Wahconah grad Aliah Curry Pulaski named to the Norwich University Athletics Hall of Fame | Local Sports

When the news came, it was not a surprise to Aliah Curry Pulaski.

After all, being Norwich University’s all-time scoring leader in women’s basketball is traditionally a road one travels to make the school’s athletics Hall of Fame.

“I had an idea that it was coming, but when I was told, we went back up because Norwich got 1,000-point banners. It was the old athletic director was actually the one that told me,” said Pulaski. “It was pretty neat. I didn’t get a phone call. I was told in person up at Norwich.”

As Aliah Curry, she scored 2,267 career points in four years at Norwich, a number that topped the Great Northeast Athletic Conference rankings for more than a decade.

Aliah Curry receives her induction as an athlete into the Dalton CRA Hall of Fame Sunday at The Stationery Factory in Dalton.

GILLIAN JONES-HECK — THE BERKSHIRE EAGLE

Pulaski is one of nine individuals and one team that will be inducted into the Vermont college’s athletics Hall of Fame. The announcement came at the end of January.

Aliah Curry Pulaski and the other members of the Class of 2025 will be inducted in ceremonies on Sept. 21.

“It’s actually an incredible feeling,” she said, in a phone interview with The Eagle. “I think this one means more than any of them. This one means a whole heck of a lot, being at Norwich.”

The newly minted Hall of Famer remembered back to when she got the phone call from the GNAC staff about being a Hall of Famer.

“It’s very, very different,” Curry Pulaski said of getting the word in person. “I’m in the place that’s obviously recognizing me from a Hall of Fame standpoint. That’s why this one means so much more. They make you feel like family.”

Tony Mariano, who retired as Norwich’s athletic director in 2022 after more than three decades at the Vermont school, was the AD when Curry Pulaski played.

The all-time leading scorer in Norwich women’s basketball history, Aliah Curry is now a GNAC Hall of Famer.

The Dalton CRA Athletic Hall of Fame inducted its Class of 2024 recently.

PITTSFIELD — Sandi Hassett smiled when a reporter asked her what her induction into the Berkshire County Girls Basketball Hall of Fame meant.After all, it has been some three decades since …

“He literally saw me walk in with my mom and my husband, and ran over, gave us all a big hug and said I get to be the one to tell you,” she said. “That’s why this one means so much.”

In the press release from Norwich, Curry Pulaski is described as “the greatest player in Norwich women’s basketball history. She scored 2,267 points, and was the GNAC’s all-time scoring leader until Rivier’s Lyric Grumblatt broke the record with a 23-point performance in a win by Rivier over Anna Maria on Jan. 21.

Curry Pulaski, who graduated in 2015, was the first Norwich sophomore to reach the 1,000-point mark, going over on Feb. 2, 2013. She was also the first player in program history to pass the 2,000-point mark.

She was a four-time All-Great Northeast Athletic Conference selection, a second-team pick in her freshman and sophomore years and a first-team selection as a junior and as a senior.

A member of the Berkshire County Girls Basketball Hall of Fame and the New England Basketball Hall of Fame, she was inducted into the GNAC Hall of Fame in 2023.

One of Curry’s career highlights, according to the release, was when she scored 33 points in an overtime win against Emmanuel in the 2014 GNAC quarterfinals. The win ended Emmanuel’s 64-game conference winning streak and halted Emmanuel’s run of seven consecutive league titles. It has been called “the greatest win in Norwich history.”

The newest Hall of Famer is in her second season as an assistant coach at Albertus Magnus in Connecticut. She splits time between working for veteran coach J.R. Fredette and working with husband Nicholas at their business Oasis Physical Therapy in Stratford, Conn.

Aliah Curry scored 2,267 points over her college career at Norwich University.

PHOTO PROVIDED BY NORWICH UNIVERSITY

“It is very different than playing, for sure,” Curry Pulaski said with a laugh. “I know last year, when I told my head coach at Albertus, I definitely feel like I was rusty last year and I needed that year to kind of catch up. It is so different playing at the college level than coaching. I didn’t realize how fast-paced it was coaching and how much goes into a college basketball game.

“Just playing it is so very different. For me, rules have changed. I’m not used to the [ball] advancement rule at the end of the games.”

Albertus Magnus is 15-9 and 10-3 in the GNAC. Going into the weekend, the Falcons are tied for third with Rivier. 

Ten of the 15 teams in the conference make the postseason tournament.

Curry Pulaski got a chance to coach Albertus Magnus’ all-time scoring leader. Caitlyn Scott has 2,042 points after scoring 27 in a win over Regis back on Feb. 15.

The Wahconah graduate will be going into the Hall of Fame with classmate Kaycie Anderson (hockey), Ally Daniels Gaudreau (women’s lacrosse/basketball), Donovan Brown (baseball/football), Silver Oghayne (wrestling), Robert Archambault (football), Peter Cornish (skiing) and Robert Priestly (hockey). Former school president Ernest Harmon is being inducted as is the 1975 men’s lacrosse team.

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