But a couple of friends at school joined, too. “My cousin started playing and I saw how much my grandfather liked taking pictures of that,” Ethan said. That’s when he told Poppy he didn’t want to play baseball. “Lo and behold,” Bill said, “he started smacking the ball all over the place.”Įthan had found a game where he would flourish. “I wasn’t really good at it until my last two years,” Ethan said. “I looked up to the sky and said, ‘Lord, please, a foul ball today.’” “I had my camera on a tripod out at the outfield fence and caught every whiff,” Bill said. When he got old enough, Ethan expressed a desire to play baseball. “He’d take Jamison and me to Yale football games. I’m always getting to do cool things with him like the Walter Camp dinner. “He has been there for all my sporting events taking pictures. “To have (Bill) step us as the father figure in my life is a big deal to me,” Ethan said. It was such a tragedy, his wife with a 2-year-old. “Ethan’s situation obviously was different.
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They’re honor students, athletic, respectful. “I retired in 2005 and I dedicated my life to being there for them,” Bill said. That covers about half his résumé, which now includes passionate photographer of his grandchildren’s events. Board of directors of Greater New Haven Chamber of Commerce. Chairman of United Way of Greater New Haven. He has been president and board member of the New Haven Road Race. He has been with the Walter Camp Football Foundation nearly a half-century, president from 1979-81. He has served as chapter president of the National Football Foundation since 1992 and was asked to join the national board in 2012. O’Brien was commissioner of the SCC from 1994 to 2005 and remains commissioner emeritus. To say he is a retired banker and Shoreline sports figure certainly is an understatement. It probably is an understatement to say Bill has doted on his grandchildren Ethan and Greg’s kids Jamison, a former two-sport star at North Branford who plays lacrosse at Eastern Connecticut, and Mikella, an athlete at North Branford. “We had a great time, catching a couple of foul balls,” he said. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves …Įthan’s first memory of Bill was when he took him and his cousin Jamison to Yankee Stadium. You get the distinct impression Poppy gets an equally big kick.
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“Wouldn’t miss Wednesday night against Guilford,” Bill said. Just last month, on Ethan’s 18th birthday, the pictures drew a slew of well-wishes.īill O’Brien loves posting photos of the Hand football team and Ethan on Facebook, too. And to this day Bill posts pictures of Mike as often he can. That’s what Ethan O’Brien calls his 81-year-old grandfather. There are photographs around Ethan’s home to keep Mike O’Brien’s memory alive, and there are stories from his mom, his Uncle Greg, Mike’s friends and his Poppy. As Ethan said this week, “I think my Poppy knows everyone in Connecticut.” They were there for Mike and they were there for the O’Brien family. So were Richard Blumenthal and John DeStefano. and the line of those paying their respects was so long that the family didn’t leave the funeral home until 10:30. Ethan was too young to remember that the announced hours for his father’s wake were from 4 to 8 p.m.