Three senior East Hampton High School athletes — Jack Dickinson, Cami Hatch, and Claire McGovern — as well as two adults, Kim Covell and Tom McGlade, were honored by the Old Montauk Athletic Club at a dinner at the Springs Tavern Friday evening.
Dickinson, the high school baseball team’s ace pitcher (and a basketball and football player too), who is to play baseball at Niagara University, was the club’s pick as its senior male athlete of the year. McGovern, the club’s senior female athlete of the year, who has played varsity girls soccer, basketball, and lacrosse, captaining the latter two teams this school year, is to major in political science at Skidmore College and intends to try out for the women’s basketball team there. Hatch, the Bill O’Donnell swimming award recipient, who holds high school and Hurricane Y.M.C.A. swimming records and has swum in national Y and New York State meets, plans to take pre-med courses at the University of Tennessee, where she’ll matriculate in the fall.
Hatch’s high school coach, Craig Brierley, said that while the award winner possessed talent in abundance, she nevertheless worked extraordinarily hard throughout her high school career. He couldn’t be more proud of her, he said.
“I’ve watched Jack, who started playing basketball with my son Liam when he was in the second or third grade, grow from an adorable little kid into a wonderful young man,” OMAC’s Jennifer Fowkes said. “His leadership on and off the diamond and court is what really makes him stand out. He is smart, kind, always giving back and volunteering at events, and an amazing athlete.”
Covell, a long-distance runner and Express News Group editor who has raised money through road races she’s overseen for the Flying Point Foundation for Autism, could not attend, but said, in part, in comments read to the attendees by Fowkes, that “to say I was surprised to get a call that I was selected for the community service award is an understatement, but to be honored for contributions to our community through athletics is a true honor. To me, it’s not only about the money and awareness raised through events, but also about the friends you meet along the way. If this recognition has the added bonus of bringing attention to the foundation, that makes it even more special to me, and, by extension, those who benefit from the organization’s programs.”
Those programs, Covell said, include “a summer camp in Southampton for those with autism and their typical peers, recreational programs throughout the year, teacher grants, student scholarships, and an annual training seminar for first responders.”
Fowkes added that “when not competing, Kim often volunteers at athletic events for other charities, including the I-Tri girls’ triathlons, and at the Hamptons Marathon, where she usually rides in the middle of the pack so she can encourage those who may need it the most. She hikes the local trails almost every day with her autistic son, and mountain-bikes locally and up the Island.”
The adult athlete of the year, McGlade, 59, a retired New York City fireman and a triathlete since the age of 21 who splits his time between the town of Kent in Putnam County and Beach Hampton in Amagansett, continues to compete at a high level, though his best times — including fourth, seventh, and ninth-place finishes at the Mighty Hamptons Triathlon and a third-place finish at the Sprint to the Lighthouse Triathlon — were, he said during an interview the next day, behind him.
“It was so nice, so many people I knew were there,” said McGlade, adding, as he had said the night before, that “this place is really unique, it’s a great place to train, it’s beautiful . . . and there’s such a long triathlon tradition here, beginning in the early ’80s with Ray Charron and Ambrose Salmini. . . . There are so many races out here. You can always find one, and it’s a great community. When I go out for a run or a bike in the summer, I always run into people I know all the time.”
The award winner is temporarily sidelined owing to severe frostbite his fingers suffered during February’s multiday ultra race over the Iditarod trail in Alaska — a setback that has led him to swear off any more ultra racing. Asked if he’d ever run the Shelter Island 10K, he said he double-dipped on the same day at the Montauk Triathlon and Shelter Island 10K in 1995, running the triathlon’s 10K in 37 minutes and 30 seconds and the 10K later that day in 37:40.
When this writer remarked that runners, triathletes too, often remembered their exact times from years past, McGlade laughed and said that his college swimming coach at the State University at New Paltz, Art Stockin, had said if his memory were as keen when it came to his college courses as it was when it came to reciting his times, he’d be Phi Beta Kappa.
Stockin, a well-known Division III coach, he added, had turned him from a sprinter into a long-distance freestyler, which was to serve him well when it came to triathloning.
Speaking of which, he said, “Some of the most beautiful courses I’ve ever done have been out here. How can you beat the Montauk Sprint Triathlon’s finish, where you wind up at the Lighthouse, looking out over the bluffs and the Sound and Block Island?”
In parting, he said, “It was nice to be honored, especially out here, in a place that I love, and where no one, except for you, remembers my performances.” Three senior East Hampton High School athletes — Jack Dickinson, Cami Hatch, and Claire McGovern — as well as two adults, Kim Covell and Tom McGlade, were honored by the Old Montauk Athletic Club at a dinner at the Springs Tavern Friday evening.
Dickinson, the high school baseball team’s ace pitcher (and a basketball and football player too), who is to play baseball at Niagara University, was the club’s pick as its senior male athlete of the year. McGovern, the club’s senior female athlete of the year, who has played varsity girls soccer, basketball, and lacrosse, captaining the latter two teams this school year, is to major in political science at Skidmore College and intends to try out for the women’s basketball team there. Hatch, the Bill O’Donnell swimming award recipient, who holds high school and Hurricane Y.M.C.A. swimming records and has swum in national Y and New York State meets, plans to take pre-med courses at the University of Tennessee, where she’ll matriculate in the fall.
Hatch’s high school coach, Craig Brierley, said that while the award winner possessed talent in abundance, she nevertheless worked extraordinarily hard throughout her high school career. He couldn’t be more proud of her, he said.
“I’ve watched Jack, who started playing basketball with my son Liam when he was in the second or third grade, grow from an adorable little kid into a wonderful young man,” OMAC’s Jennifer Fowkes said. “His leadership on and off the diamond and court is what really makes him stand out. He is smart, kind, always giving back and volunteering at events, and an amazing athlete.”
Covell, a long-distance runner and Express News Group editor who has raised money through road races she’s overseen for the Flying Point Foundation for Autism, could not attend, but said, in part, in comments read to the attendees by Fowkes, that “to say I was surprised to get a call that I was selected for the community service award is an understatement, but to be honored for contributions to our community through athletics is a true honor. To me, it’s not only about the money and awareness raised through events, but also about the friends you meet along the way. If this recognition has the added bonus of bringing attention to the foundation, that makes it even more special to me, and, by extension, those who benefit from the organization’s programs.”
Those programs, Covell said, include “a summer camp in Southampton for those with autism and their typical peers, recreational programs throughout the year, teacher grants, student scholarships, and an annual training seminar for first responders.”
Fowkes added that “when not competing, Kim often volunteers at athletic events for other charities, including the I-Tri girls’ triathlons, and at the Hamptons Marathon, where she usually rides in the middle of the pack so she can encourage those who may need it the most. She hikes the local trails almost every day with her autistic son, and mountain-bikes locally and up the Island.”
The adult athlete of the year, McGlade, 59, a retired New York City fireman and a triathlete since the age of 21 who splits his time between the town of Kent in Putnam County and Beach Hampton in Amagansett, continues to compete at a high level, though his best times — including fourth, seventh, and ninth-place finishes at the Mighty Hamptons Triathlon and a third-place finish at the Sprint to the Lighthouse Triathlon — were, he said during an interview the next day, behind him.
“It was so nice, so many people I knew were there,” said McGlade, adding, as he had said the night before, that “this place is really unique, it’s a great place to train, it’s beautiful . . . and there’s such a long triathlon tradition here, beginning in the early ’80s with Ray Charron and Ambrose Salmini. . . . There are so many races out here. You can always find one, and it’s a great community. When I go out for a run or a bike in the summer, I always run into people I know all the time.”
The award winner is temporarily sidelined owing to severe frostbite his fingers suffered during February’s multiday ultra race over the Iditarod trail in Alaska — a setback that has led him to swear off any more ultra racing. Asked if he’d ever run the Shelter Island 10K, he said he double-dipped on the same day at the Montauk Triathlon and Shelter Island 10K in 1995, running the triathlon’s 10K in 37 minutes and 30 seconds and the 10K later that day in 37:40.
When this writer remarked that runners, triathletes too, often remembered their exact times from years past, McGlade laughed and said that his college swimming coach at the State University at New Paltz, Art Stockin, had said if his memory were as keen when it came to his college courses as it was when it came to reciting his times, he’d be Phi Beta Kappa.
Stockin, a well-known Division III coach, he added, had turned him from a sprinter into a long-distance freestyler, which was to serve him well when it came to triathloning.
Speaking of which, he said, “Some of the most beautiful courses I’ve ever done have been out here. How can you beat the Montauk Sprint Triathlon’s finish, where you wind up at the Lighthouse, looking out over the bluffs and the Sound and Block Island?”
In parting, he said, “It was nice to be honored, especially out here, in a place that I love, and where no one, except for you, remembers my performances.”
