Jim Benanto Named 2007 Honorary Race Director
 Jim
Benanto, the retired athletic director at Shelton High School and a
former star athlete at Derby High School has been named as the Honorary
Race Director for the 2007 Commodore Hull Thanksgiving Day 5K Road Race.
The award was announced by the Race Committee and is given to an
individual who has made a strong contribution to the quality of life in
the communities of Shelton and Derby.
Jim Benanto has had a positive and lasting impact on the
lives of countless student-athletes during the course of his twenty-six
years as Shelton's Athletic Director. After graduating from Derby High
School in 1964 where he lettered in football, basketball, baseball, and
track, Jim attended Southern Connecticut State Teachers College where he
received a B.S. in Health, Physical Education, and Recreation in 1968.
While attending Southern, Jim was enrolled in the
R.O.T.C. program at Yale where he was the first SCSTC student to be
commissioned as a Second Lieutenant through the Yale program. He
followed his undergraduate days at Southern with a tour of duty in the
U.S. Army from 1968-1972. A graduate of Airborne School in Fort Benning,
Georgia and the J.F.K. Special Forces School (where he was awarded a
Green Beret), Jim served one year in South Vietnam as an armored cavalry
platoon leader and troop commander. He was honorably discharged from the
Army with the rank of Captain.
Jim returned to SCSTC where he earned an M.S. in
Health, Physical Education and Recreation in 1975. He received his Sixth
Year in Administration/Supervision from Southern in 1981.
He began his teaching career in 1973, serving for two
years as a physical education teacher at the elementary school level in
Shelton. He taught at Shelton Intermediate School from 1975-1977 before
being named Shelton High School's Athletic Director. His duties expanded
further in 1995 when he was named the district's Coordinator of Health
and Physical Education.
During his tenure as Athletic Director, the Gaels
athletics program expanded from nine varsity teams to twenty-three
varsity and forty-five sub-varsity teams. Two of Jim's most noteworthy
accomplishments were the formation of the Southern Connecticut
Conference and the installation of a synthetic turf field at the high
school. Fending off public reluctance to create a new athletic
conference in the south central area of the state, Jim was instrumental
in devising a model that provided the framework of the SCC. That model
allowed urban and suburban schools together to provide shared athletics
experiences for kids from diverse backgrounds. Jim also initiated and
oversaw the construction of the turf field at Shelton High School.
During his teaching and administrative tenure, Jim also
coached at SHS. He was an assistant football coach, freshmen basketball
coach and assistant varsity basketball coach. He even served as an
assistant freshmen football coach at Yale from 1986-1991.
Jim remains active during retirement as he continues to
serve on the CIAC Football Committee as Tournament Director and is
currently a member of the City of Derby Parks and Recreation Committee.
Jim and his wife Linda have been married for thirty-eight years and have
two sons (Jay and Chris) and four grandchildren. He resides in Derby
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