BELLOWS FALLS, Vt. – Congratulations to 2023 Bellows Falls Alumni Association Grand Marshall Bill Murphy!
Bill Murphy has been an educator, recreation director, coach, and journalist in Vermont and throughout New England since the early 1970s. He is still active working as both a sportswriter and radio sportscaster to this day, which covers an employment period of 59 years. Bill’s main occupation throughout his career was as an educator. He lived in Bellows Falls for the first 52 years of his life, and presently lives in Lebanon, N.H.
Bill began his education career as a teacher of a variety of subjects at Westminster Center School working under the tutelage of John Porter. Following 15 enjoyable years in Westminster, he ventured into administration, being named teaching principal at Grafton Elementary School. Ten years later, he moved to the assistant principal position at the Bellows Falls Middle School for seven years, and then completed his educational career as the assistant principal at Hartford High School for eight years, retiring on June 30, 2010.
In addition to his educational experience, Murphy’s interest in recreation and athletics led to a number of jobs in those fields. He became the recreation director for the Town of Rockingham in 1970, after his junior year in college, and served in that capacity for 18 of the next 32 years. He actually was hired in that position three times, and was successful in implementing a variety of programs which attracted record summer participation at the Bellows Falls Playgrounds. The position expanded from its original summer plus a few special events to the entire year during his tenure. His coaching days actually began when he was in college, when he started a 10-year period of coaching the Moose in the Bellows Falls Junior League, a period in which Bellows Falls won the only state title in the league’s history in 1973, finishing seventh in the Eastern Regionals. He also coached the Jets in Pee Wee Football, and spent a dozen years with the Westminster fifth and sixth grade basketball teams. He eventually became the varsity basketball coach at Bellows Falls Union High School, where his teams advanced to five of the school’s 11 Final Four appearances in the past 65 years, and won the Terriers’ only two state championships in the sport’s history at the school, in 1993 and 2000. He concluded his coaching career with a 5-year stint at Vermont Academy, where the 2008-2009 team was the first Wildcat team in 45 years to qualify for the New England Tournament.
He began his sports media days as a writer for the long gone Times Reporter, and has toiled for the Brattleboro Reformer, the Eagle Times, the Baseball Bulletin, the Sports Journal, and the Vermont Journal and Shopper over the years, while at times freelancing for papers such as the Valley News, Manchester Union Leader, Springfield Union, and the Boston Globe. His days in radio began in the late 70s, when he was the sports director at WCFR, and later held the same position at WBFL. He eventually worked for Vox Radio for stations throughout New England, 1510 the Zone in Boston, WARL in Providence, and for the last almost three decades for radio stations owned by Great Eastern Radio.
In his spare time, he refereed basketball throughout the area for a dozen years, and was a baseball umpire at all levels for two decades before a bout with cancer ended those days in 1994.Two sports achievements he is very proud of are creating and running the Connecticut River Valley Baseball League from 1968-1983, and the creation of the Fall Mountain Invitational Baseball Tournament – both for 9-12 year olds – which ran under his tutelage from 1967-1984, and included athletes from up and down the Connecticut River Valley from Keene to Lebanon and Hartford.
The Bellows Falls Chamber of Commerce named him their Person of the Year in 1999. Bill served for years as an executive member for the local community alliance, as co-president of the Vermont State Basketball Coaches, and was the basketball scheduler for both the Southern Vermont and Marble Valley League from 1981-1997. Bill Murphy is full of Purple Terrier pride, and has been an amazing asset to this community. Thank you for your years of service to the schools and the community!