in eight seasons, including every year since 2014. In addition to all of the work that Coach Duran does with her team here Mimi Duran is awarded the M.D. Nadal Award for Sportsmanship in Simsbury, she has daughter Keeley ’18 who plays for Hamilton taken them on national and international trips College and Lexi King ’17 who plays at Brown including taking three teams to play in Europe. University and was selected for the AAU Junior Coach Duran currently has six players Olympics gold medal-winning team. competing at the collegiate level, including her
Retired Coach Honored in History of ’Wick Squash
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History of Squash at Brunswick School, a new book written by Rob Dinerman, chronicles the rise of the school’s squash program under longtime coach Jim Stephens. Dinerman has written about squash at the high school and college level, including histories of squash at Harvard, Princeton, Episcopal Academy, Deerfield Academy, and St. Paul’s School. He has published two squash-anthology volumes and wrote Chasing the Lion, a prepschool memoir about his years at Phillips Exeter Academy, and co-authored The Sheriff of Squash: The Life and Times of Sharif Khan. “I had been wanting to write a book about Brunswick squash, but people at the school felt it would be better to wait until Jim Stephens retired,” Dinerman said. “He was such a unique coach in that he was not in any way authoritarian toward his players. He is very even-keeled, very patient, but what I most see in him is his basic decency. “This book is dedicated to him and is really a tribute to him.” Stephens was a recipient of the 2014 U. S. Olympic Committee National Coach of
the Year Award and was a NEISA 2020 Lifetime Achievement Award honoree. He retired last spring after serving as Brunswick’s squash coach and as a math teacher from 1985–2020. The 117-page book details the rise of the Brunswick program from a program lacking their own facilities to the national power it is today. Along with the written history, the book contains team photos, photos taken by Greenwich Time and other news outlets, and an Appendix of Brunswick squash statistics. Anyone wishing to obtain a copy of A History of Squash at Brunswick School should contact Libby Edwards at ledwards@brunswickschool.org.
NEPSAC News | Spring 2021 | 13
