Jerry Kelly, a fiery former Hockey Player
I am a University of Hartford graduate. I got the lamb skin in 1988. At the time UHA was one of the best collegiate golf teams in the country. Their roster included Tim Petrovic (PGA Tour), Patrick Sheehan (former PGA Tour player, now on the Nationwide Tour) Dave Gunas (mini-tour player and reality star on The Big Break) plus a host of other players who could flat out play. While I was on-line watching the action take place at Augusta it still strikes me as a bit odd that Jerry Kelly could put up a score of four-under on the front nine of Augusta National on the Friday of the Masters. He has come a long way from the days when he rolled Dominos Pizza Delivery Guys for their pizza. On those UHA teams rarely was he slotted as the number one player. Petrovic was seen as the player with the greatest chance for success after college. Over 10 million dollars in earnings later, Jerry at the very least can be seen as a guy who has worked his butt off to attain the success he has had on the PGA Tour. Respek.
I love it when the old UHA buddies get together and we talk about the good old days and I invariably bring up Kelly’s name to stoke my friend Chris who got in a brawl with him and several other members of the golf team. He was on the tennis team, so you can imagine the type of pillowfight that must’ve been, golf team versus tennis team. A lot of hair pulling and scratching. We all laugh at it in unison and we all speak in disbelief of the incredible success Kelly has had. The next story on the Kelly topic is Kelly’s role on the UHA hockey team. Truth be told, it was a club sport. That team would lose by 20 goals to BU or Maine, and that is from the perspective of a friend who was a goalie on the team. But it always brings a slight giggle when Kelly is in contention and they bring up his collegiate hockey playing past.
Hopefully Kelly, with his fiery temperment that he now has under control (you’ll hear that if he is in contention) will pool the same grit and determination that made him a hardened collegiate hockey player (get ready for it) and he will pull out a victory this weekend at Augusta. We’ll be pulling for him, even Chris. Then he can say he squared off with a Masters Champion.
