The Laker/Lutz News

Brown University

Socially distanced tribute honors military hero

By

Francis Xavier O’Connell — a former prisoner of war and decorated military veteran — had been scheduled for a special moment during the most recent session of the Florida Legislatures.

State Rep. James Grant, from House District 64, sponsored a tribute for O’Connell’s “exemplary military service and his unwavering dedication to the United States of America.”

Francis Xavier O’Connell salutes behind the glass doors at Angels Senior Living at the Lodges of Idlewild, in Lutz. Because of the COVID-19 lockdown, he had to watch the ceremony, as it was performed outside. (Courtesy of Jennifer Pamplona)

The tribute was scheduled to be delivered in the gallery of the House of Representatives in Tallahassee, according to O’Connell’s niece, Carolyn Matthews.

But, that’s just one of the things that hasn’t happened in recent months because of COVID-19.

Instead, a ceremony was arranged at Angels Senior Living at the Lodges of Idlewild, in Lutz, Matthews said, via email.

Because senior care facilities remain in lockdown, members of two veterans groups stepped forward to help create a dignified event to honor O’Connell.

Members of the Assisting Veterans of America Support Team  (AVAST) provided an Honor Guard. Luis Anjurjo, an AVAST member, sang the National Anthem.

Members of the Assisting Veterans of America Support Team (AVAST) provided an Honor Guard.

Retired U.S. Army Col. Reginal Williams, of the Tampa Chapter of the Military Officers Association of America (MOAA), said the invocation. Retired Army Col. Charles Dalcourt, president of the chapter, presented the tribute to O’Connell, who retired as a U.S. Army Chief Warrant Officer 4. The group also provided a photographer for the occasion.

Because of social distancing requirements, O’Connell had to stay inside the center.

He was able to see what was happening, though, through the Lodges’ glass front doors. Other residents also were able to attend the ceremony.

State lawmaker Grant’s tribute outlines highlights of O’Connell’s military career.

In part, it says that O’Connell began his service with basic and advanced military training in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, before a deployment to Casablanca, Morocco, where O’Connell joined the 45th Infantry Division of the United States Army and trained for battle alongside the first appointed United States Special Forces.

In 1943 and 1944, he took part in three hard-fought but ultimately victorious amphibious assault landings in Italy.

During his fourth amphibious assault landing in southern France, O’Connell fought with his unit inland, where, in September of 1944, the unit was surrounded by Panzer tanks and German infantry. They were taken prisoner, and sent by trucks and trains to Germany, experiencing frequent strafing by United States aircraft along the way, the tribute says.

Francis Xavier O’ Connell had just graduated from high school when he enlisted in the U.S. Army to fight in World War II. He received this French Legion of Honor medal from the French government, which bestowed it to him as an expression of gratitude for his service.
Other military honors he has received include the Bronze Star and the Combat Infantry Badge. (File)

O’Connell was a prisoner of war for nine months.

“He and his fellow captives were subject to extreme temperatures, near starvations, and brutal forced labor at a work camp in Vilshofen, Germany, until Allied forces took control of the area, and upon being freed, his unit made the journey on foot to Bremerhaven, over 520 miles away,” an excerpt from the tribute says.

O’Connell went on to earn his bachelor’s degree in business administration from Brown University.

After that, he reenlisted in the U.S. Army, in 1949, and served in an Intelligence Division at numerous duty stations in the United States, and in Germany, Saudi Arabia, Ecuador and Brazil.

Francis Xavier O’Connell sits inside the senior center, during a portion of the program. (Courtesy of Jennifer Pamplona)

He retired from the Army in 1984, and continued to serve in the United States  Army Reserves until 1989.

During his  42 years of service, O’Connell received the Bronze Star and the Combat Infantryman Badge. He also was inducted into the French Foreign Legion of Honor by the French government.

In an interview with The Laker/Lutz News, conducted in August, 2017, O’Connell shared some of his war-time memories.

He recalled there were times during World War II when he wasn’t sure he’d live to see another sunrise. He talked about being a prisoner of war and recalled being so thin at one point, he only weighed 80 pounds.

He credited his mother’s prayers for keeping him alive during dangerous times on the battlefield and through his captivity as a prisoner of war.

Despite being captured, O’ Connell said he was one of lucky ones. He survived; two-thirds of a his regimen, made up of 1,800 soldiers, were killed.

He also shared the joy he felt when he was finally reunited with his mother.

“You won’t believe how happy it was,” O’Connell said. “She almost fell over, when I put my arms around her.”

Published July 22, 2020

Women’s sports museum opens in Wesley Chapel

By

Wesley Chapel’s AdventHealth Center Ice is widely known as the training grounds of the gold-medal winning 2018 U.S. Olympic women’s ice hockey team.

The Women’s Sports Herstory Museum is a virtual museum dedicated to female pioneers in hockey. Located on the second floor of the AdventHealth Center Ice hockey complex, it features interactive wall panel displays where visitors scan QR codes from their phones to view content online; the museum is also decorated with various female hockey memorabilia and equipment. (Kevin Weiss)

Now, the 150,500-square-foot ice sports complex houses what is believed to be the first virtual museum dedicated to women’s hockey trailblazers.

The museum, called the Women’s Sports Herstory Museum, is the brainchild of female hockey coaching legend Digit Murphy and her friend, Jeff Novotny, a Wesley Chapel resident.

Situated in a second-floor viewing room of the ice hockey complex, 3173 Cypress Ridge Blvd., the museum features interactive wall panel displays where visitors scan QR codes to view content online in the form of videos and in-depth stories.

The poster-sized displays highlight several of hockey’s female pioneers, including Katey Stone,  the first-ever female head coach of a USA Hockey team in the Olympics and current head coach at Harvard University; Katie Guay, the first to officiate an NCAA Division I men’s hockey game; Sara DeCosta Hayes, a two-time USA Hockey Women’s Player of the Year; Amanda Pelkey, a 2018 gold medalist and all-time scoring leader at the University of Vermont; and, of course, Murphy, who became the winningest coach in Division I women’s hockey at Brown University.

The room is also decorated with various sports memorabilia and equipment, including a signed jersey and signed pictures of all 23 members of the U.S. Olympic women’s ice hockey team.

At some point, the museum will highlight a “local hero” for women’s sports in the Tampa Bay area.

Women’s Sports Herstory Museum co-curator Digit Murphy speaks at a March 6 VIP event at AdventHealth Center Ice in Wesley Chapel.

“Girls and women need to hear the stories of the women that played before them,” Murphy said, during a March 6 VIP event for the museum. “When girls and women walk through this museum, I want them to see themselves sitting in the seats of the women that came before them. We need our little girls looking in this room going, ‘Oh, I could be a gold medalist…’”

She continued, “It’s really important that people see their heroes and leaders and role models in pictures and stories, because, especially in sports, you see men all the time and you don’t see it for girls.”

The museum — which opened to the public on March 9 — will be housed at Center Ice for the next three years, through a room sponsorship from Murphy’s Play it Forward Sport and United Women’s Sports organizations, which also will award $1,000 scholarships to local female high school seniors.

The concept was born last year after Murphy took a visit to Canton, Ohio, where she discovered — and became irked — that a $100 million expansion was being made in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Murphy recalled the moment: “I’m like, ‘$100 million for football? Unbelievable.’”

Digit Murphy is the winningest coach in Division I women’s hockey at Brown University.

From that, the hockey legend got in touch with Novotny, an engineer, who figured they could develop a platform where museums about women’s sports could be brought to already existing venues.

“I recognize the importance of how it’s important that we celebrate the women in our lives that do special things, so this was an opportunity to kind of do something unique,” said Novotny, who met Murphy years ago at a hockey clinic for one of his daughters.

Novotny then reached out to AdventHealth Center Ice general manager Gordie Zimmermann, who signed off on a virtual museum in his facility.

Zimmermann is pleased with how it turned out.

“This is an inspiring room, for sure,” Zimmermann said, during the VIP event. “We walk by this room constantly and there’s little kids in here hanging on the walls and now they’re going to be looking at the walls instead.

“We’ve always talked about girls hockey and what can we do with girls hockey. There is a place, for sure, in this sport for girls and the future’s so bright for them.”

Meanwhile, the Wesley Chapel location could be just the tip of the iceberg for Murphy and Novotny’s virtual women’s sports museum initiative.

The co-curators hope to expand the project to highlighting women in various other sports in other cities.

Novotny said they’ve even been approached by some universities to create a virtual museum for their alumni female athletes. “It’s scalable to any sport,” he said.

And, Murphy wants to see the virtual museums “everywhere.”

“We want this to be something that goes viral,” she said. “We want more of women’s stories out there, so that Herstory can happen.”

For more information about the museum, visit GetHerStory.com.

Published March 13, 2019

Sports museum coming to Florida Hospital Center Ice

By

Digit Murphy knows a thing or two about achieving success in the sports industry, as one of the most decorated female hockey coaches of all time.

She was the featured guest speaker during the North Tampa Bay Chamber of Commerce’s Women of Wesley Chapel event on Dec. 7 at Beach House Assisted Living & Memory Care, at Wiregrass Ranch. Her presentation centered on female empowerment and fostering gender equity in sports.

Digit Murphy, left, is shown with Florida Hospital Center Ice Managing Partner Gordie Zimmermann. Murphy’s nonprofit, Play It Forward Sport Foundation, has partnered with Florida Hospital Center Ice to bring a first-of-its kind women’s sports museum to the Wesley Chapel-based ice complex. The interactive museum is expected to open early next year. (Courtesy of North Tampa Bay Chamber of Commerce)

She was in town for another announcement, also.

Murphy’s Play It Forward Sport Foundation has partnered with Florida Hospital Center Ice to bring a first-of-its-kind women’s sports museum to the Wesley Chapel-based ice complex. Expected to open early next year, the interactive museum will be situated in one of the facility’s viewing rooms, where visitors will scan a QR code to view content. The room will also feature various historic memorabilia in women’s hockey.

Murphy’s personal history includes starring as a collegiate player at Cornell University and then embarking on a 22-year coaching career at Brown University, where she compiled more than 300 career wins.

At one point, she was the winningest coach in Division I women’s hockey. (She now ranks 13th all-time in career wins in college women’s ice hockey).

In the professional ranks, Murphy spent three years with the Boston Blades of the Canadian Women’s Hockey League, becoming the first American-born coach to win two Clarkson Cup titles. She was the first coach to lead a U.S.-based team to two Cup wins.

In addition to coaching, Murphy in 2016 co-founded the United Women’s Lacrosse League, the world’s first-ever pro league for women’s lacrosse.

Murphy, 57, now serves as an advocate for gender equity in sports through United Women’s Sports and nonprofit partner Play It Forward Sport Foundation.

The Laker/Lutz News caught up with Murphy for an exclusive Q-and-A, where she opined on a number of different topics related to women, sports, and of course, hockey.

On why women need to place value on sports for their children:
“We don’t prioritize what sports can do for our kids. We should even see sports as more important than school at some level, because it develops their whole body, and, in a really great way, their mind. It’s about discipline. It’s about being on time. It’s about respect. And, I’m not saying that you don’t learn that in school, but you certainly learn that with the right coach on the field, and that’s where I really believe when (women) can make a difference, if they make sports a part of their life. It teaches you how to deal with adverse situations, and we don’t look at it (sports) like something that’s necessary, we look at it like an activity, and I really, truly believe that it can change people’s lives; sport is a great way to help empower people.”

On the need for more female coaches, especially at the youth levels:
“I think that a voice of having a woman coach, coaching boys is very important, as well as coaching girls. I believe that women can coach differently. They can become comfortable with coaching, with the right mentoring. Unfortunately, coaching is looked at as a nontraditional female (occupation). You can learn the Xs and Os, but you can’t learn the management of kids, and moms do it best. Moms have eyes in the back of their head. We see a lot, so I think we are actually perfect coaches, especially at the young ages. And, keeping it fun. Again, men make it about the Xs and Os. Women have the potential to be better at the younger ages, because they make it fun.”

On building a successful model for women’s professional sports leagues:
“Women (athletes) right now, in my opinion, can’t get off the dime professionally because they operate in silos and there’s not enough critical mass around the model to have sponsors. Like, I see women’s sports as a huge opportunity in the world, because we’re not where men’s sports is, so any visionary and business is going to see it as an option, especially if we do the model differently. Let’s make it sustainable. It doesn’t have to be as big. Make it smaller. Make it community-based. Make it regional. Take the all-stars from that and make it into a pro league. Change the rules. It’s that simple. There’s just so many different models that people aren’t thinking about, because they’re just not thinking about them, because they just accept the status quo. Why do we have to play in these huge stadiums? Maybe we can play in smaller stadiums. Maybe it can be a mother-daughter event as opposed to a daughter-father event like it always turns into.”

On why women’s professional sports leagues have struggled to become viable in the United States:
“I’ve said for years: The reason women’s professional sports doesn’t succeed is because they’re in the wrong cities. I think you need to be in cities that want you. Not just because it’s Boston, New York, Detroit — that’s where all the men (pro sports organizations) are. Go to outliers; they’ve got nothing to do. I remember when I was at Brown, one of our biggest, biggest, biggest venues to go to was Hanover, New Hampshire (to face Ivy League rival Dartmouth University), because there’s nothing else to do in New Hampshire. Same thing with Ithaca, New York (Cornell University). I think sometimes, because we’re so entrenched in the tradition, we can’t think outside the box. You’ve got to find an environment that will embrace it, that has a progressive mindset, that has a community that’s ready to pop. You need energy, you need passion, and you need that positive growth mindset. If you have that, you really can do anything.”

On the advancement of gender equity in college sports in the Title IX era:
“It’s kind of sad that there’s a long way to go. Unfortunately, Title IX’s an entitlement program because you have to have it, and whenever you have to have something, you’re not motivated to do better. And, sometimes, women’s sports are perceived as a suck on the (college) athletic department, because they have to have it, so they just throw it over there and they just do it because they have to have it. But, if women took control of it and gave back to it and nurtured it like they do other things, I think you would see a major shift in athletics. So, I think the people in charge need to change their mindset. They need to change the people that are implementing the practices, and when you start to see that, that’s when you’re going to see Title IX really take control — when you see people embrace it, instead of seeing it as a detriment. And so, I think Title IX has come a long way, but you still see it go on. The problem is we don’t have enough women in the industry. Because, the second you introduce wealth into it, you don’t see a lot of women coaches. You need to have more women leaders, role models and examples. This is what I always say: Title IX works when you see women coaches crossing over to men’s sports.”

On what she’s most proud of from her hockey playing and coaching career:
“I think the moment that I was most proud of probably was in 2015, winning the Clarkson Cup (with the Boston Blades). The way we won it was very important to me. It was a third-line player that scored the goal to win it, and it was in overtime. You know, it was empowering for me to be able to manage a bench that had a whole team playing and contributing; I think that was important. But, I also think that there’s just so many things for me, because I really was a woman that had done a lot of firsts, because there was no one else. Whatever it was, like those firsts really culminated in my life to give me what I can do, which is to give more opportunities.”

On touring the Florida Hospital Center Ice in Wesley Chapel, the largest ice complex in the Southeast United States:
“Unbelievable. I thought I was actually walking into a Canadian rink. It’s very impressive. They thought of all the details. The whole energy that’s around sports in Tampa and Pasco County is very exciting.”

Published December 19, 2018

Local man receives French Legion of Honor medal

By

There were times during World War II when Francis Xavier O’ Connell wasn’t sure he’d live to see another sunrise.

To this day, the 93-year-old feels certain it was his mother’s prayers that kept him alive during dangerous times on the battlefield and through his captivity as a prisoner of war.

He still has the rosary beads she gave him, and some of the letters she wrote to him during the war.

Francis Xavier O’ Connell had just graduated from high school when he enlisted in the U.S. Army to fight in World War II. He was recently honored by the French government for his contributions during the war. (B.C. Manion)

Recently, he was inducted into the French Foreign Legion of Honor by the French government for his contributions during World War II.

The distinction is France’s way to express gratitude to American veterans who fought alongside France during the Second World War.

French Brig. Gen. Thierry Ducret presented the award to O’ Connell during a July 14 ceremony in St. Petersburg, said Carolyn Matthews, O’ Connell’s niece.

Ducret, France’s representative to MacDill Air Force Base’s Central Command International Coalition, was just one of several high-ranking military officers at the event, she said.

O’ Connell graduated from Brown University after his stint in the U.S. Army, and then rejoined in 1949, going on to have a lengthy military career.

The Lutz man was astounded when he heard the French government wanted to honor him.

Like so many others during World War II, O’ Connell joined the Army in 1943, right after graduating from high school in Cranston, Rhode Island.

It was the thing to do, said O’ Connell, the youngest in a family of six boys — four of whom served in the Army.

After enlisting, O’ Connell trained at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and then was shipped to Casablanca where he joined Company F in the 179th Infantry, the 45th Division.

From there, his division went by ship to Sicily to be part of an amphibious assault landing.

O’ Connell worked as a forward observer — scouting out enemy locations and reporting the targets he found.

After Sicily, the 45th Infantry moved into Salerno for another assault. His unit then was pulled offline briefly before heading to Anzio for another amphibious assault landing.

The Battle of Anzio was a bitter campaign — with fighting nearly all of the way to Rome.

Francis Xavier O’ Connell holds a medal he received as an expression of gratitude from the French government during a July 14 ceremony in St. Petersburg.

After a brief rest period, the unit was shipped to Southern France, where it went ashore at St. Tropez and fought its way inland to Meximieux.

In the heat of the battle, his unit relieved another forward observer group and got too far ahead of the battalion. They were captured.

Despite being a prisoner of war, O’ Connell considers himself fortunate. “Two-thirds of the regimen were killed,” he said, noting there are 1,800 in a regimen.

After he was captured, he and the other prisoners were moved in boxcars from Frankfurt Germany, over to Munich. And, while that was happening, he said, “our own (American) aircraft would bomb and strafe everywhere the Germans moved.”

They were taken to a prisoner of war camp in a town called Moosburg, about 40 some-odd miles north of Munich, he said.

In the morning, he and other prisoners would be trucked to Munich to fill in bomb craters in the railroads, he said.

The Germans would make sure the American prisoners saw the civilian casualties of war.

“They had their bodies lined up on either side of the street. Then they would march us through the streets to see them,” O’ Connell said.

He said he caught a lucky break when he and group of men were chosen to go to a work camp at Vilshofen, a small town in northern Germany, near the port town of Passau.

“We worked in a forest, cutting down trees,” O’ Connell said.

The prisoners slept on straw-lined mattresses in a barn, and there wasn’t much to eat.

“We ate boiled cabbage and potato dumplings. It was just two meals a day,” he said.

He was at the work camp for several months before the Germans forced the prisoners to begin marching toward Austria.

“They knew the Americans were coming,” O’ Connell said. “They were trying to clear us out of there and bring us somewhere else.”

They were liberated during that forced march.

“We were freed by the 16th armored division,” O’Connell said. “They were coming through southwest Germany.”

After being freed, O’ Connell and the other soldiers walked to Bremerhaven where they were processed at a tent city before catching a ship back to the United States.

At the time, O’ Connell weighed 80 pounds.

He was sent to a country club that had been converted to a medical facility, to recuperate. It was three months before the Army would allow his family to see him.

Reuniting with his mother is a moment that O’ Connell will never forget.

“You won’t believe how happy it was,” he said. “She almost fell over, when I put my arms around her.”

A plaque with this quotation hangs in Francis Xavier O’ Connell’s apartment in Lutz:
45th Infantry Division
“Whatever destiny may hold for our great country,
however long that great country’s military history may continue,
readers of the future will search long before finding a chapter
more brilliant than that written by the quill that was dipped in the blood of the Thunderbirds.”

Brig. Gen. H.J.D. Meyer, Dec. 7, 1945

Published August 16, 2017

Wiregrass Ranch graduate gets Ivy League offers

By

 

Antonio Medina wanted to give himself the best chance he could to attend the college of his choice, so he applied to several places.

“You can be a top candidate but still, it’s really tough to get in. They get more top candidates than they can accept. Sometimes, it comes down to luck,” said Medina, who will be graduating soon from Wiregrass Ranch High.

Sandra, Antonio and Alfredo Medina pose for a photo after Antonio is named salutatorian of the class of 2015 at Wiregrass Ranch High School. (Courtesy of the Medina family)
Sandra, Antonio and Alfredo Medina pose for a photo after Antonio is named salutatorian of the class of 2015 at Wiregrass Ranch High School.
(Courtesy of the Medina family)

So, he applied to scores of schools, including the University of South Florida, the University of Central Florida, the University of Florida, as well as to such colleges as Princeton, Columbia, Penn, Brown, Harvard and Yale.

Brown University sent him a letter saying he would likely be accepted, Medina said.

“We were so excited about the letter. That was so amazing. We were happy with that,” he said.

On the day that the colleges announce their decisions, Medina and his mom, Sandra, were sitting at three computers, waiting.

“So, I checked Brown. I got accepted, so I was happy,” Medina said.

“We checked Penn and Columbia and Princeton. None of those.

“Then I checked Yale and got in. I was super surprised.

“I checked Harvard last. I was like, ‘Let’s just see.’ ”

And he got into Harvard, too.

“I was speechless,” his mom said. “I’m never going to forget that day.”

Medina also received full-ride offers from USF, UCF and UF.

So, then it was a matter of choosing where he would go.

He and his dad, Alfredo, visited Harvard and Yale.

Then, Medina made his final choice.

“They’re both great schools. You can’t go wrong with either school,” Medina said. “It came down to, which school did I feel better at?”

He chose Yale.

“I was more at home there,” said the Wesley Chapel resident.

He is excited about his academic future.

“The caliber of education is through the roof,” said Medina. “You have world-class professors. I could be a roommate with a future president.”

Medina ranked second in the class of 2015 at Wiregrass and also was named the school’s Most Outstanding Senior.

In addition to his academic accomplishments, he was catcher on the school’s baseball team, drum major for the marching band and a member of the jazz band.

On top of all that, he has worked for his mom and dad’s business, Gator Fred’s, a fun and party center in Carrollwood.

“I helped them since I was 7. I’ve seen what it is like to manage a business, to work in a service — entrepreneurial, all that stuff, since I was a child,” Medina said.

That work has left an indelible impression on him.

“Probably because of the influence of my family, I want to go my own way, work for myself, create something that could be my own business, or create something new that would be completely under my wing,” he said.

He describes what he has gained by working in the family business in one of the essays he wrote for his college applications.

He details how the business started at the family’s home and has evolved into its own location, Gator Fred’s, a fun and party center in Carrollwood. He then explains the impact that working in the family business has had on him.

“The establishment of Gator Fred’s didn’t just enhance what my childhood had been. The store engraved in me a vital essence of my character,” he wrote.

“With my own bare hands, I helped my family turn an enormous, empty shell of what was once a Bealls Outlet into a beautiful playground of colors and bounce houses and train rides and joy.

“This experience taught me how to manage a business before I was even a teenager. “More importantly, it showed me how to take pride in building something bigger than myself.

“Every weekend that I spent there, instead of with friends, I remained aware that this place was what provided for our food, our house, our lives.

“I never took for granted what I had. I knew the value of hard work and persistence.

“My parents taught me the dangers of taking risks but also the courage needed to make the leap. For them, I will always be grateful,” Medina’s essay says.

The young man’s success in academics began when he was young.

He said he’s always been a good student, except for during kindergarten.

“We had just moved here (from Venezuela). I was 5 and I just learned English.

“The only problem was now, I wouldn’t shut up. I just kept talking. I’d get in trouble for being too talkative,” he recalled.

His mom recalls finding out about the problem.

“The lady called me and said, ‘He is too talkative,’ ” she said. “He would talk with an empty chair.”

His mom decided to nip the problem in the bud.

She put his toys in a bag and pretended to throw them out.

“I did better in school,” Medina said. “And my toys magically reappeared.”

Apparently, the lesson stuck.

“Being good in school is good. Learning for the sake of learning is good,” he said.

Medina is graduating from Wiregrass Ranch on May 31. His younger brother, Andres, will be attending the high school next year.

Medina’s mom is clearly ecstatic about her son’s academic accomplishments.

His dad is proud, too.

“My dad has worn the same Yale shirt for the past four days,” Medina said. “It says ‘Yale Dad’.”

Published May 6, 2015