Tom Rowe

Contributor

NORWICH – Sportswriters throughout the years have often used the term “grunt and groaners” to describe the athletic agony of wrestlers – not the WWF breed – during their respective matches.

Well, the closest Jason James ever came to being a grappler was if he encountered the mat game during a physical education class. But, do not be fooled, he was the epitome of a “grunt and groaner.” Whenever he left the playing arena of the three sports he participated in, you knew that he had been at the center of the action, due mainly to his tousled or torn uniform and his physical scars collected while in the fray. This never-ending intensity is why he is one of the newest members of the seventh annual induction class of the Norwich High School Sports Hall of Fame.

As the starting fullback and linebacker on the Norwich football team, you could always tell that the 5-foot-11; 185-pound James hadn’t been wasting his time while inside the chalk lines. His was the dirtiest and usually the bloodiest uniform at the game’s conclusion, and his never-say-die effort certainly didn’t go unnoticed.

Likewise, as his baseball team’s mainstay behind the plate, he endured all the foul tips, wild pitches and collisions with the usual ‘oh well’ nature of an old stevedore.