After 52 Years, Legendary Enfield High School Coach Retires

ENFIELD, CT — After 52 years, five state championships and eight Hall of Fame inductions, legendary Enfield High School field hockey coach Cookie Bromage has retired from the program she started in 1967.

In her retirement letter submitted to athletic director Cory O'Connell, Bromage wrote, "My job as field hockey coach has given me the opportunity to work with outstanding student-athletes. I am blessed to have had all of them in my care as their coach. I have made lasting friendships with them and their parents as well. I have been blessed to have the honor to work with Amy [Bartholomew] and Sarah [Pliszka] as my assistant coaches. I know that they will keep our program moving forward and will continue to do a great job."

A charter inductee into the Enfield Athletic Hall of Fame in 1996, Bromage, or "Mrs. B" as her players called her, won more high school state titles than any other coach in town history, either at Enfield or Fermi.

Bromage, 76, guided the Raiders to back-to-back Class M championships in 1983 and 1984, then ran off three straight titles from 1992 to 1994, producing an All-American, Erica Johnston, along the way.

"E.J. was incredible and had the numbers to back it up," Bromage said of Johnston, who became a two-time All-american at the University of Massachusetts. "Erica was truly a gift to have as a player - always upbeat with her teammates and extremely loyal to me. It is still a joy to watch her play field hockey."

Johnston is one of 18 former players who have been inducted alongside their coach into the Hall of Fame.

In addition to Enfield, Bromage is a member of the New Agenda: Northeast Women's Hall of Fame (1998), the Connecticut High School Coaches Association Hall of Fame (1999), the Suffield Athletic Hall of Fame (2003), the Connecticut Field Hockey Hall of Fame (2007) and the National High School Athletic Coaches Association Hall of Fame (2013). She has been honored by the Enfield hall three times: as an individual, and as coach of the 1992-94 championship teams (1999) and the 1983-84 title-winning squads (2007).

The Connecticut Sports Writers' Alliance honored Bromage and her husband, Bob, at the prestigious Gold Key Dinner in 2015 with the Bo Kolinsky Special Recognition Award. The award, named after the late Bo Kolinsky of the Hartford Courant, was presented in recognition of the couple's combined 100 years of high school coaching, a feat never before accomplished by a husband-wife duo in the state.

Bob Bromage also stepped down this week after 15 years coaching baseball at East Granby High School, following a 38-year run as Enfield skipper, including a Class L state runner-up finish in 2001.

During her tenure at Enfield, Bromage also coached girls' basketball for 17 years, and cheerleading for 10.

She is going out on top, having survived a tough stretch in the early part of this decade when the Raiders won just four games in three years. Since merging with former crosstown rival Fermi in 2016, the newly-named Eagles compiled a regular season record of 44-2-2. In that time, Enfield played in the Class L semifinals twice, and made a quarterfinal appearance last fall.

In a phone interview Friday morning, Bromage paid tribute to the late Carl Angelica, the longtime Enfield coach and athletic director who hired her to start a field hockey program more than a half-century ago.

"Mr. Angelica was a frontrunner in promoting girls' sports," she said. "I think we only had girls' basketball at that time - I don't even think there was softball then."

She fondly recalled the day of the Raiders' initial field hockey outing.

"I was overwhelmed, getting on the bus, just me and 45 kids heading up to South Hadley for our first game," she said. "They were singing up a storm!"

She also remembered what she called "the most disappointing day" of her coaching career - Nov. 20, 1982, at Choate-Rosemary Hall in Wallingford, when the Raiders had two goals by future Hall of Famer Lisa Carrara disallowed in a 1-0 loss to Farmington in the 1982 Class M finals.

"I was disappointed because I thought, 'will we ever have this chance again?'," she recalled. "Well, we did, winning it the next two years."

Former players, colleagues and even coaching rivals have nothing but praise for Bromage as a coach and a person.

Nancy Geaglone holds a unique place in Bromage's story - she played on the 1983 and 1984 championship teams, was assistant coach on the three title teams in the early 1990s, and proudly watched her daughter Taylor capture state Player of the Year honors in 2017, and daughter Tori make first-team All-State the past two seasons.

"As a coach, she was firm but loving - what she said, she meant, and you'd better do it," said Geaglone, whom Bromage still refers to affectionately as "Rookie." "She is the reason I got into coaching. No one can be her, she's one of a kind. She has a way with kids and parents that you can't emulate. She has gone above and beyond for my kids, and many others. I consider her family."

Suffield Board of Education chair Susan (Mercik) Davis, who was a field hockey standout at Fermi and Boston University who joined Bromage in the Enfield hall in 2005, said, "Simply the best! My only wish was to have played for her instead of against her! Cookie called and spoke to college coaches for me and essentially enabled me to secure a scholarship to Boston University."

"Mrs. B was someone for whom you just wanted to win every game," said Charlene Lauria, who played on the inaugural Enfield field hockey team in 1967. "Positive and intense, she always emphasized the team, not individuals. Truly a loss for Enfield High and the sport, and I wish her all the best!"

Dot Johnson, a 2018 Gold Key Award recipient who coached rival Granby for more than 30 years and remains a lifetime friend, said, "She was always prepared for our team, but I didn't feel it was a rivalry; it was more of a friendship, and it still is. I'm so happy for her; now she can spend more time at their place in Maine. She's a great friend, and I will miss seeing her roam the sidelines."

"Words cannot even come close to explaining the impact that Cookie has had on athletics here at Enfield High School," O'Connell said. "Cookie has always been one of the most prepared coaches whose demands on her players set them up for success on and off the field. Many see the sweet lady who will come give you a hug and a “oh hello honey” but there is also the fiery competitor who always demands excellence from her teams. She has been a mainstay on the sidelines for 52 years, and it will take some time to get used to her not on the sidelines. The whole Enfield community wishes her nothing but the best and hope she can now go truly enjoy her cabin in Maine."