Fiori to Coach East Catholic Baseball in 2012

Martin Fiori apologized over the phone for not returning a call.

The last few days had been rather hectic for the new baseball coach and his voice mailbox was jammed – being named to replace a state coaching icon is not an everyday occasion – and the 40-year old former East Catholic player had been flooded with calls from friends, family and alumni.

No apology necessary.

announced his retirement from coaching on Feb. 3 after 43 years at East Catholic where he amassed 600 wins and four state championships while sending hundreds of student athletes to colleges throughout the country.

Fiori is among many successful alumni. He graduated from East Catholic in 1990 along with Penders’ son Jim, who is the head baseball coach at the University of Connecticut, and has been an assistant under Penders at East the past nine seasons.

After a week of speculation, Fiori was officially named interim coach on Friday.

“Coach Penders has been a big figure in my life going back to when I played for him,” Fiori said. “Being able to coach beside him over the past nine seasons has been fantastic. It’s hard to see him retire but I know he supports me and I feel very fortunate and honored to be stepping into his position.”

Fiori was with Penders for his 600^th win last June, a thrilling 11-inning, 7-6 victory over Wamogo High that sent the Eagles to their eighth state championship game.

“It should be a seamless, continuing saga of success,” said the 70-year old Penders, who will retire from teaching at the end of the school year. “Usually you don’t have assistant coaches staying with the same program for nine years, so we are fortunate”

Fiori was an infielder at Keene State under coach Ken Howe for four seasons and graduated in 1995 with a Bachelor’s Degree in Occupational Safety and Health. He is the owner of Blasting Techniques Inc. in South Windsor.

“I look forward to the opportunity to keep the East Catholic tradition alive,” Fiori said. “It will certainly be an adjustment, but I think it will be a nice, smooth transition because we are familiar with the program. Coach Penders was so unselfish and gave us a lot of responsibility and though he was the one getting the W’s, he really made us all feel like we were getting the W’s with him. To be able to contribute to his 600 wins is great as player and coach next to him. He was never an ego guy so we kind of learned that it doesn’t mean you are any more important than anybody else. He is a true teacher of the game, a master strategist but he is great person above all.”

Penders announced his retirement just 45 days before tryouts for the 2012 season are scheduled to begin, which did not leave enough time for a thorough search for a replacement outside the school.

“It’s an interim situation at the present time,” East Catholic athletic director Tom Malin said. “The little quirk in this whole scenario is that it’s getting late in the winter season and spring is right around the corner. We have some contractual things we have to do with our association as far as posting the job and that restricted us a little bit in naming a fulltime replacement.”

Fiori will become just the third person to deliver a lineup card as an East Catholic head coach in the nearly 50-year history of the program on April 4 when the Eagles open the season at New Britain. Penders took over from Don Burns, the program’s founder, in 1969.

“The other little part of this is that Jim will be retiring from teaching, so we will be having a phys ed. job open now, so you never know who is going to apply for that,” Malin said. "I love my outside coaches, but I’m a great believer as an athletic director that the more coaches you can get in school the better. A teacher in the school can see the kids for eight hours. And that was the beauty of coach (Penders) he was in the building every day since 1969 and could keep tabs on the kids. If you get the right candidate, he might be able to coach another sport here.”

Fiori will have Mark McMahon, a 1976 East Catholic grad and former Manchester CC and UConn first baseman, as an assistant and is looking to add one more member to the staff. McMahon has worked with Penders and Fiori as East’s JV coach over the past nine years.

Fiori is not fazed by the interim tag.

“We are always interim,” Fiori said. “We are always year-to-year. I know it happened quick but I’m confident that I will be there for a marathon, not a sprint. High school athletics is really year to year anyway. I am committed to the blue and white and I promise to work hard for the betterment of the school and the students and the athletes and our alumni because the East Catholic community is a special place and we all work hard for what we have over there.”

“He has an enormous amount of energy,” Penders said of his successor. “He’s not only a very good baseball man, he is a very good person and can really relate with the kids. He doesn’t just care about wins and losses, he cares about the kids outside the baseball field and after they have graduated. He develops lifelong friendships with people.”

Fiori will have a strong core of returning players from a team that overachieved all the way to the Class S championship game last June. Catcher Alex Fulco, shortstop Garrett Richardello and first baseman Nick Benoit will serve as captains and Fiore’s first East Catholic team will have the same goal as Penders’ last.

“We said last year that our goal was to win eight games and make the tournament and we had a special year” Fiori said. “Kids step up. Our upper classmen are so great with our underclassmen. It’s like having more coaches on the field. The kids that we have coming back are great people and we have the same goal: try to win eight games.”

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Correction: An earlier versioin of this story incorrectly referred to the new East Catholic Boys Baseball Coach as Mike Fiore.