Canton Sportsman Inducted Into Wrestling Hall of Fame

CANTON, CT — A local sports journalist who has provided extensive coverage of Connecticut high school wrestling for more than three decades was honored Saturday with induction into the New England High School Wrestling Hall of Fame.

Gerry deSimas, Jr., owner of the Collinsville Press.com web site and founder of Connecticut Wrestling Online, which has covered state wrestling since 2001, became the first sports journalist from Connecticut to be inducted, as part of a ceremony at the New England Interscholastic Wrestling Championships in Providence, R.I.

"I am honored and humbled to be inducted into the New England High School Wrestling Hall of Fame with a distinguished group of coaches, officials and administrators who have done so much for the sport and the athletes across Connecticut and New England," deSimas said. "The induction into this Hall of Fame is a wonderful honor and I want to thank the committee for thinking of me. "

He was honored four times as the sportswriter of the year by the Connecticut High School Coaches Association’s wrestling committee. Since 2001, he has researched and produced the Connecticut High School Wrestling Record Book, 30 pages of individual records, team achievements, and historical wrestling information. In January, he took over Connecticut’s top 10 wrestling poll after longtime sponsor Norwich Bulletin declined to continue it after 34 years.

In his career, deSimas has won more than a dozen writing awards from the Connecticut chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, the New England Press Association, and United Press International.

"When I began writing about wrestling I was just hoping to share the excitement of the sport with the readers," he said. "When I began Connecticut Wrestling Online in 2001, I was hoping it would be one place for wrestling fans to go to get the latest scores, box scores and information about wrestling instead of searching through dozens of newspapers. I established the state record book to give sportswriters - like myself - a resource so they could put the accomplishments of the athletes into perspective and make their stories more interesting to read."

deSimas has served as corresponding secretary for the National Wrestling Hall of Fame’s Connecticut chapter, which has hosted three induction banquets and will do so again in 2019. He is a member of the Board of Directors of Connecticut Wrestling, Inc., which established the Connecticut Wrestling Hall of Fame in 2016.

He has been an award-winning Communications Specialist at Eversource Energy in Connecticut for 20 years. He is a member of the Connecticut Sports Writers' Alliance and has been the co-editor of the Connecticut High School Football Record Book since 2004. He has covered the WNBA’s Connecticut Sun and New York Liberty for several national publications.

Photo credit: Mark Kosman