There was no wrestling program when George Beaudry attended Hall High in West Hartford where he played football, basketball and baseball in the early 1950s. When he went to Springfield College, he discovered wrestling after getting released from the basketball program as a freshman.

That began his love of wrestling. He competed in wrestling at Springfield and encouraged his former Hall High football coach Bob McKee to have his players wrestle to become better athletes.

Beaudry began coaching wrestling in West Hartford at the junior high level in 1956. He became the head coach at Conard High in 1968. In 18 years as the head coach of the Chieftains, he had a coaching record of 237-30-5. He led his team to 14 Central Connecticut Interscholastic League (CCIL) championships, three CIAC Class L state titles (1975, 1976, 1980), two CIAC Class LL state championship (1981, 1982) and a State Open title in 1968.

Beaudry’s teams went undefeated and untied five times and finished second at the State Open three consecutive seasons from 1972-74. In his 18-year career that ended in 1986, 27 Conard wrestlers won state titles and nine won State Open championships. He had a Conard team that won 42 consecutive dual meets from 1980-82, 35 in a row from 1975-78 and 30 straight from 1970-72.

In addition to coaching wrestling, Beaudry was also the head boys track and field coach at Conard from 1974-81 and assisted McKee on Conard’s football staff from 1968-77. He was named the Connecticut High School Coaches Association’s wrestling coach of the year in 1975 and was named the National High School Coaches Association District I Coach of the Year in 1982.

In 1999, the Hartford Courant highlighted the best coaches of the 20th century in a story called “Best of the Century” and Beaudry was one of just two wrestling coaches to be recognized.

Beaudry had a reputation for quietly sitting in his corner during a match. “They are so prepared, what do I have to tell them?” he once said. McKee told the Hartford Courant in 1984, “When you say Conard wrestling, you are really saying George Beaudry. He’s the one who established Conard pride.”

Beaudry always enjoyed working with kids and chose teaching and coaching as his career. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree from Springfield and earned a Masters’ degree in Special Education from the University of Hartford. Many summers were spent working with the West Hartford Parks and Recreation Department.

Beaudry died in 1999 at the age of 67. He was posthumously inducted into the Connecticut Chapter of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in 2004. He was inducted into the Connecticut High School Coaches Hall of Fame in 2015.

Posted by the Connecticut Chapter of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame, June 1, 2021