Kurty coached the Westfield State men's soccer team from 1966 to 1977.
John Kurty, the longtime soccer coach at Westfield State University, is seen at a game in 1969 in a photo from the 1970 college yearbook.
WESTFIELD — Legendary soccer coach and retired Westfield State University physical education instruction John Kurty was remembered Thursday as a great neighbor, friend, coach, mentor and daily visitor to Stanley Park.
The 86-year-old Kurty was killed Tuesday while riding his bicycle in front of the university’s Woodward Center at about 2 p.m. Police said no charges are expected to be filed against William Daigle, 46, of Windsor Locks, Conn., the driver of the pickup that collided with Kurty.
Witnesses told police Kurty turned his bicycle into the path of the truck; both were traveling east on Western Avenue at the time of the accident.
Long-time neighbor Madeline Marshall remembered the regular dinners she and her late husband Ronald had with John and Rita Kurty.
“He was a very good neighbor and we always enjoyed their company. We had dinner at each other’s homes on a regular basis,” Marshall said.
“We were friends for a very long time,” she said, noting that the Kurty family moved to Westwood Drive shortly after she did in 1959.
Former player and student Paul H. Whalley of Southwick remembered Kurty as a “great coach and even a greater person. He taught us to win and lose with class, dignity and grace. When I became a coach he was the standard for the way I wanted to behave. I never reached that level, but he inspired a clear vision of what a coach should be.”
Whalley played under Kurty’s instruction from 1971 to 1974, but never knew his mentor had won a national soccer championship and was an All-American at Penn State. “I learned that when I was submitting a recommendation years later for his entry into the National Coaches Association Hall of Fame,” said Whalley.
“That was the type of person coach Kurty was. He was an amazing and very humble man. He never spoke of himself, only about his players and how they made him successful,” Whalley said.
11.04.2007 | HOLYOKE – John Kurty hands a locker assignment to a student at Holyoke Community College's Bartley Fitness Center.
Kurty, on his bicycle, was a daily visitor at Stanley Park and the park’s staff sent it condolences Thursday.
“We already miss him,” said park director Robert C. McKean. “He was here just about every day between 6 and 7 a.m. The time of the accident surprised us because we rarely saw him in the afternoon.”
“It is heartbreaking because Stanley Park is a large family. He would wave to everybody as he rode his old big rubber-tired bike through the park. Sometimes he would stop and chat. His bike was old, there were no changing gears on it,” said McKean.
“We were lucky to know him. This is a sad loss, a sad day for Stanley Park,” the director added.
After college graduation, Whalley went on to coach soccer at Chicopee High School, and in 1983 when Chicopee High won the state soccer championship, Kurty was the tournament director, Whalley remembered.
“In the 41 years that I’ve know coach Kurty, no matter who I mentioned him to, they said what a great guy he is. No one ever had a bad thing to say about coach perhaps because in my 41 years I never heard him say a bad thing about others,” Whalley said.
Kurty coached Westfield State’s men’s soccer team from 1966 to 1977, compiling a record 153 wins, 36 losses and 13 ties. He was the first coach inducted into the Westfield State Athletics Hall of Fame in 1994. In his 11 seasons as Ludlow High School coach in the '50s and '60s, his teams reached the Western Massachusetts final nine times, winning five titles and tying in the other four. In 2007 he was elected into the Ludlow High School Sports Hall of Fame, both as a player and coach.
The university will host a luncheon in Scanlon Banquet Hall on the Western Avenue campus on Monday following a 10:30 a.m. memorial Mass at St. Mary’s Catholic Church.
Donations in Kurty’s memory can be made to the Coach John Kurty Scholarship Fund, c/o Westfield State Foundation, PO Box 1630, Westfield, MA 01086-1630.