Waterford's Naomi Welsh: Belle of the Ballroom

East Lyme - In the Waterford neighborhood where Naomi Welsh grew up, there were mostly boys, primarily playing games of football and baseball.

"I held my own," Welsh said. "I used to rip their shirts once in a while."

Waterford High School girls' soccer coach Rob Brule, for whom Welsh helped provide the foundation of something special, recalls Welsh - his former all-state goalie - in much the same way.

"I can remember the days she was diving face first in the mud," Brule said. "I remember the days when she threw an elbow at Paul Gorra's chest playing flag football. The guys used to say, 'I'll be OK, as long as I don't have to play against Naomi.'"

Only now Naomi Welsh dresses in formal gowns some days, heels every day, mascara, too. She is more finesse, less fisticuffs. Less smashmouth, more samba.

Welsh, 30, is an instructor at the Arthur Murray Dance Studio in Niantic.

A kinesiology and physical education major at the University of Maine, Welsh first took a job out of college as a real estate appraiser and lived in Tampa for three and a half years. She then moved to Germany for three months in hopes of teaching English, but never found a job.

It was an advertisement in the paper back home that almost kept Welsh from going to Germany, but she already had her plane ticket. It was an ad from the Arthur Murray Dance Studio, looking for teachers. The company was willing to train its instructors. Upon Welsh's return from Germany, the ad was still there.

"The hardest thing probably was having to train again to get good at something," said Welsh, who was in training for two months with Arthur Murray before she was able to teach. "I played soccer for so long, you have a certain level of comfort after a while. I was diving into a whole new world."

The studio offers private lessons for beginners all the way through advanced-level dancers, group lessons and even social events to allow the students to get dressed up and try out their steps. The instructors also take part in community events, such as "Dancing with the Stars" competitions at local high schools and the annual MADD About Dancing gala at Mohegan Sun to benefit Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

Sometimes one spouse will sign a couple up for lessons and the other will be a little more hesitant.

That makes Welsh part instructor, part entertainer, part psychologist, part businesswoman.

"It's a great outlet for people," Welsh said. "Some people get nervous about it; there's a certain intimacy about dance. There's health benefits, social benefits. We teach them so they can dance anywhere."

"It's a blast. It's a blast, really. It's a whole new world. Before, I sat behind a computer monitor all day; now I get to learn about people. ... Everyone walks through their life, the everyday deal. This is something different. This is their entertainment."

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Welsh has always had a creative side. She and her friends choreographed a dance to the class song for their sixth-grade graduation and she spent hours around that time dancing to songs from "Grease" and "American Graffiti."

Yet it was also around that time that Welsh found her other calling while playing soccer for a travel team in Stonington. On a team with stars such as Bryant and Abby Karpinski of North Stonington and Stonington's Amy Grady - Grady would later play at Stanford - it was coach Tom Grady that first tried Welsh in goal.

Brule, still the coach of a Waterford program which has won 12 Eastern Connecticut Conference divisional titles in the last 13 years and which made a state championship appearance in 2002, remembers seeing Welsh play for the first time.

"I heard about this girl who played on this boys' soccer team (at The Williams School)," said Brule, who made a trip to see Welsh play. "She made one diving save to her left. A 13-year-old seventh grader diving to her weak hand with perfect athleticism. I remember thinking, 'Oh, my God. I hope she goes to Waterford.'"

Welsh did, graduating from Waterford, where she played soccer and basketball, in 1999.

As the Lancers' goalie, she was a three-time ECC all-star and earned all-state honors as a senior, graduating with a school-record 23 career shutouts in 66 games. She accepted a scholarship at Maine.

Again, Welsh made a name for herself in helping a program grow. The Black Bears were 2-15 in Welsh's freshman season under first-year coach Scott Atherley, now the program's all-time winningest coach. Welsh left Maine with program records for career shutouts (17), fewest goals in a season (16 in 2001) and lowest goals against average (0.93 in 2001).

Welsh played soccer semi-professionally for two years for the New Hampshire Lady Phantoms.

Brule calls Welsh, Waterford's first scholarship player, "ahead of her time."

"Her and Erin Patterson were the two players who propelled our program to legitimacy," Brule said. "She was strong, tough, very, very funny. ... She'd get pummeled. We were bad. (East Lyme) would pummel me. But she would made 20 saves a game. She was one of the very best.

"She laid the groundwork for Katie Schoepfer (Waterford graduate who is a member of the Boston Breakers of Women's Professional Soccer) and she doesn't even know it."

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Welsh's records at Maine are gone, as are her days of wearing gray sweats to class, from class and most of the time in between. Now she's required to teach her lessons in heels, quite a transformation.

"I have people from back then who say, 'I can't believe you're doing what you're doing.' And I have people I know now who say, 'I can't imagine you as a jock,'" Welsh said.

"I thought I'd try something new. The job I had before wasn't what I was meant to do. ... I had been living in sports and phys ed my whole life, so it's not that much different. I had an idea of movement. When I was young I used to love to make up dances at home. It was a whole artistic side I didn't explore."

To no one's surprise, however, Welsh is still competing. She and her dance partner took part in last year's World Dance-O-Rama in Orlando, competing in the Future Champions division. This year, the World Dance-O-Rama will take place in March in New York City and Welsh will be there again.

One person who sees Welsh exactly the same is Brule, who said he ran into the former goalie recently at the grocery store.

"She hadn't changed at all. When I saw her, she looked the same, even fitter than she ever was," Brule said. "Everything about her, what you see is what you get. Same old Nomes. It's just the way it is. They don't change all that much. Their inside is usually who they are. She was always a class act.

"She's fearless. She's brave. Whatever she does is going to be great."

v.fulkerson@theday.com