Marmer To Receive RHS Hall of Fame Exceptional Service Award

VERNON, CT — Dr. Ellen Marmer, a 52-year resident of Vernon who has served as the team doctor for the local public school system for nearly that long, will receive the Rockville High School Athletic Hall of Fame's John R. Williams, Jr. Exceptional Service Award on Sunday.

The eighth RHS Athletic Hall of Fame Social and Induction Ceremonies are scheduled for Sunday at the high school. A 1 p.m. social will be followed by the 2 p.m. ceremonies. Tickets are priced at $20 and can be reserved by contacting Scott Smith at smithsc33sbcglobal.net or at 860-604-6618.

Since the early 1970s, Marmer has been on call at virtually every RHS home varsity football game. Until the passing five years ago of her husband, Dr. Harold Shapiro, the physician who conducted physicals for all RHS athletes for many years, Marmer had also attended most RHS away football games, as well.

For nearly three decades through the early 2000s, Marmer worked alongside the late John Williams.

"John was a great, nice guy who really had the interest of the kids and school at heart," Marmer recalled. "I loved having John around … he was a great help to me if I had a problem."

Like Williams, Marmer has developed unbreakable ties to the RHS athletic program and its athletes, and despite the additional rigors of maintaining her Vernon practice on Hartford Turnpike, the 82-year-old Marmer has no plans of slowing down.

"Basically, I love the kids and I still enjoy it, and thankfully, I’m healthy enough to continued doing it," added Marmer, who now limits herself to home varsity football games after attending freshman and jayvee games in addition to varsity road contests for many years. "I love the kids – and they know I love them – but I’m tough," she admitted. "I don’t like the kids to get away with (anything). The kids know, don't (anger) the doc. As much as I love them, you know, I have certain criteria – things you do and things you don’t do."

In addition to her commitment to RHS athletics, Marmer has been active in town politics as a two-term mayor from 2003-07 and remains involved with countless civic organizations since her arrival in town in June of 1969.

Marmer landed in Vernon by chance when her husband – who was working the emergency room at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx at the time — came across an advertisement in the New England Journal of Medicine.

"He yelled out, 'Ellie, where’s Rockville, Connecticut?’ Marmer said. "We came up here and loved the area, and have been here ever since.”

Marmer developed her irascible personality while growing up as an only child in the projects of East New York and Brooklyn before the family moved to Port Chester during her sophomore year of high school. She graduated second in her high school class — by two-tenths of a percentage point.

Despite being told by her guidance counselor that “girls aren’t doctors," Marmer became one of only two women in her graduating class at the University of Alabama School of Medicine in 1964.

After working with RHS charter Hall of Fame coach Tom Dunn throughout each of his 26 seasons, Marmer says that she had an arrangement with Dunn’s successors in recent years.

"There’s a deal I cut with them," she said. "I won’t coach the team, and you don't practice medicine, and we'll do very well together."

Marmer is also a form mayor of Vernon.

The RHS Athletic Hall of Fame Class of 2021 includes former athletes, coaches and administrators and includes director of athletics Thomas E. Allan (1988 to 2004); three-time all-conference basketball player Karen Marshall (1996); the late boys’ golf coach Theodore “Ted” C. Wagner (1947 and 1969 to 1994); girls badminton coach Robert B. Carlson (1979 to 1988); boys and girls cross-country and boys track & field coach David W. Smith (1990 to 2005); left-handed baseball pitcher Jason M. Metzger (2000); football interior lineman Brian J. Arnold (1991), and the late head baseball coach Ronald A. Kozuch (1958 to 1966).