Stratford -- This is not a softball team. This is an episode of “This Is Your Life.” Here is the unofficial scorecard:
Bob Peruzzotti, Fitch softball assistant coach: Fitch High graduate, Board of Education member.
Bob's daughter, Kate: the Fitch coach. Also a Fitch grad and Fitch softball alum, a player for former coach Glen Graham, who played for original varsity coach Bernie Nasser.
Sophomore Brianna Turgeon: Niece of Cheryl Turgeon, Fitch softball alum.
Senior shortstop Brittany Duclos: Niece of Michelle Leger, former Fitch softball captain.
Arielle Cooper: daughter of Renee Khoury Cooper, Fitch grad, Fitch softball alum.
”I remember the days,” Khoury Cooper was saying Monday, after watching Fitch advance to the Class LL state championship game over Mercy of Middletown. “The good ol' days. Bernie Nasser. If we stepped out of line … he used to make us crawl to left field. He made us want to win.”
Officially, Nasser said, it was not a crawl.
”Duckwalk,” he said. “From home plate to the left-field foul pole, back to home, then to the right-field foul pole. I learned that in wrestling.”
And to think all this happened 25 years ago. Twenty-five years. Twenty-five years that felt like 25 seconds.
Memo to all the Fitch seniors of 2009: You'll remember the shapes and forms of this week - of your whole careers - all your life. That's the power of sports. Even better, that's what happens in this program. You can't help it. When you're in, you're in forever. Just like your moms and aunts.
”I didn't think we'd get along,” Bob Peruzzotti was saying about the prospect of coaching with Kate. “I figured she wouldn't listen to me. But this has been one of the best times of my life.”
It only fits perfectly that such a familial program has one of its own coaching the biggest game in its history Friday or Saturday. Fitch plays Masuk of Monroe, whose resume consists of a pitcher going to LSU and 77 straight wins.
Kate Peruzzotti, who coached at Waterford for a year while Liz Sutman was on maternity leave, is back home.
”We talk about it every night,” her dad said. “Kate loves Liz. She's a friend and a mentor. But it's different for Kate at Fitch. There's nothing better than coaching at your alma mater.”
Unless it's watching your kid play for it.
”I think it means more to me now than it did then,” Khoury Cooper said. “Not too many people's kids even go to the same high school as they did. (Arielle) is a good girl.”
And a good player. She has no choice. In addition to her mom's resume with softball and as an all-state soccer player, Uncle Scott was an all-state baseball player at Fitch and made it to Class AA with the Orioles and Indians.
”My mom's always telling me what I need to work on,” Cooper said. “She doesn't think I listen. But I always do.”
Nasser, who recently retired as a teacher at Fitch, sounds like the proud father. The Fitch softball program started as a club team in the early '70s coached by Tom Doyle, who would go on to win basketball championships at Fitch with his own kids.
”Tommy didn't want to coach varsity and I admit, I wanted to coach baseball, but some guy named Eddie Harvey came along,” Nasser said, referring to the future Fitch coach who won three state titles. “Now softball is like my baby. This makes me feel good to see all the kids playing after all their relatives did.”
Nasser was still rattling off names long into the conversation. Pitcher Aubrey Latham's dad, Mark, wrestled for Nasser. On and on it goes.
Fitch has a number of college players-in-waiting, including Cooper, who has never been the best player on any of her teams, but has done the family proud. She's playing at Eastern Connecticut next year.
Now she's left searching for two things: a state championship and her aunt's recipe for mussels.
Aunt Marieke, Scott's wife, runs South Side Bistro in New London. If it's not the best food in town, it's in the championship round.
”Those things are sooooo good,” Cooper said of her aunt's mussels. “But she won't tell me how to cook them.”
And with that, Arielle Cooper laughed and was off to find her mom after the game. One generation to the next. This is Fitch softball.
