McCoy Declines Comment On Breakaway League
Third written request goes unanswered; league said to answer to no captain, only itself
Porch light burns, car sits idle in driveway as scrutiny mounts
By Anita Bath·Staff Reporter
Mr. McCoy plays his second set of the afternoon at Thursday's open house before leaving without a word to the paddle committee.
“He shook hands with everyone and left early. Normally he stays for the chili.”
ROWAYTON, Conn., Sept. 30 —Ken McCoy did not respond this week to a third written request for comment from this newspaper regarding reports that he has quietly organized a paddle league outside the jurisdiction of the Fairfield County Platform Tennis League, one described by those who say they have been approached about joining as answerable to no captain and governed, in effect, by itself.
The requests went out by mail, by electronic message and, on Tuesday, by hand, to the Rowayton Avenue address McCoy has held since 2019. All three went unanswered. The porch light was on when the third was delivered, and a car sat in the driveway. Neither moved by nightfall.
McCoy captained Rowayton B through its 2024-25 championship season, a run he has since described, without contradiction from anyone willing to be quoted, as possibly the finest a captain has produced in the club's recorded history. He stepped down from the post this year and has since floated, at various points, at least two separate retirements from the sport, neither of which held.
Word of the new venture surfaced last Thursday, when McCoy appeared unannounced at the club's preseason open house and played two sets before leaving without a word to the paddle committee, which had not been told he was coming. "He shook hands with everyone and left early," said a member of the committee, granted anonymity because he was not authorized to characterize a former captain's motives. "Normally he stays for the chili."
The league McCoy is rumored to have organized has no captain by design, according to two people who say they were approached about joining and who asked not to be named because they had not decided whether to accept. Authority, in this arrangement, is understood to rest with no single man — an arrangement one prospective member called both the venture's appeal and, on reflection, the part he could not picture actually working.
Others trace the idea to a dispute over the PTI algorithm, which credited McCoy with a smaller improvement this season than he had expected and which he is said to have blamed, privately, on captains he considered too controlling of their own rosters. The league office did not respond to a request to confirm whether any dispute had been formally filed. It rarely does.
The paddle committee says it has fielded eleven inquiries this month from members asking whether the new league is real, whether it is a house league open to anyone, and, in one case, whether the member himself has already been left off it.
As of Tuesday evening the porch light at the McCoy residence was still on. The car had not moved.
