Ex-Canaanites

’69 NCHS Grad Jeff Caldwell on Coach Sikorski, Lenny Pags and New Canaan of Old

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Here’s what NCHS ’73 grad Brian Sikorski—standout NCHS Rams football player and son of legendary New Canaan High School varsity coach Joe Sikorski—told me about a player just a few years older than he. Though Brian Sikorski never played with Jeff Caldwell, he went to all of his dad’s games and loved watching the hard-hitting safety and linebacker. “Jeff Caldwell was an assassin,” Brian Sikorski said. “Jeff Caldwell used to lead with his head and was one of the hardest-hitting players who ever played at New Canaan High School. Jeff Caldwell was the real deal.

Faces of New Canaan

New Canaan Legend 2-5-0 Leaves for Another ‘NC,’ Friends Gather to Say Farewell

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The NewCanaanite.com Summer Internship Program is sponsored by Baskin-Robbins, Connecticut Sandwich Co., Joe’s Pizza and Mackenzie’s. The beginning of Mark ‘2-5-0’ Rearick’s journey to receiving the nickname that would stick with him for the next 50 years was, of all places, a hospital bed in the Rearick household where the man would spend 10 weeks reviving an injured back from shoveling snow after his freshman football season in 1963. It was during this period of rest when the former 6’ 3’’, 180 pound wide-receiver would become a 240 pound lineman. And it was this surprise transformation that would lead then head coach Joe Sikorski to give Rearick the name ‘2-5-0’ when he returned to football the following season. After teammates Milt Word and Dr. Timothy Empkie eventually started calling him the name, Mr. Rearick would be known from then on to everyone simply as ‘2-5-0.’

Local People

Honoring a New Canaan Teacher: A Tribute to Mr. Parry

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Tim Parry, 44, began to see his father differently—through the eyes of his schoolmates—after arriving at New Canaan High School as a freshman in the late-1980s. By then his dad, Ray Parry, was approaching 30 years teaching science at the high school, including stints as an assistant football coach and equipment manager there. “I came to see a whole different world,” Tim recalled on a recent afternoon. “A world of people that he had done things for. I started to hear, ‘Your dad meant this and that to me,’ ‘I wouldn’t have got into college if not for your dad,’ ‘He pulled me aside and gave me something to read and it changed my life.’ ”

The elder Parry will turn 85 on April 12 and Tim has a special plan to mark the day: Gather videos from former students and colleagues telling his dad what he’s meant to them, and combine the clips in a digital tribute reel (instructions on how to participate can be found at end of this article).