Tourtellotte 

Hall of Famer 

Chandler dies 

unexpectedly

By Ron P. Coderre

Alan Chandler, the former Tourtellotte Memorial High School basketball standout, died unexpectedly March 29, 2015 while visiting family in Fairfield.  Chandler was a resident of Herkimer, N.Y., where he pursued a farming career.

Chandler was raised in North Grosvenordale, where like so many of the athletes of his time, he worked on the family farm whenever he wasn’t on the basketball court.  Scaling in at six-foot, five inches, Chandler led many vaunted Tourtellotte teams to success in the days of the Quinebaug Valley Conference.

During Chandler’s four years on the Tourtellotte campus he led the Tigers to the QVC championship in his senior year 1965.  As a sophomore and junior the Tigers made it to the QVC semifinals.  He was also a noted cross country runner.  He was the captain of the Tiger harriers in his senior year when they captured the QVC x-country title.

Upon his graduation from Tourtellotte, Chandler moved on to Eastern Connecticut State University where he starred on the hardwood for the Warriors.  He continues as one of the top five scorers in the school’s history.  But it was his rebounding prowess that’s what made him standout on the court.  He holds down the second spot at ECSU for rebound average per game with 17.6, which he set in 1968.  He also holds the single game rebound record with 40 in a January 12, 1967 contest.

Although he earned a bachelor’s degree in education and taught social studies for a couple years, his early years on the farm kept calling him, the reason he moved to upstate New York.  Chandler also possessed a strong love of family and especially enjoyed attending his grandchildren’s sporting activities.

There was a stretch in the history of Tourtellotte basketball, when it seemed the Tigers always possessed the best big men in the area.  The man who set the standard for those great frontcourt performers was Alan Chandler.  He was a giant among giants.

The memories of his exploits at Tourtellotte and Eastern Connecticut State University will live on whenever basketball stories are traded in our corner of the state.  In death as in life, the giant Alan Chandler will always be remembered as bigger than life, as he was on the basketball court.