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08/24/2017 12:00 AMThirty-one years after he shined as a member of the Yellowjackets’ boys’ basketball team, Ezra “Buddy” Goodwin will be enshrined in the East Haven Alumni Association Hall of Fame this November. Considering that it had been so long since he played, Buddy was in disbelief when Steve Narracci called him with the good news.
“I didn’t think it was real. I thought somebody was breaking my stones, so I almost hung up on Narracci,” says Buddy, who works as a New Haven firefighter. “Us firemen, we play a lot of jokes, so I thought somebody was playing games with me.”
Once he realized that Narracci was serious, Buddy felt thrilled to have received the honor of being a Hall of Fame inductee.
“I don’t take this too lightly. I’m surprised. I mean 30 years later, this is crazy. It’s kind of funny, but I love the fact anybody has even thought of me,” Buddy says. “I think it’s a beautiful thing. The inductees getting honored that night, it’s an awesome thing. I never thought it’d be me.”
Buddy calls the time he spent playing basketball for the Yellowjackets “the best four years of my life.” In his senior season, Buddy averaged 22.6 points per game and was an All-Housatonic League selection as a shooting forward.
“I loved it. I really did…It was fun, the coaches were great, and I built a lot of great relationships,” he says. “I loved basketball. It was my thing. It kept me out of trouble and it was good for my life. I enjoyed everything East Haven provided for me.”
Ted Kaczynski was Buddy’s head coach at East Haven, and he has many fond memories of how Buddy contributed to his squad. One memory that really sticks out for Kaczynski was when Buddy set a school record by scoring 50 points in a game during his senior year.
“His senior year, he carried us in many games. In fact, one game I can recall playing at Seymour. It was a competitive game, and we won because of his offensive output, where he scored 50 points,” Kaczynski says. “He was very humble about it, because that’s the kind of kid he was. He was always a joy to be around and brought to the table a lot of energy. I’m very happy he’s being inducted. He really deserves it.”
Buddy says that he hit 80 percent of his shots from the floor during that record-setting performance. Buddy knows that nights like that never would have happened if he didn’t put in a ton of extra effort on the practice court.
“I just practiced so hard every day—about eight hours a day in the inner-city areas to get better. I was all over the place. I took it serious, and the accolades I got out of it was nice. I appreciate everything I got,” Buddy says. “I would show up to courts just to play. I didn’t care how much snow was on it; I’d shovel just to play. All my brothers were the same way. It’s just what we’d do.”
Buddy says that teamwork was the biggest factor behind his accomplishments with the Yellowjackets. Buddy understood the importance of teamwork during his playing days, and it’s still something that he emphasizes every day in his profession as a firefighter.
“It’s very important to me. I don’t care if I’m on a basketball court or living my life day by day: Teamwork is everything. On a fire ground, if you don’t have teamwork, you can die. That’s why I took that up as a profession—because I love helping people,” says Buddy. “If there’s anything that needs to be done for somebody, I’ll help them. That’s the way I always was. I was never a selfish kind of person, and it’s my father that taught me that. I wish my dad was still alive, so I could say this award was for him.”