Thomas Eccleston Jr. 1910-2000

Thomas Eccleston Jr. was born in Lancashire, England in 1910 and came to the United States in 1912 with his mother Frances and brother Donald. His father, Thomas Sr., had come to the the US shortly after Thomas Jr. was born in 1910 to work as a boss finisher at a factory in Bradford, Rhode Island.

Thomas Eccleston Jr. and his brother both graduated from Brown University in RI. At the age of 24, in 1934, Thomas Jr. started his teaching career in a small north western RI mill town named Burrillville.

He taught History, Science and English and established Burrillville's first high school hockey team in 1938. Thomas Jr. also coached the Broncos' football and baseball teams. He holds a state high school record in RI for winning the football, hockey and baseball state championships for both the '47-'48 and '48-'49 seasons! Coach Eccleston took the Broncos to six state championship hockey titles between the years of 1945 to 1956.

Coach Eccleston then moved on to coach the Providence College Friars in 1956 and guided them to an ECAC championship in 1964. He was named NCAA Division I Hockey Coach of the Year in 1964.

He gave up coaching the following year to concentrate on his duties as Superintendent of Burrillville schools. Upon retiring in 1971, coach Eccleston began teaching and coaching again at The Hill School in Pennsylvania.

In 1985, at the age of 75, Coach Eccleston returned to coach the Burrillville Broncos high school hockey team. Burrillville went on to win the Met B1 state championships for the '85-'86, '87-'88, '88-'89, and '89-'90 seasons. Coach Eccleston retired from coaching for the final time after the 1990 season and passed away 10 years later on December 23, 2000.

Some of the information above was obtained from www.OnFrozenPond.com.
Please visit this informative site for more Burrillville hockey history.