ELLINGTON—There’s no good way to prepare a team for loss.
You can gather them in a classroom. You can bring in counselors. You can choose your words carefully, soften the edges, try to make something incomprehensible feel, at the very least, shared.
But when the moment comes, it still lands heavy.
“It was a tough day,” Ellington High softball coach Tom Gordon said quietly.
For weeks, the team only knew that assistant coach Ted Koch was ill. That was by design. Koch, Gordon said, preferred it that way. No attention. No spotlight. Just the same quiet presence he’d carried for eight seasons in the Ellington dugout.
But within a month, everything changed.
“When it happened, we brought them into the classroom, took them out of school, had counselors there,” Gordon said. “A lot of them were very close to him.”
And then came the part no coach ever wants to deliver.
Koch was gone, lost at just 67 years of age, due to pancreatic cancer.
“They responded okay,” Gordon added. “They’re kids… they seem to be pretty resilient so far.”
• • •
Long before Ellington, before dugouts and lineups and late-season pushes, there were two fathers sitting on buckets.
About 30 years ago, Gordon and Koch met in a newly formed summer fastpitch league in the Ellington-Vernon area. Their daughters, both pitchers, shared the same field. The two men settled in, side-by-side, each perched on a bucket, watching, talking, building something that would last decades.
“We were friends since the day we met, pretty much,” Gordon said.
Life took them in and out of each other’s orbits. Different travel programs. Different paths. But always, somewhere in the background, the same game connecting them.
Softball wasn’t just the common denominator.
It was the thread.
Koch’s coaching résumé stretched well beyond Ellington. He spent time as an assistant at Rockville and Rocky Hill, even stepping in during a crisis roughly a decade ago when Rocky Hill’s head coach fell ill.
Koch didn’t just hold things together.
“He actually led that team to a state title,” Gordon said.
It was, in many ways, a perfect snapshot of who he was. Not someone chasing titles, but someone who stepped forward when needed, filling whatever space the moment required.
“He was that kind of guy,” Gordon said. “Whatever the kids needed.”
Sometimes that meant coaching defense, his specialty. Other times, it meant something far less visible.
“If they needed a glove or a bat… we’d make sure they’d get it,” Gordon said. “Kids having trouble in school, he’d get his son to tutor them.”
No announcements. No credit.
Just quiet solutions.
• • •
At Ellington, Koch found his lane and thrived in it.
“He was a defensive specialist,” Gordon said. “He ran the defense, trained it… that was his forte.”
But the structure of the program said as much about Koch as his skill set did.
“We were more like co-coaches than an assistant,” Gordon said. “It was a staff. A collective.”
Gordon handled the offense. His daughter worked with the pitchers. Koch anchored the defense.
No hierarchy. No ego.
Just trust.
That trust extended far beyond the field, too.
When a longtime EHS assistant retired about eight years ago, it wasn’t a formal search that brought Koch to Ellington. It was a phone call.
“He called me up and said, ‘Tom, what are you doing? I heard Don retired. You need another assistant coach?’” Gordon recalled. “I said, ‘Yes, please.’ And that was it.”
No interview. No pitch.
Just two friends, picking up where they’d left off.
• • •
Koch’s love for the game stretched in every direction. Softball. Baseball. He followed it all. A fan of the Hartford Yard Goats, the Boston Red Sox, even the Pittsburgh Pirates. If it involved a diamond and a ball, he was all in.
But his life wasn’t confined to fields.
He was an avid hiker, a traveler, someone who chased trails and views across the country. It was after one of those trips, hiking in Hawaii, that something felt off. A pain in his side. A visit to the doctor.
Within weeks, he was gone.
“It was just beyond belief,” Gordon said. “There was nothing they could really do.”
The shock lingers.
“It seems surreal,” Gordon said. “He’s the healthiest guy I knew. Five-mile-a-day runner. Ate well. Didn’t smoke, didn’t drink.”
He paused.
“I really miss him a lot.”
Back on the field, the season moves forward because it has to.
Ellington players now wear ribbons in Koch’s memory. Plans are in the works for a larger tribute. A scholarship fund has been established in his name, ensuring his impact stretches beyond the present moment.
Even the dugout has a familiar presence stepping in, a former colleague, someone who understands the rhythm Koch helped create.
But certain things don’t transfer.
Not the glance across the field. Not the shared routines. Not the quiet certainty of knowing exactly who would be standing beside you.
When Gordon stands in the third base coach’s box and looks across the field where is friend used to stand, he’s simply not there.
• • •
Still, in another sense, Koch is always there.
In every ground ball taken with care. In every player who feels seen. In every small act done without fanfare.
“He just showed up and did the work,” Gordon said.
And in a game that measures so much in numbers, that might be the part that matters most.
Because some legacies aren’t written on scoreboards.
They’re carried forward within the players themselves, their hearts, their minds, their memories.
Following his passing, the team this on its Instagram page, a tribute to the coach and friend they lost: “Everyone who knew you loved you. It’s so hard having to let you go,” the Ellington softball team wrote in an Instagram post on Thursday. “Thank you for believing in us, pushing us, and always having our backs—even when we didn’t believe in ourselves. You meant more to this team than words can explain. You didn’t just make us better athletes—you made us a family, someone we could look up to every single day. You taught us lessons that went far beyond the field, and those are things we will carry with us forever. You changed our lives more than you’ll ever know. We promise to carry your energy, your passion and everything you taught us every time we step on the field. You will always be our coach. We love you, Coach Koch.”
Koch was born on Jan. 25, 1959, in Pittsburgh, Penn., but his family made its way to Vernon where we graduated from Rockville High School in 1977.
While he ran two small businesses, he grew to have a passion for coaching softball, starting in the Vernon Little League ranks.
According to his obituary, Koch “married his soulmate and love of his life, Carol, in 2020. Their days were filled with Yard Goats games, working in their prolific community garden, and walking around Shenipsit Lake with their lab, Charlotte. Together, they explored countless national parks and historic monuments across the United States and Europe. Ted enjoyed many hobbies, including historical documentaries, photography, trains, golf, and, especially, strumming his guitar to the Grateful Dead. He completed several marathons, powered by his Sauconys and a steady supply of M&Ms and strawberry Pop Tarts.”
Koch is survived by Carol, Ted is survived by parents Theodore and Marguerite (Beachler) Koch of Vernon; brother, John Koch and his wife, Lori (Patulak) of Coventry; two children, Hannah Koch of Greensboro, NC, and Alex Koch of Glastonbury; niece and nephew, Danielle Koch of Southington and Brady Koch of Coventry; four stepchildren, Kelly McPartland of West Hartford, Morgan (McPartland) Graves and her husband, Zack of Wethersfield, Jonathan McPartland of Fryeburg, ME, and Daniel McPartland of West Hartford; and one grandson, Jordan.
And, of course, the entire Ellington High softball family.
• • •
Donations may be made via GoFundMe at: http://www.gofundme.com/f/TedKochScholarship or via check made out to the Ellington High School Activity Fund, with a note stating, “Ted Koch Softball Scholarship.” Checks should be mailed to: 37 Maple St., PO Box 149, Ellington, CT 06029.
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