GREENFIELD — As he spoke Sunday afternoon to a crowd of 75 at Greenfield Community College’s Cohn Family Dining Commons, Angelo Thomas couldn’t hold back his emotions or passion.
Discussing his long road from homeless at age 14 to being featured as the guest speaker at The Recorder’s Winter All-Star Banquet and Awards Ceremony, Thomas — with wife Tiffany and son Grayson in attendance just a few tables away — spoke of his journey through sport and life that took him from North Carolina to Greenfield just in time for what became an illustrious high school basketball career.
Thomas’ mom, Kathy, loaded her five sons into the car in North Carolina and drove north in 1989, racing Hurricane Hugo up the East Coast. The struggling Southern family in transition quite by chance stopped in Deerfield for an emergency pit stop, and the rest is history. Eventually settling in Greenfield, the 6-foot-9 stringbean nicknamed “G-lo” by his Green Wave teammates went on to become the school’s all-time leading scorer as well as the first Franklin County recipient of the prestigious Lahovich Award (1994), presented annually to the top high school basketball player in western Mass. Adam Harrington of Pioneer Valley Regional School later joined Thomas as the only other Franklin County Lahovich winner.
Currently Hopkins Academy’s boys’ varsity basketball coach, Thomas has led the Hawks to three consecutive WMass titles. The successes on the court have been rewarding, but Thomas said his attempts to motivate and encourage his players is what means the most to him. When his mother put herself through GCC, earning a degree in criminal justice while raising five boys, Angelo had that experience as the perfect anecdote to use on his own players years later.
“When I have players tell me they can’t do something, that’s just not the case,” he explained to the engaged audience of All-Stars and their families and friends on Sunday.
Thomas’ emotional talk was part of a full program at the All-Star-recognition affair. Athletes from around Franklin County were honored at the event. One player from every winter sport from every school in Franklin County was selected as an All-Star by The Recorder sports department, which sought opinions from local coaches in making the selections.
The sports staff also polled coaches about the Player of the Year award, which was given to one All-Star in each sport and was kept a secret until Sunday’s banquet. Pioneer Valley Regional School’s Tucker Llewelyn was selected as the boys’ basketball MVP, while Greenfield High School’s Raegan Hickey won the girls’ basketball MVP. Greenfield’s Tyler Townsley was named hockey MVP, and Athol High School’s Merrick Decker was the top wrestler. Pioneer’s Scott McDonough was honored as the boys’ indoor track MVP, and Mohawk Trail Regional High School’s Meghan Davis was cited as the girls’ indoor track MVP. Mohawk made it a clean sweep in alpine skiing, with Dan White taking the boys’ award and Ashley LaCross winning the girls’ crown.
Hickey, a three-sport star at Greenfield High School who was second in The Recorder area with 16.2 points per game this winter, said the experience and her ensuing selection as girls’ basketball MVP was quite an honor.
“It feels good to be recognized,” explained the sophomore. “But, really, I couldn’t have done any of this without my teammates. We had a great season.”
Townsley made it two GHS athletes to be honored as MVP on Sunday. He was tabbed as hockey MVP following a season that saw him score 27 points, including 13 goals, for a Green Wave team that fell just one win shy of a postseason berth.
“Other people score a lot more goals than I do but my game is not all about scoring,” Townsley said. “I make a point of getting back on defense, playing the whole ice.”
The event featured light refreshments before the student-athletes and their families moved into the main dining commons for lunch and the discussion from Thomas. Remarks from Recorder Publisher Michael Rifanburg led into the awards ceremony, where Recorder sports reporter Jason Butynski presented the honors to all-stars in each of the winter sports with help from Thomas and Recorder editor George Forcier. The afternoon concluded with presentations of the MVP awards in each sport, before a photograph with all the winners was taken to end the event.