St. Thomas More men's basketball coach Jere Quinn, who recorded his 1,000th career win in January, has been selected to receive the prestigious Gold Key Award from the Connecticut Sports Writers' Alliance.

Quinn will be honored along with former college basketball and NBA players Chris Smith and John Bagley, Super Bowl champion assistant coach Chris Palmer and ESPN founder Bill Rasmussen when the Class of 2019 is recognized during the 78th annual Gold Key Dinner on Sunday, April 28, 2019 at the Aqua Turf Club in Southington.

Quinn, 63, arrived at the quiet Gardner Lake campus in Oakdale after graduating from Central Connecticut State in 1977, and never left, completing his 40th season in March while collecting that milestone 1,000th victory over Jan. 24 at Worcester Academy.

His teams have never finished below .500, winning five New England championships and the 2011 National Prep School championship while appearing in two other national title games as well as 16 other New England prep finals.

Quinn has had more than 250 of his players earn college scholarships, has had five play in the NBA, including current Detroit Pistons all-star center Andre Drummond, and more than 50 play professionally either home or abroad.

He also got to play the role of "proud papa" in March when he watched two of his former players, Eric Paschall and Omari Spellman, help lead Villanova to the 2018 NCAA championship at the Alamodome in San Antonio.

Quinn, a two-year captain at Central Connecticut, still holds the single-season assists record with 227 during the 1975-76 season. He was inducted into the CCSU Hall of Fame this year. He and his 1991-92 St. Thomas More team are members of the New England Basketball Hall of Fame, and he was nominated to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2016.

Bagley, 59, led Harding High in Bridgeport to four straight Class L title games from 1976-79, winning a pair of championships. He went on to play at Boston College, earning Big East Player of the Year honors in 1981. He was drafted No. 12 overall by the Cleveland Cavaliers in the 1982 NBA draft and spent 11 seasons in the NBA, playing for the Cavs, New Jersey Nets, Boston Celtics and Atlanta Hawks. He was inducted into the BC Varsity Club Athletic Hall of Fame in 1995, and returned to Connecticut in 2017 to become head coach at his alma mater.

Palmer, 69, spent 22 years as an assistant coach in the NFL, plus two as head coach of the Cleveland Browns in 1999 and 2000. He was quarterbacks coach for the New York Giants when they upset the New England Patriots 17-14 to win Super Bowl XLII in 2008 in Phoenix. He graduated from Immaculate High in Danbury in 1968 and played quarterback at Southern Connecticut State before beginning his coaching career as an assistant at UConn in 1972. He is currently the athletic director at the University of New Haven.

Rasmussen, 86, was the founder of ESPN, which was incorporated and launched in 1979 and become the global leader in sports programming. He was recognized in 1994 by Sports Illustrated for his significance in the sporting landscape and ranked No. 29 on a list of "Forty for the Ages," a ranking of 40 individuals "who have most significantly altered or elevated the world of sports in the last four decades."

Smith, 48, graduated from Kolbe Cathedral in Bridgeport in 1988 after helping the Cougas to a pair of state finals, including the 1985 Class M title, before deciding to stay home and attend UConn, where he remains the Huskies' all-time leading scorer with 2,145 points. He won MVP honors in leading UConn to the 1990 Big East title and its first trip to the NCAA Elite Eight. He was drafted by the Minnesota Timberwolves in the second round of the 1992 NBA draft, playing three seasons in Minnesota. He later played in Europe before retiring in 2000 and was later named to the UConn Basketball All-Century Team.

Tickets for the dinner are $75, and may be reserved by contacting CSWA president Tim Jensen at tim.jensen@patch.com or (860) 394-5091, or vice president Rich Gregory at rgregory@newstimes.com or (203) 705-8625.