Monument Mountain Inducts Four into Hall of Fame
GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass. -- Four new names Saturday were added to the banners in Monument Mountain's gym.
But the latest inductees into the school's athletic Hall of Fame already were well represented in the existing banners.
Athletes Matthew McMenamy, Sarah Mead and Jennifer Twiss and longtime track and field coach Stephen Piazzo were recognized in a brief ceremony before the boys basketball game between Monument Mountain and Wahconah.
Vice Principal Scott Annand and Piazzo's colleague Terry Flynn talked about the standout careers of each of the inductees.
Twiss, who lives in Winnipeg and was represented at the ceremony by her parents, was a 12-sport letter-winner in her four year career at the school, Annand said.
She led the Spartans to success on the soccer pitch and the softball diamond, where Annand was her coach for a run to the Western Massachusetts championship.
"In basketball is probably where she shined the most," Annand said. "under the tutelage of coach Tom Kinne, she wa a three-year starter, four-year Western Mass finalist, three-year Western Mass title winner and, in her junior year, won a state championship."
McMenamy led Monument Mountain football team to its only undefeated season and a Western Massachusetts Super Bowl championship in 1996.
"We haven't had much success in Monument Mountain football in a while, but certainly Matt had a huge amount of success," Annand said. "In his junior and senior years, we only lost one game. He was a two-way star at quarterback and safety and part of a truly amazing group of athletes."
Like the two women inducted along with him, McMenamy also was a three-sport athlete, excelling at baseball and basketball, Annand said.
Mead won 10 letters in basketball, softball and soccer. Like Twiss, she played for Annand in the spring.
"What separated her was her toughness, her ability to get dirty, her desire to play sports," Annand said. "I had to, in her senior year on the night of the prom, kick her out of the batting cage and say, 'It's time to go get a dress on and go to the prom.' She didn't really care about the prom.
"She worried about our Western Mass game the next day. She truly was a person who loved the sport, and it was huge and she was an absolute joy to coach."
Mead has carried her passion for sports into her adult life, coaching at the school for 13 years in softball and soccer.
"She's a huge part of our past, a huge part of our present and, hopefully, a huge part of our future," Annand said.
Mead's fellow coach took the microphone after he was introduced by Flynn and talked about what motivated him to coach for 38 years at the school.
"One of the true joys of my life has been coaching the young men and women of Monument," Piazzo said. "It's been breathtaking each season to observe the individual students morph into a single, cohesive unit, a team. That is very special, when you take people who sometimes don't even know each other, and two months later, they seem to be best of friends and they're playing as a team.
"It's exhilarating to contribute to the development of sport-specific skills and be part of a student's metamorphosis from a tentative athlete to a confident competitor."