Two More Award Recipients Announced for 83rd Gold Key Dinner

They will be honored by the Connecticut Sports Media Alliance at the 83rd Gold Key Dinner in October at the Aqua Turf Club in Southington.

SOUTHINGTON, CT, June 4, 2025 — Two more honorees have been announced as award recipients from the Connecticut Sports Media Alliance (CSMA) at the 83rd Gold Key Dinner in October.

Wayne Norman, a radio broadcaster at WILI since1970, will be presented the Bob Barton Excellence In Media Award. A member of the Connecticut Broadcasters Association Hall of Fame, he was named the Connecticut Sportscaster of the Year by the National Sports Media Association in 2020.

Norman has served as color analyst for University of Connecticut basketball and football broadcasts since 1979 on a network of stations that includes WILI. He was the play-by-play voice of WILI’s broadcasts of Eastern Connecticut State University baseball, winners of four NCAA national championships, most recently in 2002.

He was given the Distinguished Service Award by the New England Collegiate Baseball Coaches Association in 1985. In 2023, he received the Monahan and Wallace Media Award from the Eastern Athletic Communications Association, bestowed upon an individual or organization in either print or electronic media “for outstanding coverage of eastern intercollegiate athletics.”

The Bo Kolinsky Memorial Sports Media Scholarship, an annual $3,000 award given in memory of a former Alliance president and high school sports editor of the Hartford Courant, will be presented to Kyle Clark. A senior at Rockville High School in Vernon, Clark has become a respected young sports media content creator, with his biggest project being a 4-part video docu-series, "Rockville Football - Restoring the Rock," chronicling the resurgence of the Ram gridiron program.

Clark’s work includes national travel and paid opportunities with the Albany City Rocks AAU program. He has covered several CIAC state championship events, including basketball at Mohegan Sun Arena and football at Rentschler Field. He hopes to continue building his career in sports media at his next destination – the University of Connecticut.

Norman and Clark, along with the 2025 Gold Key Award honorees and other award winners, will be feted Oct. 26, 2025 at the Aqua Turf Club in the Plantsville section of Southington. Receiving Gold Keys will be former Masuk High School and Louisiana State University softball pitcher Rachele Fico, former Stratford High School football star and Super Bowl champion Nick Giaquinto, longtime Yale University men’s basketball coach James Jones, World Series champion pitching coach Dave Wallace and NCAA, WNBA and Olympic basketball champion Kara Wolters.

Previously-announced award winners are Peter King, longtime senior NFL writer for sports Illustrated (President’s Award) and Dolores Sawchuk of Colchester (Bo Kolinsky Special Recognition Award). More honorees will be revealed in the coming weeks.

Tickets for the Gold Key Dinner are $80, and are available by contacting CSMA president Tim Jensen of Patch Media Corp. at 860-394-5091 or tim.jensen@patch.com. Proceeds support the Bo Kolinsky Memorial Sports Media Scholarship.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - Contact Tim Jensen, CSMA president, tim.jensen@patch.com, 860-394-5091