William Mudano, who led Canton to state title and started Nutmeg Games, has died

Bill Mudano jokes with his former players during an alumni basketball game in Canton in 2010.

Bill Mudano

William G. Mudano, who led the Canton High boys basketball team to their first state championship in 50 years in 1978 and was the school’s athletic director for 19 years, died Sunday, January 8, at the age of 79.

Many people around the state are familiar with Mudano as the long-time executive director of the Nutmeg State Games, the state’s largest amateur, multi-sport event in the state. He ran the event from 1989 through 2011.

But in Canton, he was a physical education teacher, an athletic director, boys basketball coach and boys golf coach for a few seasons.

According to his son, Bill, Jr., Mudano came to Canton in 1970 to coach football but a proposal to resurrect the program fizzled. Still, he had a job as a physical education teacher and athletic director.

In December 1974, first-year basketball coach Rich Pagliuca stepped down after five games and Mudano became the Canton basketball coach, a position he would hold for 15 seasons.

In 1977-78, Mudano’s Warriors won the Class S state championship for the first time since 1928 with an emotional 64-61 win over Cromwell. His Warriors went to the Class S finals again in 1981 but Canton fell to Bacon Academy, 75-56. The Warriors haven’t been to the state championship game since in boys basketball.

In Mudano’s tenure, Canton won three Northwest Conference Division II titles (1977, 1981, 1982)  – their first conference titles in basketball since 1963. His teams won 175 games, a program record that still stands today.

The wins don’t define Mudano’s legacy in Canton. “He had a spirit about him,” said former player Brennan Glasgow, who also coached the team from 1989-99. “(Former player) Roger Coutu said that (Mudano) made it feel like you were playing for the Boston Celtics when you’re playing for Canton High School.”

Bill Mudano, far right, watches his former players participate in an alumni basketball game in 2010.

There was a sense of crispness in the Canton High gym when you watched Mudano’s teams play in the 1970s and 1980s.

All four sets of bleachers were pulled out. Along the sideline, there was a head table where the scorer and clock operator would sit at center court, sometimes with a writer from a local newspaper covering the game. The head table was covered with a white cloth and the Canton Booster Club banner hanging off the front of the table.

In the locker room, players would arrive on game day and find their uniform neatly folded on a chair in front of their locker. Everyone had the same socks and wore the same style of sneakers.

“The details were huge. It made you feel it was not just a game. It was important. You felt big. It always made me feel that this was important and to take it seriously,” Glasgow said.

Canton had a long bench. The team had managers and a group of students, usually girls, who served as statisticians. Everyone on the bench, if they weren’t in uniform, wore their red Canton basketball sweater.

And everyone in school knew when it was gameday because everyone in the basketball program wore their basketball sweater during the school day.

For many years, Mudano and his team would take preseason trips to prepare and bond together as a basketball team. During Glasgow’s scholastic career, the team made trips to York, Maine, St. Catherine’s in the province of Ontario and a two-state tour in Ohio and Kentucky.

“He made it feel bigger than playing high school basketball. He made everything seem bigger than life, at least for me,” Glasgow said.

Nancy Grace, the long-time field hockey coach in Canton, was a student when Mudano began his career and was a statistician with the boys basketball program. In the mid-1980s, she was hired as the field hockey coach under Mudano.

“Off the court, he was funny and he could laugh at himself,” she said. “When we walked on the court, it was all business. His players knew what to do. He taught those kids about preparation. They were ready for every game. He would always say, ‘You play as you practice.’

Bill Mudano is a bit emotional during the 2010 alumni basketball game with former players Jim Callaghan, center, and Roger Coutu.

Mudano continued to provide people with experiences when he and Trinity College’s Dan Doyle began the Nutmeg State Games, an Olympics-style event. A pilot version of the Games was held on the Canton High campus in 1988.

That led to first Nutmeg State Games in 1989 at Eastern Connecticut State University, which included Opening Ceremonies the day before competition would begin. Athletes were required to attend in their colorful, regional uniform (East, West, South or North) and march into the stadium.

That year, Olympic sprint champion Lindy Remingo of Hartford, who won two gold medals at the 1952 Olympics, carried the torch into the stadium at Windham High with a few thousands athletes crowded into the infield and lit the flame.

It was another unique experience for many who would have the opportunity to reach the level of Olympic competition.

“My greatest satisfaction is we have given a lot of kids an opportunity to participate in what I’ve always considered a fairly unique event,” Mudano told the Hartford Courant’s Jeff Jacobs in 2011 when he retired from the Nutmeg State Games.

“The satisfaction is seeing the kids participating, and if they get a gold medal, knowing they probably will never do that again in their lives. We’ve given an awful lot of kids a venue to have fun, meet new people, break down some barriers,” Mudano told Jacobs in 2011.

Mudano grew up in East Hartford and graduated from Worcester Academy in 1963 where he played football, basketball and baseball. His basketball coach was Dee Rowe, who would later go onto to coach at UConn and later join the Board of Directors at the Nutmeg State Games.

“He was a people person,” said Patrick Fisher, Executive Director of the Nutmeg State Games from 2012-22. “He could get people involved in so many different facets of the event. He had such far-reaching arms. He drew people to him. He was a very special guy.”

The organization that ran the Nutmeg Games was the Connecticut Sports Management Group (CSMG), which wasn’t afraid to take chances on events to provide opportunities for athletes. In 2002, Mudano’s team absorbed the Connecticut Senior Games, an Olympic-style event for athletes 50 and over.

In 2003, CSMG and the Nutmeg Games hosted the 2003 State Games of America, the first major event at Rentschler Field in East Hartford.

The CSMG team was co-host with the Skating Club of Hartford for Skate America in October 2006, an international Grand Prix figure skating competition at the Hartford Civic Center.

Mudano graduated from Southern Connecticut State University where he played football and baseball.

“He was a Canton guy all the way,” Bill Mudano Jr. said. “He loved everybody up there. He looked out for everybody, every student. He would give you the shirt off his back.”

The funeral will be Wednesday, January 18, at 10 a.m. with a Mass of Christian Burial celebrated at 10 a.m. at St. Patrick-St. Anthony Church 285 Church Street, Hartford. Relatives and friends may call on Tuesday, January 17, from 3-6 p.m. at the D’Esopo East Hartford Memorial Chapel, 30 Carter Street, East Hartford.

Online condolences can be left for the family at his obituary.

Photos from the 2010 Canton basketball alumni game