Allan Appel Photo
Current Wilbur Cross High wrestling star Tito Slaughter met the newest inductees to a hall he hopes to enter one day.
On Thursday night, he was one of 230 people celebrating seven other Cross athletes and coaches who graduated as far back 1942. They were honored at the school’s sixth annual Cross Hall of Fame inductee dinner held at Anthony’s Ocean View in Morris Cove.
The hall of fame program was set up six years ago to provide financial support for Cross’s scholar-athletes when they go on to college, and as much to forge a connection between current players and those from the school’s storied past.
“We weren’t seeing many alums at games,” said Jim O’Connor a former assistant principal at Cross who was one of the founders of the Hall of Fame in 2005 along with Victor Vessichio. And “[current] kids didn’t know about the history.”.
Cross’s basketball team (or Hillhouse’s) dominated the state championship, winning for nine of the ten years of the 1960s. The 1973 – 4 team was hailed as one of the best high school teams in the country.
Tito Slaughter (pictured with NHPS athletic supervisor Joe Canzanella) is on Cross’s football team, too. He did know that his current football coach John Acquavito, was a player on the 1984 Cross team, the first inner city football team to win a state championship under modern playoff rules.
That 1984 football team was one of Thursday night’s honorees.
Also inducted were Mike DiNapoli in basketball; Sal Punzo in baseball; and Roberto Clemente Leadership Academy Principal Dr. Leroy Williams (pictured with fellow inductee Al Paolillo) in football, basketball, and track. Ray Tellier, Sr. who coached and fenced, along with Cross athletic director of the 1940s Thomas Degnan, were inducted posthumously.
East Shore Alderman Al Paolillo, Jr. received the Hall of Fame’s distinguished service award.
Tito Slaughter said he was enjoying hanging out with “the old guys.” Canzanella told the nostalgic crowd that Cross had produced other all-state linebackers, as Tito achieved this year. But the senior is the first to be named an all-state wrestler (in the 189 pound category). And that after only two years of wrestling. Click here to read a story about Tito and the New Haven wrestling team
Tito is waiting to hear from Springfield College, where he hopes to continue to play both sports.
Odds are he’ll also be returning to a future Governors’ Athletic Hall of Fame induction dinner too.
Congratulations to all of the inductees of the Wilbur Cross Hall of Fame! The storied history of scholar-athletes at Wilbur Cross is too special to be forgotten.
Special props to my man Tito!! You are truly a throwback competitor.