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To be Inducted
Former Woodstock Academy and Killingly High head coach Robin Deary-Fillmore, left, will be inducted into the Connecticut High School Coaches Association Hall of Fame. Current Woodstock Academy and Killingly head coach, Deary-Fillmore’s daughter, Kasey Tocchio, is to her right. Behind is a photo of former Woodstock Academy gymnasts Grace Logan and Paige Stuyniski. Photo by Marc Allard.
Coach heads
to Hall of
Fame
Former Woodstock Academy and Killingly High gymnastics coach Robin Deary-Fillmore will be honored Nov. 21 as one of the newest members of the Connecticut High School Coaches Association Hall of Fame.
“I thought it was pretty cool,” Deary-Fillmore said when she was informed that she would be inducted this year. “My brother Allen thought it was pretty cool, too, because he has been inducted into a Hall of Fame (at Northeastern University).”
“It’s awesome and definitely well-deserved,” said current Woodstock Academy coach and Deary-Fillmore’s daughter, Kasey Tocchio. “We’re all really excited for her. She should be recognized for everything she has done.”
Deary-Fillmore will be recognized along with James N. Brophy (posthumously, Bulkeley and Newington swimming); Edmund Butler (Masuk track and field); Nicholas Chaconis (Portland girls basketball); Jackie Ann DiNardo (Danbury girls’ basketball); Bill Hunt (Bethel baseball); Sandi Piantek (Maloney girls volleyball); Maribeth Sarnacki (Cromwell cheerleading) and Robert Trifone (Brien McMahon and Darien football).
A Putnam native, Deary-Fillmore coached the Centaurs from the inception of the program as a team-of-one in the early ‘90s.
Robin Cohen Moore was the first Academy athlete to participate in the sport for Deary-Fillmore.
“She came to me and said that she wanted to do high school (gymnastics) and that’s how I approached the Academy with that. She did for two or three years as a team-of-one and then I had a bunch of kids from The Academy who asked if they could compete as a team,” Deary-Fillmore said.
Deary-Fillmore started the Killingly program in 1987 and was still coaching the Red Hawks (then Redgals) at the time.
She asked if the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference would allow her to coach both schools.
The CIAC agreed and it only grew from there.
“I lucked out. I was in a very rare situation. At one point, I had six high schools all competing for me which is cool, but this is such a totally different sport. We could do it, the CIAC allowed it and I think it was the best thing they ever did,” Deary-Fillmore said.
The reason why she feels that way was it opened the door for more competition at the high school level and a sport, where athletes were generally tucked away in tiny gyms with little recognition, suddenly became much more mainstream. High school athletes could now compete for state titles both as a team and individuals, New England championships and even national titles.
In addition to coaching multiple teams, gymnastics coaches can also work with athletes year-round something that is not accorded to high school coaches such as football, soccer or baseball, on a general basis.
“I don’t understand why that is not allowed,” Deary-Fillmore said of the other sports coaches not being able to work with athletes throughout the year. “I don’t get it. Somebody having an advantage over someone else because someone trains harder than someone else. I thought that was the whole idea. I am in a different situation in that most of the higher level gymnasts train year-round anyhow. A lot of the 3-sport athletes don’t because they are involved in multiple sports.”
It took a while, but the Centaurs eventually began to rival and then overtook the Killingly program in the gym.
Killingly won its first state championship under Deary-Fillmore’s guidance in 1990 and then again in 2004,’05 and ’07.
The Centaurs began to come into their own shortly after the Killingly ’07 title.
It was a rise that Deary-Fillmore expected.
“I did because everything goes in cycles. I knew the talent that was coming there. I was lucky, I had that advantage of having an idea of who was coming up,” Deary-Fillmore said.
The Centaurs won their first ECC championship in 2010.
They haven’t lost since.
The first state championship came in 2011.
The Centaurs have won a state title every year since.
Both Woodstock Academy and Killingly won a state championship in 2012. The Red Hawks claimed the Class S title, the Centaurs the Class M championship.
“That was the most amazing thing ever,” Deary-Fillmore said.
She is still the only coach to have won two state titles in the matter of hours. It remains the highlight of Deary-Fillmore’s high school coaching career.
The Centaurs went on to win four State Open titles in Deary-Fillmore’s tenure from 2012-15 and a New England championship in 2012.
Just as important, Deary-Fillmore helped Centaurs alums Shaila Segal (Central Michigan), Courtney Osborne (Rhode Island College) and Bree Hussong - who started a gymnastics club at Northeastern University – compete at the next level.
Deary-Fillmore retired as head coach following the 2014-15 season turning the reins of the programs over to her daughter and the Centaurs’ success has not slowed.
“She did an amazing job with what she built and it has continued to grow because of her,” Tocchio said.
Deary-Fillmore is still a volunteer assistant for both programs and the fun part is, she still gets to see many of her former athletes, some, like Hussong, even work for her at Deary’s Gymnastics.
“They all come back, that’s the best part,” Deary-Fillmore said. “They all come back to visit or they all come back with their kids. Their kids are competing for their Moms now. When I go back and see all the stuff (that her teams and athletes accomplished), it makes me really happy.”
Marc Allard
Director of Sports Information
The Woodstock Academy