Bruce Biel is known around New Britain, Connecticut, as “Mr. Central.” He’ll argue that the title should belong to his longtime friend and colleague C.J. Jones. Either way, the duo has been an essential part of the Central Connecticut State University Athletics Department for more than 40 years.
The two of them are known to wear Central blue so much that when they are spotted without it, people ask if they are mourning. One has been the voice of the school since his student years in the 1980s; the other, a former athletic director who helped build much of the success that Central athletics sees today. Biel has served as the voice of CCSU athletics since 1982, while Jones, who first came to Central as a student-athlete in 1964, later led the athletics program as the athletic director from 1995 to 2009.
The duo even makes a stronger team as golfers. Alongside two other Central alums, Biel and Jones have dominated the Toys for Tots tournament at Chippanee Golf Club in Bristol, Connecticut, winning three in a row. But it all started for this duo back in the ‘60s. Raised in Queens, New York, Jones played baseball and basketball at Bayside High School. But as a son of a single parent, he wasn’t sure college was something he could afford.
“Wharton County Junior College in Texas [recruited me], but my mother didn’t want me to go that far away,” Jones said. “I had a partial scholarship to American University, and then there was Central Connecticut.”
His guidance counselor at Bayside was John Nucatola, who is enshrined at the Basketball Hall of Fame, was the NBA’s Supervisor of Officials from 1970-77, and is regarded as “The Greatest Official” by fellow Hall of Famer Clair Bee. Nucatola had officiated games at Central and reached out to then-CCSU men’s basketball coach Bill Detrick to ask him to meet with Jones. Jones visited campus and bonded with Detrick.
“It was cheaper for me to come here [to Central] than it was to go to American on a partial scholarship, so I was led to Central for that reason,” he said.
It took some time for the Queens native to adjust to life in New Britain.
“The first weekend I was on campus I decided to walk downtown,” Jones said. “Probably about six or seven o’clock, I thought I should get on a bus back to campus and come to find out, busses stopped at six o’clock.”
He went on to play both basketball and baseball at Central, which was then Division II, for four years. After graduating with an English degree in December 1969, he was again faced with two choices: to start teaching high school English in the middle of the year or to take a few graduate courses.
“I knew how the students were, and that if you walked into school in the middle of the year, it was going to be a problem,” he said. “So I decided to go to graduate school here at Central.”
Central introduced the Educational Opportunity Program designed to provide promising students with scholarships and academic help when they might not have met traditional admission standards, according to CCSU’s website. So, Jones applied to become a counselor in the program and was accepted during the summer of 1969, which kept him tied to CCSU a little longer.
“That fall, the director of the program decided to go back to the math department, and the director position opened up,” he said. “I just happened to be at the right place at the right time, and the rest is history.”
Jones discovered that he loved the position and went on to spend the next 25 years as the director of the EOP program at CCSU, helping struggling students make the grade to get into college in New Britain.
“It was a unique program,” Jones said. “We did a 50th anniversary, and people came from Seattle and Georgia, all over the country to come and reminisce about someone they knew and the experiences they had.”
While he was working at the EOP during the summer, he was also an assistant coach for the men’s basketball program in the fall and winter.
“In ’87 we were struggling, we had just gone Division I, and then Coach Detrick had some health issues, and I took over as the interim coach,” Jones said.
In his time as the interim coach, he posted an 8-15 record and applied for the head coach position. He did not get the job, but neither of the following two CCSU coaches exceeded the eight-win benchmark. However, eight years later, the athletic director position opened, and he applied for it. He got hired.
“When I got the job, I reached out to Howie Dickenman [about the men’s basketball coaching job], who I had played ball with here,” Jones said. “He was the top recruiter at UConn, and I’m sure a lot of people didn’t think he was going to come to Central. But maybe it was time for him to make a move, and I guess our relationship [helped]. He decided to come to Central, and the rest is history.”
Dickenman led Central to three March Madness appearances during his 20-year tenure at CCSU. He was not Jones’ only winning hire. He also brought on Mick D’Arcy, the current coach of the women’s soccer team, and Charlie Hickey, the coach of the baseball team. Jones also hired Tom Pincince as CCSU’s Sports Information Director in 2002. 17 years later, Pincince became Central’s Athletic Director. While serving as athletic director, Jones grew close to Biel, who was the main play-by-play voice announcer of Central Athletics. Biel was an athlete in high school, playing basketball, golf and jai alai.
“I went to Central back in 1982, after I graduated from Hall High School in West Hartford,” Biel said.
As a CCSU student majoring in communications, he was approached at Elmer’s, the bar closest to campus, by another student who asked if he would be interested in broadcasting some games for the New Britain Red Sox, Biel agreed.
“I was playing pool one night at Elmer’s and I was asked if I wanted to get into broadcasting, and I said, ‘Okay, yeah, maybe I’ll give it a shot.’”
His first broadcast was a game at Beehive Field.
“I really took a liking to it,” he said.
He joined the on-campus radio station, WFCS, and went on to become its sports director. This
job included the play-by-play call of CCSU basketball, football and New Britain Red Sox
baseball from 1986-89.
“WFCS was invaluable to me,” Biel said. “It really was, it was great experience with not just
commentary, but sports shows too.”
That experience helped him land an internship at Channel 30 WVIT/NBC Connecticut. While juggling the internship, his job at WFCS, and schoolwork, he was still the full-time play-by-play broadcaster for CCSU and traveling with football and men’s basketball. In 1986, while still a student, Biel had the call for CCSU’s very first Division I basketball game. Before the first ever Division I game played in New Britain, Central dedicated the gym to head coach Bill Detrick.
“It was awesome,” he said. “We played St. Peter’s on Bill Detrick night and won by 19 points. For a first Division I game, it was great.”
After being a strong contender at the Division II level but not winning a championship, Central moved up from Division II.
“Saint Peter’s College had just made the tournament, and we had no idea what to expect,” Biel
said. “Detrick Gym was jam-packed that night, and it was crazy. We won and the thought after the game was that we could do this… It was just euphoria.”
Biel and Jones have a special bond with not just each other but also the mecca of NCAA basketball, the March Madness tournament. Biel has called all of CCSU men’s basketball postseason appearances on the radio, while Jones was the athletic director at the time for each appearance. Jones loves the tournament so much, he co-wrote a book about it, “A Method to March Madness: An Insider’s Look at the Final Four.”
In 2000, Central won its first Northeast Conference championship, securing a bid to the NCAA Tournament against No. 2 Iowa State at the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
“We were down 19 at the half, and at halftime, [CBS analyst] Bill Raftery walks up to Detrick, gives him a hug and says, ‘Bill, you never know,’” Biel said.
Central tied the game at 68 with six minutes left, but it was the closest Central would come to winning in the [Division I] Big Dance, but to Biel and Jones, just making it there was enough.
“I’d been a member of the Coaches Association, and I watched the selection show for years,” Jones said. “And I was hoping for years that maybe one day we’d do that.”
Central made it back to the NCAA tournament again in 2002, but with a less-than-stellar first-round performance, the Blue Devils were knocked out yet again. In 2004, the dynamic duo became a trio with the addition of Marc Robbins to the broadcast booth, who Jones brought on.
“After about a half-hour interview with seven or eight members, he fired a sweatsuit at me and said, ‘Welcome aboard,’” Robbins said.
Robbins was a journalism major from Arizona State University who had a broadcast career in markets all over the country, starting in Sioux Falls, then Evansville and finally returning to New England with a job in Connecticut.
“When we started to work together, the chemistry was instant,” Robbins said. “It was like there was an instant bond, we probably started finishing each other’s thoughts midway through the season.”
Despite not being an alumnus and being the last of the three friends to arrive at Central, Robbins has been part of CCSU for the past 20 years, and over those two decades, like Biel and Jones, a budding fondness for the school has grown.
“Central is an interesting melting pot of people,” he said. “There’s strong character, and strong friendship.”
To each member in this group of tight friends, CCSU means something different for some, it is friendship and for others it is family, but to all of them, the memories stick out more than anything else. Biel and Jones are both CCSU Athletic Hall of Famers, being inducted into the hall for their dedication to the school with Biel being inducted in 2013 and Jones was inducted in 2019. Recognized for their commitment to CCSU, Biel and Jones were inducted into the Athletic Hall of Fame. Biel was honored in 2013 and Jones in 2019.
“Central gave me an opportunity that I never could have imagined,” said Jones, who was
inducted into the NEC Hall of Fame in 2018. “I coached here, and I was a part of the EOP
program, I met my wife here.”
Biel is still known as the Central Guy. Even at his job at the Hartford Yard Goats baseball team, his colleagues still ask him about CCSU men’s basketball and how their season went. Biel’s two children, Carolyn and Trevor, both graduated from CCSU. Carolyn played softball for the Blue Devils and then coached at Central. Trevor still produces his dad’s games at Central.
“Central is a part of me,” Biel said. “Anywhere I go, I wear blue. I mean, I wear it everywhere. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.”
