Ninth of a Series...



We are all accustomed to hearing the phrase, “Just Do It,” made popular by Nike. But long before Michael Jordan and LeBron James made it popular, Cindi Brunot was living it.

Most of the time, when she was coming up through the ranks in the early years of girls athletics at Conneaut High School, she found herself doing things pretty much on her own. She had to overcome a lot of obstacles, particularly having to adapt to three different coaching philosophies during her career with the Spartans. The only thing that kept her from playing more in high school was the fact her freshman year was spent at Rowe Middle School, from which players were not allowed to compete at the varsity level at the time.

Even when she went on to a career in basketball and softball at Youngstown State University, Brunot couldn’t seem to get beyond issues like that. Particularly in basketball, she found herself adjusting to new coaching styles with the Penguins, again encountering three new coaches during her four seasons.

Through it all, the mantra of just doing it to the best of her ability sustained Brunot. It never detracted from her displaying excellence on the court or diamond.

That was particularly true in basketball, where she improved her game from honorable mention Star Beacon All-Ashtabula County and Coaches’ All-Northeastern Conference status as a sophomore to first-team all-county and all-conference honors as a junior, helping the Spartans improve from a 1-16 team to an 11-8 squad by carrying a 16.6 scoring average.

Then, as a senior, counted upon to provide leadership by example and force of will, she continued to elevate her game. Although the Spartans finished with a rather ordinary 7-9 record, Brunot was even more productive, increasing her scoring average to 18.6 points per game. That again earned first-team all-county and all-conference recognition. To top it off, she capped her high school career by earning Player of the Game honors in the Star Beacon Senior Classic.

That pursuit of excellence really shouldn’t come as a surprise, though. It was a watchword in the Brunot household, as oldest brother Rick carved out a career at Conneaut and Youngstown State that eventually earned him All-American status in football and wrestling at YSU, a brief NFL career with the Cleveland Browns and Denver Broncos and entry into the Ashtabula County Football Hall of Fame.

Younger brother Doug was a great athlete at Conneaut, too. He excelled in football and is one of only four Ashtabula County wrestlers ever to earn a state championship before having a brief career at Youngstown State. They also have a younger sister, Pam.

Cindi Brunot always found a way to rise above all the issues she encountered in her high school and college careers. As an example, during her sophomore year at YSU, already playing for her second new coach in two seasons in Jeff Cohen, she led the Penguins in field goal percentage during the 1982-83 season, shooting 56.5 percent. She also had the distinction of mixing it up on the court with former Geneva rival Anita Tersigni, an Ashtabula County Basketball Foundation Hall of Fame member, when the latter played at the University of Cincinnati.

She was able to become an effective scorer and rebounder despite the limitations of having to play with the bigger ball used in boys basketball and not having a 3-point line in effect. Despite those limitations, the second child of Ron Brunot and Collette Shugerts shrugged it all off and just went out and played. She was always on the court or the diamond in high school, earning three varsity letters each in volleyball, basketball and softball at Conneaut.

“I just loved all the sports,” the 46-year-old Brunot said by phone from her home in Lantana, Fla. “Anything I could do to be involved in something competitive was great with me. It was volleyball in the fall, basketball in the winter and softball in the spring and summer.”

When she wasn’t playing, Brunot was helping the games take place. She started as a softball umpire for the Conneaut Local Youth Organization even before she entered high school and has been at it ever since, advancing to the national level in NCAA fast-pitch softball umpiring and even working games in the professional ranks in the United States. After she moved to Florida, she had the distinction of becoming the first female football official in Palm Beach County and continued in that capacity for 11 years. In recent years, she has added volleyball officiating to her resume, just completing her fifth season with that sport.

So Cindi Brunot’s love for sports has never diminished. Still, she expressed surprise at her latest distinction, her induction into the ACBF Hall of Fame on Sunday.

“I’m certainly honored,” she said. “It’s definitely a surprise, but I’m glad to be there.

“It’s an honor to be back in the limelight with players like Anita and (Ashtabula’s) Diane Davis. Those were talented people.”

Brunot is also sharing Hall of Fame status with Tom Ritari, her basketball coach at Conneaut when she was a junior and the Spartans reached the height of their performance during her career.

“Tom was a good coach,” she said. “He taught me a lot of the fundamentals of the game, how you win and how you conduct yourself on and off the court.”

Ritari, who now resides in South Carolina, sends the compliments right back at Brunot.

“Cindi is highly deserving of being in the Hall of Fame,” he said. “She was a very coachable person. She didn’t say much, but she just went out and did her job. That’s certainly a Brunot trait.”

Retired Edgewood coach Bob Callahan was a Brunot fan, too.

“Cindi was a very effective player,” he said. “There’s no question she’s worthy of being in the hall of fame. She’s definitely one player from that era who deserves it.”

As much as anything, Brunot is pleased she is joining brother Rick in hall-of-fame status.

“It’s always special to do things with the family,” she said.



First steps

Actually, Cindi Brunot was making a name for herself in sports before basketball came into the picture. She was also quite a bowler as a part of the youth league champions at Conneaut’s El Camp Lanes for three years and attaining a high average of 167. She also participated in the Punt, Pass and Kick competition sponsored by the Ford Motor Co. and finished third in the local competition in 1975, before divisions for boys and girls were established.

There was no organized girls basketball program in Conneaut when she was growing up, so, like so many girls players of her era, she ended up going at it with her brothers and boys near their home which her family still maintains on Furnace Road.

“I was always playing with and against the boys,” Brunot said. “We played a lot of games against the neighborhood kids. My brothers tried to play, but basketball wasn’t their forte. It was pretty physical, though. I came out of it with a lot of skinned knees.”

She did have a chance to participate a bit in organized basketball competitions like the Elks Hoop Shoot and the Knights of Columbus Hoop Shoot. She won the Elks’ event from 1974-76 and was the K of C local champion in 1975 and 1976, then advanced to the district championships, winning there in 1977.

But Brunot’s first truly formal basketball experience came during the 1976-77 school year when a seventh-grade girls team was started at Rowe.

“I guess I definitely felt like a pioneer,” she said. “We were all just out there doing what we loved to do. At about the same time, they were starting the CLYO programs (of which her mother was a league organizer).”

Brunot was eventually chosen CLYO Sportswoman of the Year in 1979.

But even her teams at Rowe were pretty loosely structured.

“I think I just kind of got by on raw talent,” Brunot said. “There wasn’t much real formal training. It was just shooting around. And we really didn’t concentrate on one sport. We just focused on the sport that was being played that season.

“I felt pretty comfortable with the game at that point. I was more of a scorer than a defensive player. There was no pressure. You’d just go out and shoot the ball.”



Spartan existence

When she did get to Conneaut for her sophomore year, Brunot was immediately plugged into the lineup by coach Don Barker. Teaming up with players like senior Margaret Ingram and junior Mo Maire (now Mo Ritari), Brunot played well enough to earn honorable-mention all-county and all-conference notice for a team that went 1-16 in a year that Tersigni’s Geneva team won the NEC title.

“There was some structure to it,” she said. “We learned some plays. But we just emphasized having fun.”

The summer between her sophomore and junior seasons finally gave Brunot a truer idea of just what her capabilities were. It was a learning experience on a number of levels.

“I went to the Five-Star Basketball Camp (still a highly touted showcase of talent) in New Jersey,” she said. “You had to apply for it and I got in.

“It was the first time I had ever been on a plane, but it wasn’t too bad. I ended up winning the two-on-two championship at the camp. I got to see how my skills stacked up against other talented players. I learned more ballhandling skills, how to play inside, go hard to the boards and become a more physical player.”

Armed with a tremendous jolt of confidence, Brunot came home to find a new coach in Ritari, who had developed a large basketball legacy of his own at Conneaut and at Edinboro University and had also shown his ability to manage talent. It was a revelation for the group that featured Maire, Kathy Johnson, Denise Nine and Marsha Williams, along with Brunot.

“Tom taught us structure, plays and how to play pressure defense,” Brunot said. “He used everyone’s talents to the fullest. He was a fanatic about defense.”

Brunot was the kind of player who flourished under such a coach.

“I was more a hands-on kind of player,” she said. “It was great to have access to a coach like that. I loved it. I was like a sponge, soaking up all that knowledge.

“Tom was a competitor. He was very reasonable. He was a coach you wanted to play for because he always gave it 100 percent and you wanted to give 100 percent back to him. I learned to take it to a higher level with him. He really knew the game.”

Ritari appreciated having a player with Brunot’s attributes.

“I knew Cindi had a lot of potential,” he said. “She was extremely good inside with her strength. She did a lot of good things. Cindi had a nice soft touch around the basket. She was a good rebounder, too.

“Cindi and Mo had a good connection with that team. The girls took it upon themselves to try and improve.”

Mo Ritari appreciated Brunot’s gifts, too.

“She was our post, and I thought we worked well together,” she said. “She was our power player in the post. I think Tom had us a lot more organized, too.”

Tom Ritari wished he’d had the chance to work with Brunot earlier.

“Cindi was a nice, strong inside player,” he said. “I think if I’d had her as a sophomore, she would have been even better.”

Brunot gave opposing coaches plenty of headaches.

“I remember her as a good rebounder,” retired Harbor coach and ACBF Hall of Famer Frank Roskovics said. “She made a lot of her points inside. She was very aggressive.”

“Cindi was a big player when there weren’t a lot around,” retired Edgewood coach Bob Callahan said. “She was one of the first good big people. Our biggest problem was when she got the ball in the low post. We’d put a smaller player on her to try and use their quickness to keep the ball away from her. She was pretty agile and very difficult to stop.”

But Brunot’s Spartans faced some very formidable competition in that era. In her junior season, Tersigni, along with Nadine Cox and Liz Jessup, produced a second straight NEC title, while Ashtabula with Davis was also challenging.

“We had some good battles with Geneva and Ashtabula,” Ritari said.

“Geneva, Ashtabula and Jefferson were all tough back then,” Brunot said. “We lost a heartbreaker at sectional against Ashtabula that went into overtime.”

But Brunot made enough of an impact that she earned first-team all-county and all-conference honors as a junior. It also turned out to be a big year in softball for Brunot and the Spartans, as they shared the NEC championship and she earned first-team all-conference selection.

“I’d have to say my junior year was my best year,” she said.

After her junior year, Brunot began to investigate her options for her college education and the continuation of her athletic career.

“I was looking at schools like Detroit, Cleveland State and Bowling Green, along with Youngstown State,” she said. “In those days, they still had tryouts. That was an eye-opening experience because you were going up against bigger, more physical players.”

When she returned for her senior basketball season, Brunot was greeted by another new coach as Liz Vento took over as the head coach from Ritari, who had begun coaching with the Conneaut boys program.

“It was kind of a feeling of, ‘Here we go again,’ ” she said.

This time, Brunot was expected to shoulder the leadership role. It was a role to which she was already somewhat accustomed.

“I’d been in Student Council before and I’d also been (junior) class president,” she said. “I was also first-chair trumpet in the band my senior year. I was used to just doing whatever needed to be done.”

As the focal point of the basketball team, that meant Brunot was confronted with plenty of double teams and other defenses designed to combat her.

“I had to learn to play more under control,” she said.

Despite being keyed upon, Brunot was able to improve her scoring average by two points per game and repeated as a first-team all-county and all-conference selection in a year when Ashtabula won the championship. She finished her career with Conneaut’s career scoring record at the time. Then she capped her high school career by being named the top player of the Star Beacon Senior Classic girls game.

“That game was a lot of fun,” she said. “Everybody could play, and it was definitely a five-on-five game.”

She had another solid year in softball, too, again earning first-team all-county and all-conference honors. She was also chosen Conneaut’s MVP.

Brunot also made her mark in volleyball. She was honorable-mention All-NEC as a sophomore, second-team all-conference as a junior and special-mention all-conference as a senior. She was the team captain her junior and senior years and was chosen team MVP as a senior.



Penguin points

Choosing YSU as her collegiate destination wasn’t a particularly difficult decision.

“It was easy because Rick was there,” Brunot said. “I was also getting the chance to play two sports. It was easier for my parents, who were always very supportive, to come and see me play, too.”

But she ran into similar circumstances, at least with the Penguin basketball program. Her first year was Joyce Ramsey’s last as head coach, ending in a 10-12 record.

“My freshman year was a learning experience,” Brunot said.

In her second season, she moved into the starting lineup for Cohen as the Penguins finished 11-16 and she led the team in field-goal percentage. But Cohen was gone by the next season, replaced by Ed DiGregorio, who was beginning a 20-year run as head coach. The Penguins were 7-17 in his first season, then improved to 14-13 in her senior year of 1984-85.

“The coach my sophomore year was pretty hard core and really into conditioning,” Brunot said. “We joined the (Ohio Valley Conference). We got to play Tennessee that year.

“DiGregorio gave us more structure and a lot more difficult non-conference schedule. We got to play West Virginia with Regina Wells, who was one of the first women to dunk, and we made it our goal not to let her dunk on us.

“I guess you could say I had a lot more life experiences than experiences of success in basketball,” Brunot said.

Softball went better. She started in center field for four years, batting .346 as a freshman. As a senior, she batted .310 and was chosen team MVP.

With all the time and travel involved in playing two sports, it took an extra year for Brunot to get her degree in geology. She also finished with minors in chemistry and coaching.

“I never did anything with the coaching,” she said with a laugh.



After YSU

With her other degrees, Brunot went into the field of environmental consulting and conservation. She did that at first in Ohio, then moved to Florida in 1987.

Once she moved to Florida, she worked for a firm in that industry for eight years before starting her own business, Envirospec, Inc., in 1995 in her home in Lantana, Fla., a community south of West Palm Beach.

“We’re involved in petroleum assessment and remediation,” she said. “We test the soil and ground water and provide cleanup as it’s needed.

“I always wanted to be in a career where I’d be outdoors at least most of the time. We go throughout the state. I probably spend about a 50-50 split between the office and the field.”

One of her employees is her nephew, D.J., who is Doug’s son. She numbers four employees in all.

While still at Youngstown State, Brunot got involved in slow-pitch softball and played in national tournaments from 1982-97. She was a member of Triple Crown Class C national championship team in 1992, made the Triple Crown Women’s A-B World Team in 1994 and was named the ISA World Tournament Best Defensive Player in 1996.

Gradually, as the shift in softball emphasis for women went from slow-pitch to fast-pitch, first at the collegiate level, then in high school, Brunot made the change as well, becoming a registered official, first in Ohio, then in Florida. She’s been an umpire for 28 years.

Brunot has been a certified NCAA fastpitch official since 1995 and has worked games in Division I in Southeastern, Atlantic Coast, Big East, Conference-USA, Sun Belt, Atlantic Sun, Tran-Atlantic conferences and Division II Sunshine State Conference, including the conference tournaments in several of those. She has umpired Division I regional tournament games, the Division II national tournament and World Series, the National Junior College Athletic Association tournament and various Amateur Softball Association tournaments at the national level. She also worked U.S. Olympic team games played in Florida that led up to the Olympics in 2004 and 2008. She also umpired for professional teams such as the Akron Racers.

Since she moved to Florida, she has also added football and volleyball officiating to her resume.

“That one of the reasons I started my own business,” Brunot said. “I wanted to have the flexibility with my schedule to do whatever I wanted to as an athlete and an official.”

The truths she learned as an athlete are still an important part of her life.

“It’s helped structure my life as far as responsibility and organization,” Brunot said. “It taught me hard work, working with others and the importance of teamwork.

“Playing and officiating the game has certainly helped me in my life in many ways.”