Author’s note: From 2009-2016 – when I was between the ages of 13 and 21 – I was a freelance sports journalist and photographer for Hersam Acorn Newspapers. 

During that time, I wrote over 200 articles for 8 of the group’s 18 newspapers, starting with the Valley Gazette. 

These days, you’re more likely to find me writing DAX code and economic updates than newspaper articles. Recently, though, an opportunity for a feature story came out of my hometown that compelled me to pull my steno pad out of a dusty camera case.

DERBY – On Sunday, Oct. 12, ten legendary Derby High School athletes were inducted into the Derby Athletic Hall of Fame. This is the eighth class of sportsmen and women to receive the honor since it was established in 2015. This year’s class included inductees from seven different sports and five decades of Derby athletics.

“The goal was always to honor and recognize the great athletes who had hall of fame careers,” Derby Athletic Hall of Fame President Mike Cannici said. “With that said, I also felt it was important to keep tradition alive. That’s what’s been most rewarding about the hall of fame. It brings so many people back to Derby.” 

Cannici said the hall of fame is, in many ways, “where it all begins again,” noting that more than 240 people attended this year’s banquet.

The inductees are:

Ken Marcucio Sr. (1961)

Christina Gelardi (2009)

Jason Palmieri (1991)

Gary Biesadecki (1977)

Sarah Caslan (1992)

Ken Thompson (1975)

Marc Orchano (1986)

Marty Palange (1976)

Jerry Schwab (1974)

Ben Blue (1980)

One of this year’s inductees was Marty Palange ’76, who was recognized for his contributions in football and track and field. In his acceptance speech, he stressed the importance of local community.

“I cannot emphasize enough how fortunate we were to grow up in Derby,” Palange said. “When I look back at my youth, what I remember is the community involvement and the collective efforts that the adults in our lives invested in us.”

Palange also credited his success in athletics to his teammates. 

“I was fortunate to play alongside so many great athletes, but more importantly great people and friends. In every way possible, I would like to think I collectively share this great honor with them,” he said.

On the gridiron, Palange was a three-year starter under Coach Lou DeFilippo. He was a defensive end his sophomore and junior years, leading tackles in several games and earning All-Valley honors in his junior and senior years.

In his senior season in the fall of 1975, Palange stepped up on offense and special teams as well as defense. As an offensive end, his 32 receptions broke a school record previously held by George Budzinack ’66, a member of the inaugural class of the Derby Athletic Hall of Fame.

Seven of Palange’s 32 receptions were caught for touchdowns, which contributed to the team’s 9-0-2 record and top ten ranking in the 1975 season. Palange, who was named tri-captain alongside Frank Capece and Al Altieri, earned All-Valley and All-Housy honors for his efforts that year. He was also named second team All-State and shared the prestigious Albarella Trophy with teammate Mike Sullivan ’76, a 2024 HOF inductee.

Sullivan said he felt welcomed as a transfer student to Derby in his junior year. 

“I stayed quiet and laid low because I was the new kid on the block, but what I found was that the guys in my class, and Marty in particular, were quick to befriend me not just as part of the team but part of the Derby community,” Sullivan said.

“Marty was the most dedicated among us as the student athlete, he was clearly a scholar,” he said. “We would be working out in the gym in the offseason, and he would put his feet on the bleachers and take a math textbook, I think it was calculus, and he would read the textbook, turning pages while he was doing pushups.”

Palange also had a noted career in track and field for the Red Raiders. He earned Class S State Championship honors in the javelin in his sophomore and junior years, setting a school record in the latter with a 190’8” throw. He capped off his track career in his senior year by winning his event in the Brookfield and Valley meets and taking second place in the Class S meet and third in the Housy meet.

Palange also placed fourth in discus in the Class S meet all three years he played and placed fourth in the Housy meet his junior year with a throw of 133’9”.

After graduating from Derby High School, Palange went on to play football and track and field at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine. He saw time on the gridiron as a freshman, catching five passes for 52 yards and returning one kickoff for 21 yards during the Bobcats’ 3-6 season under coach Vic Gatto.

As a freshman, Palange also achieved success in outdoor track. His 194’11” javelin throw at the Maine Invitational in Brunswick won him the State Championship in 1977, one of five events the Bobcats won at the meet. This throw is unofficially listed as fifth all-time in school history under pre-1984 rules, according to Bates statistician Aaron Morse.

After two years at Bates, he transferred to the University of Bridgeport, where he graduated with a degree in electrical engineering in 1981. He went on to have a successful 40-year career as a software engineer in the mailing and shipping industry. He married Karen Florczak, my mom, in October of 1981. They built a home in Monroe, and I was born in August of 1995.

I started working as a sports journalist in the spring of 2009. I knew baseball very well, but at the time, I knew little about football. On Friday nights, while I took pictures from the sidelines of some of the same fields where my dad had played 35 years earlier, he sat in the stands and took notes. Later, on the way home, we’d talk about key plays, strategies, what type of offense the coaches favored, and where he saw opportunities for improvement.

My dad is not the type of person to boast about himself, but I’ve found he doesn’t have to. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve introduced myself to someone and heard in reply “Are you related to Marty Palange?”, followed by a series of stories about playing sports with my dad or watching him play. 

One of my favorite examples took place in 2016 when I met with Fr. Christopher Tiano, then pastor of St. Mary’s Church in Derby. He recounted a story from his youth of riding in his father’s car when they stopped for gas on Route 34. He looked out the window and who was pumping the gas but Marty Palange, the football star! To hear Fr. Tiano tell the story, you’d have thought it was Terry Bradshaw.

Football, of course, is scarcely the only thing I’ve learned from my dad. One of my earliest memories took place at a newspaper kiosk outside of a McDonald’s in Monroe. Before going inside for our weekly breakfast outing, we’d fed a quarter into the slot and opened the door to a stack of Sunday papers.

“The people at the counter can’t see how many newspapers you take,” my dad told me. “But you know how many you take. You have to do the right thing when no one’s looking.”

Later, in eighth grade, I was preparing to take high school entrance exams. Each morning, before my dad went to work, he would slide a stack of papers under my bedroom door: pages of math problems in his notoriously illegible handwriting. I’d work on the problems during the day, and that evening, we’d go over them together. We’d repeat the process the next day.

My dad taught me how to do my taxes, how to invest in the stock market, and how to handle tricky situations at work.  He’s taught me how to stay calm in stressful circumstances, applying what he called the 95/5 rule: 95 percent of things in life aren’t worth getting upset over. He is both serious when the situation calls for it and an aficionado of ‘dad jokes’, and I see my own sense of humor in his quick-witted remarks.

“[He was] hard-nosed, but by the book, and the smartest player on the field,” recalled Scott Davis ’87, who later played softball with my dad in an after-work league. “Marty was great on the field; he is an even better man off the field. I learned how to be a better teammate because of him. He led by example and always did the small things that made a difference.”

I couldn’t say it better myself.

Congratulations, Dad. I love you.