Saluting our moms: The Parkers and mom Missy Parker

Mike DiMauro, The Day, New London, Conn.
·1 min read

May 9—Missy Parker is perhaps better known around the community as the emerging face of sports at New London High School.

She is the head coach of volleyball and softball. She spent several years as an assistant coach on Holly Misto's league/state championship girls' basketball teams. She works in the athletic department.

Hardly an event takes place anymore without her.

Parker joked one time that despite all that, there's really only one person in the family who is truly "Coach" Parker. That's her husband, Craig, now the near 30-year boys' basketball coach at the school.

So maybe Missy Parker is left with one name.

And really the one that best identifies her: mom.

"I wouldn't be who I am today if it wasn't for my mom," said her oldest child, her son, C.J., a former Whaler basketball player. "She not only pushed me to work hard academically and athletically, but she also set the example by taking pride in everything she does."

Indeed, Missy Parker has spent as much time coaching other people's kids as her own. But there's nothing more enjoyable to her than softball with her daughters, Caylee and Marissa, basketball with C.J. or taking her younger son Matt to the Meadowlands to watch his beloved football Giants.

"She's been active in our community for my entire life and is known by a lot of my friends as 'the goat' (Greatest Of All Time)," C.J. Parker said, "because of the impact she's had on people as a coach."