Hats off to Larry

By Tom Haley
Staff Writer
I was in the drive-through line at Dunkin’ on Thursday morning when WSYB’s Judy Anderson and Mike Cameron brought us back from commercials with the 1961 hit song “Hats Off to Larry” by Dell Shannon.

A caller reminded us that Shannon had performed in the area at the Hampton Manor.

It all got me to thinking: What athlete named Larry should we be taking our hat off to in Vermont?

Blue Mountain’s Larry Hall is not a contender for the top Larry on the state’s athletic landscape but he does rate a mention for scoring 1,081 points for the Bucks in basketball from 1969 through 1972.

The late Larry Hadley, a gym teacher, football coach and track and field coach at Bellows Falls, has the athletic complex at Bellows Falls Union High School named for him.

I used to love to watch Springfield High’s Larry Partridge chase down fly balls for the Cosmos. I have to mention him but, again, he doesn’t make the cut of the Green Mountain State’s greatest Larrys.

No, if we are going to take our hat off to Larry, he has got to be one of the all-time greats.

Someone like Larry Gardner. After he batted .432 his senior year to lead Enosburg High to a state championship in baseball in 1904, he went on to star for the University of Vermont before playing in the major leagues for the Red Sox, Philadelphia Athletics and Cleveland Indians.

His best season in the major leagues was in 1921 when he batted .319, knocked in 120 runs and scored 101 more.

Larry Damon is also a contender. A Nordic skier, he was the University of Vermont’s first NCAA skiing champion.

His hey-day was in the 1950s and 60s.

He also developed the Nordic trails at the iconic Trapp Family Lodge and Ski Center in Stowe.

Rutland Herald outdoor writer Dennis Jensen would never forgive me if I did not include Larry Benoit among the state’s top Larrys.

Waterbury’s Benoit is one of the greats anywhere when it comes to outdoor sports.

It was in 1970 that Sports Afield magazine in its cover story called Benoit “The Best Deer Hunter in America.”

Then, there’s Larry Killick. He scored 309 points for a University of Vermont basketball team that went 19-3 during the 1946-47 season. He was drafted by the Baltimore Bullets.

Gardner, Damon and Killick all made the Sports Illustrated list of the top 50 Vermont athletes of the century when it was released in 1999.

Gardner was ranked highest at No. 7 but any of those guys deserve the crown signifying Vermont’s greatest Larry.

But I think I will veer off course a little bit and nominate another Larry who isn’t even quite a Larry.

A lot of people don’t know that Poody Walsh’s real name is Lawrence.

Walsh is the only person to be inducted into both the New Hampshire Interscholastic Athletic Association’s Hall of Fame and the Vermont Principals’ Association’s Hall of Fame.

He doggedly covered local sports on both sides of the Connecticut River for decades as the sports editor of the Daily Eagle, which later became the Eagle Times. He started his career after graduating from Bellows Falls.

His Vermont beat included schools like Black River High School, Green Mountain Union High School, Springfield High, Bellows Falls, Windsor and Vermont Academy.

His column was a must read all over the Connecticut River Valley, particularly the one on Sunday.

Poody was an aggressive columnist. He never shied away from taking on local sports personalities.

He once wrote a column calling for the dismissal of Walter Morse as the Fall Mountain Regional basketball coach before Morse had ever coached a game. Morse was a football coach who had some success at the school and Walsh simply did not feel he was qualified to coach hoops.

One of the most memorable of his Sunday columns was the one he wrote criticizing Boston Red Sox TV announcer Ken Harrelson.

Harrelson began his broadcasting career with the Red Sox in 1975.

Walsh’s entire column was critical of the “Hawk” and he ended it by calling him “the mealy mouthed man behind the mic.”

He also asked readers to clip out the column and mail it to the Red Sox, providing the address at the end of the column.

Walsh did hear from an unhappy Harrelson.

Lawrence, after today you can go back to being Poody. Today, you are on the list of the cream of Vermont’s Larrys.

tom.haley @rutlandherald.com