For years, Virginia Moessmang was the girls sports program at Branford High School.
She was hired in 1943 to teach science and physical education and in 1944 she began her coaching career by establishing a girls basketball program. Some 34 years later she finally passed the reigns to someone else.
After starting the basketball program, others soon followed. Field hockey and volleyball were instituted as “club” programs in 1946, and a track team was begun in 1958.
Moessmang also coached the field hockey team for 29 years.
In 1980 Virginia was the first woman inducted into the Connecticut Coaches Hall of Fame and in 1989 was placed in the Connecticut Woman’s Basketball Hall of Fame.
She was a dominate force in establishing girls sports in Connecticut and worked with the Connecticut interscholastic Athletic Conference in promoting womens sports in the state. For three years she served on the CIAC Girls Athletic Committee, and in 1986 the trophy for the Most Valuable Player in the CIAC state basketball tournament was named in her honor.
Anything connected with sports was of interest to Moessmang, so it should not be surprising that she also started cheerleading clinics in conjunction with Southern Connecticut State.
