The UConn Club recognizes former UConn student-athletes who have achieved success in their chosen careers with the Red O’Neill Award. The Club also recognizes achievements of contributors to the University of Connecticut Division of Athletics with the A.J. Pappanikou Outstanding Contribution Award. The Don V. Ruck Award honors a UConn student-athlete who displayed extraordinary commitment to community service or significant leadership in a sudent-based volunteer group. Another award, rarely given, is the Crystal Award for Athletics and University service. This year Andy Baylock will be recognized with this award.
Past Annual Awards Ceremony programs are available by clicking here.
The Red O’Neill Story
The Red O’Neill Award is given annually to UConn graduates who have gone from the athletic fields to distinguish themselves in their chosen careers.
The development of an award in Red O’Neill’s memory did not occur accidentally. For two years, a UConn Club committee researched various possibilities. Despite the many alumni considered, all signs pointed to the Redhead as the man who combined the highest attributes of character, leadership, athletic ability, and later, a successful career.
As an outstanding athlete, Red had to overcome the severe handicap of a silver plate in his right arm, the result of a World War 1 wound.
Senior football captain Martin “Red” O’Neill was the school’s first All-American candidate, leading the 1923 and 1924 teams. As legend has it, his career started in 1922 during a loss to Springfield College. A Connecticut Agricultural College (now UConn) player was injured and the coaches could find no one to replace him among the reserves. Someone spotted O’Neill watching the games from the stands and called to him to join the game. He threw on a uniform and stepped into the lineup, where he would remain for three seasons.
The 1924 squad is down in the annals as one of the school’s finest. The team finished 6-0-2, winning the New England Conference Championship. The Aggies were said by The New York Times to be among the best teams in the country and the team defense finished first in the nation. The team gave up only 13 points all season and only three in the final seven games.
As a student, Red O’Neill was brilliant, getting top honors. After graduation in 1925, he went to Yale Medical School. As a surgeon, he was well-known. In his later years, he was known for his work in obstetrics. He gave 23 years of his life to medicine before passing away in 1953.
2025 Recipient of the Crystal Award
The 2025 Crystal Award recipient is Coach Andy Baylock, a 60-year contributor to the success of UConn Athletics. His biography from the UConn Huskies website reads:
“A member of the Division of Athletics staff since 1964, Andy Baylock is in his 15th year as the football program’s Director of Football Alumni and Community Affairs in 2019. Baylock is involved with a number of activities, including the cultivation of relationships with Husky football alumni (players, coaches and support staff) and other various members of the football community. Baylock serves as the team’s liaison both to professional scouts and the Connecticut high school coaches, while also assisting the team’s departing seniors with career networking, representing UConn at various speaking engagements, and involving current student-athletes with community service projects.
Baylock retired as UConn’s head baseball coach in May 2003 after a 24-year run in which he posted a 556-492-8 record, guiding the Huskies to BIG EAST Championships in 1990 and 1994, along with a trio of NCAA tournament berths. Including his tenure as an assistant baseball coach, Baylock compiled an 822-614-11 record over 39 years and, at the time of his retirement, he had personally coached 1,447 of the 2,327 games (62.2 percent) in UConn’s baseball history.
His association with UConn began in 1963 as the freshman baseball coach, a part-time position, and Baylock joined the Husky staff on a full-time basis a year later as an assistant football and baseball coach – positions which he held for 15 seasons. Baylock was a part of Husky football teams that won or shared four Yankee Conference titles. He also had a long tenure as UConn’s freshman football coach. Baylock was an assistant baseball coach from 1964-79, helping UConn to the College World Series in 1965, 1972 and 1979, before assuming the head coaching reigns in 1980.
Over the years, Baylock has been honored by several organizations, including his January 1996 induction into the American Baseball Coaches Hall of Fame, one of the eight Hall of Fames in which he has been enshrined. Baylock has been selected as the 2011 recipient of the ABCA/Wilson Lefty Gomez Award, the highest honor given out by the organization and will receive that award at the group’s annual convention.
Baylock has been active on the international baseball scene as a distinguished pitching clinician, including serving as pitching coach for the 1985 and 1989 U.S. Senior National Teams. A veteran summertime coach in the prestigious Cape Cod Baseball League, Baylock has also sat on the faculty of the department of kinesiology at UConn.
In the spring of 2008, he received awards for his outstanding contribution from both the Connecticut High School Coaches Association and the National Football Foundation’s Southeastern Connecticut Chapter.
Baylock also served as the head football coach at East Catholic High School in Manchester from 1962-64 when he became a full-time member of the UConn staff. He played three seasons of professional football, last with the Springfield (Mass.) entry in the Atlantic Coast Professional Football League.
A native of New Britain, Conn. where he played on New Britain High School’s 1955 state championship team, Baylock is a 1960 graduate of Central Connecticut where he was a four-year letterwinner in both football and baseball and captained both teams. There he received the Gladstone Award, CCSU’s highest award presented to a scholar-athlete. Baylock earned a master’s degree from the University of Michigan in 1962 where he served as a graduate assistant baseball coach. Baylock and his late wife, Barbara, are the parents of three children, Jennifer, Jeffrey and Andrea, all of whom attended UConn. Baylock also has six grandchildren.”
To attend the April 25th, 2025 Crystal Award Ceremony for Andy Baylock., click here.
Past Recipients of the Red O’Neill Award
The A. J. Pappanikou Outstanding Contribution Award
The UConn Club’s A. J. Pappanikou Outstanding Contribution Award is bestowed upon an individual who has made a significant contribution to the University of Connecticut Division of Athletics. The awardee need not be a graduate of The University of Connecticut. The award is named in honor of Dr. A. J. Pappanikou, distinguished Professor Emeritus of Educational Psychology in the Neag School of Education. Dr. Pappanikou “Pappy”, himself a recipient of the The UConn Club’s Outstanding Contribution Award, has played a major role in the development of UConn’s intercollegiate athletics programs as Connecticut’s NCAA Faculty Representative, generous donor, and longtime member of The UConn Club Board of Directors.
Past Recipients of the A. J. Pappanikou Outstanding Contribution Award
The Don V. Ruck Award
The Don V. Ruck Award honors a UConn varsity student-athlete who, beyond their intercollegiate athletics involvement, has displayed extraordinary commitment to community service or significant leadership in a student-based volunteer group. The specific traits of leadership and volunteerism were a hallmark of proud UConn alum Don Ruck, the guiding spirit and founder of the UConn Club.
Don Ruck was an important student leader on UConn Storrs campus. Following graduation from UConn in 1952, Don Ruck was responsible for launching the first support group and fundraising arm of UConn Athletics – the Alumni “C” Club. The first “C” Club Awards Dinner, now The UConn Club Awards Ceremony, was staged in March of 1954 with Ruck as the visionary leader of that event.
Ruck enjoyed an outstanding 60-year career in public relations, highlighted by his appointment at age 40 in 1968 as the first Vice President in the 52-year history of the National Hockey League (NHL). Through all his years of professional success, Don Ruck contributed more than 60 years of behind-the-scenes volunteerism and service for his alma matter, as well as significant financial contributions as an athletics donor.
Past Recipients of the Don V. Ruck Award
The Crystal Award
The Crystal Award is bestowed on rare occasions to an individual who has made extraordinary contributions to the University of Connecticut and its athletic programs. While the awardee’s support of the athletic programs is an important criteria, his/her contributions to the University as a whole is the distinguishing characteristics from the other UConn Club awards.
Past Recipients of the Crystal Award