Tony is one of those special people who grew up in the Club and never left. As a Club kid, he and his best friend Joe Latendress spent every available hour in the pool. Tony still chuckles over the time when Gil Gifford, a program director, was going around taking a head count of the kids at the Club. When he got to the swimming pool, a 7 year-old pushed him into the water fully-clothed. According to Tony, he got out of the pool, laughed it off and never got upset. When he graduated from the Boys Trade School, Tony had a job at the Norton Company all set to go. “At that time, Mr. Cole and Vin Russell talked me into staying at the Club, which I never regretted. I have fond memories that can never be taken away.”
One of the many positions Tony held during his more than 50 years as a Club staff member, was that of swim team coach in his middle 60s. Twenty-five years after his team won the 1967-1968 Western Massachusetts Championship, the team had a reunion at the Club in which the team presented Tony a two and a half foot trophy inscribed: “In grateful recognition and appreciation for your motivation and inspiration to us”. “That means a lot to me,” Tony says.
In 1983, Tony received the Boys & Girls Club of America’s Bronze Keystone and Service Bar. In 2004, he received Boys & Girls Club of America’s National Service to Youth Award and the 50-year Service Pin. “Now that I am being inducted into the Boys & Girls Club of Worcester’s Alumni Hall of Fame, I’ve achieved everything I worked for at the Club throughout the years.”
Tony lives in Worcester.