Book Bonus – ​Stories of ESPN​, Holocaust​ and CT governor

• Books on McLean's Amazing Story, Holocaust Memories, ESPN's Origins

By Bruce William Deckert

Editor-in-Chief

Today Magazine Online

• The book report has been a time-honored assignment in American education — welcome to Today Magazine's version of the school book report — a veritable story bonanza mining timeless topics and themes

Let's consider three compelling books that have direct connections to Connecticut's Farmington Valley — the challenging and triumphant history of Connecticut governor George McLean, a Holocaust memoir by a survivor of Auschwitz, and a behind-the-scenes launch story by ESPN's founding producer.

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A Connecticut Yankee Goes to Washington: Senator George P. McLean, Birdman of the Senate

– by Will McLean Greeley

George Payne McLean served as governor of Connecticut from 1901-1903 and as a U.S. senator from 1911-1929. Born in Simsbury in October 1857, he was raised on a 100-acre farm that is now the location of Hop Meadow Country Club in Simsbury. He died in June 1932 at 74 years of age and is buried in Simsbury Cemetery.

McLean advised five U.S. presidents, including Teddy Roosevelt, and sponsored the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 — legislation still in effect today that has likely saved millions of birds and prevented extinctions. This new biography celebrates McLean's legacy of bird conservation and traces his path from farm-boy obscurity to public service and national prominence.

For about 35 years until his death in 1932, McLean's home was the expansive mansion he built in Simsbury. He named it Holly House because of nearby holly trees. Today, it is known as the Governor's House, a skilled-nursing and short-term rehab center on Firetown Road.

McLean graduated from Hartford Public High School — Simsbury had no secondary school in those days.

The McLean Game Refuge, one of New England's scenic wonders, and the McLean ​Retirement ​Community in Simsbury are key features of McLean’s legacy. The game refuge encompasses three Farmington Valley towns — Simsbury, Granby and Canton.

McLean hosted several U.S. presidents at his magnificent wilderness property in north-central Connecticut that later became the game refuge.

This biography by a close relative of McLean contains many fresh anecdotes about his relationships with presidents and other notables — McLean is a great-great-uncle of the author of this book, Will McLean Greeley.

• Today Magazine cover story

Game Face – McLean​​ forged global​ conservation legacy

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The Number on Your Forearm is Blue Like Your Eyes

– by Eva Umlauf

Eva Umlauf was one of the youngest survivors of Auschwitz, according to Simsbury-based Mandel Vilar Press. She was tattooed with her prisoner number one month shy of her second birthday. Miraculously, she survived — along with her mother and her newborn baby sister.

Eva's Holocaust memoir covers her internment in Auschwitz, her survival and liberation, and her life afterward.

After World War 2, she grew up in Communist-controlled Czechoslovakia and pursued a medical education. Eva married a fellow Holocaust survivor and emigrated in 1967 to West Germany, where she served as a pediatrician and then as a child psychotherapist, achieving prominence in both fields and as a speaker.

Eva finally decided to tell her story at the age of 74 in this poignant and riveting memoir that has been co-published by Mandel Vilar Press and Dryad Press. The book draws from years of interviews, copious correspondence, archival research in Europe and Israel, trips to concentration camps, and Eva’s personal recollections.

• Today Magazine cover story

Giving Voice to the Holocaust – Publisher displays diversity

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The Early Days of ESPN: 300 Daydreams and Nightmares

– by Peter Fox

Did you know that much of ESPN's heritage is deeply rooted in Connecticut's Farmington Valley? ESPN founder Bill Rasmussen lived in Farmington. Peter Fox, this book's author, was ESPN's founding producer — he lived in Avon on Montevideo Road and later in Farmington.

"Many Valley people with vision and guile laid the foundation of ESPN," Fox tells Today Magazine. "History did not credit many of them until now, as The Early Days of ESPN shines favor upon them."

Over time, hundreds of ESPN employees have called the Valley home. ESPN debuted in September 1979 — in this sports memoir, Fox focuses on the year leading up to that historic cable TV launch: "I write about many of the earliest moments that took place in Farmington and Avon in 1978," he says, "when we dreamt about and then went about building the all-sports television network that changed sports television forever."

Before his ESPN days, he owned and managed an award-winning ad agency, Bodnar Fox Gorton. Fox says his agency was the first office tenant in The Exchange, a commercial and office plaza in Farmington across from UConn Health.

"ESPN came along as my golfing friend Bill Rasmussen and his son, both Farmington Woods condo owners, recruited me as executive producer," he tells Today Magazine. "While it is surely a sports and business saga of legendary heft, its telling has often overlooked the 'SPNauts, as I like to call them, who flew that rocket with paper clips and scotch tape."

A Hollywood film studio has contracted with the author to produce a movie based on the book, according to Fox. +

• Today Magazine sports stories

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  • Dream Come True – Milestone UConn hoops title revisited 

  • En Garde – Simsbury High features unique fencing team 

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SEO: ESPN​ Holocaust​ CT Governor

Today Magazine publisher and editor-in-chief Bruce Deckert previously worked at ESPN Digital Media, the Journal Register Company and The Master’s School in West Simsbury — this feature first appeared in the October 2024 edition of our monthly Today Magazine

SEO: ESPN​ Holocaust​ CT Governor

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SEO: ESPN​ Holocaust​ CT Governor

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• 5 Farmington Valley Towns • 1 Aim — Exceptional Community Journalism

• Avon • Canton • Farmington • Granby • Simsbury • Connecticut • USA