Editor’s note: Today is the second in a series of articles profiling the 2015 Norwich High School Sports Hall of Fame induction class.

By Tom Rowe

Contributing Writer

In 1965 Sam Elia was completing his 19th and final season as Norwich High School’s highly-successful wrestling coach, and he still had more than 10 years left mentoring the Purple’s golf team in addition to overseeing the school’s whole gamut of sports as Athletic Director. And during that same halcyon year of 1965 a young British lad by the name of Ray Davies was penning the Top 20 hit “A Well Respected Man” for his quartet The Kinks. Although the song was a satirical look at the lives of well-heeled Brits, its title fit Samuel Francis Elia to a tee.

“He was a great coach, knew his stuff and gave it his all,” said Don Manley, who wrestled under Elia from 1953-57, compiling a gaudy 67-2 record, and who, himself, was recently elected last year to the Norwich High School Sports Hall of Fame. “But, more importantly, he was the perfect role model, and that was scarce. He may have been the only role mode I had as a young fellow.”