The Loomis School’s Victory Bell rang for the first time during a Friday night pep rally on October 1, 1965. The next day it rang again — two rounds of what The Loomis Log described as “crisp, clear tones sounding joyously over the Island” — signaling wins for the soccer and football teams. Sixty years later, the tradition endures. On many Wednesday and Saturday late afternoons or even early evenings as buses return from away games, the tolling bell can be heard from every location on campus, set in motion by team members tugging at its rope pull. This is one way Loomis and Loomis Chaffee teams have celebrated their successes and let their school know they notched a victory that day.

Herbert Savin ’44 and Loomis parents Arnold S. Cartin and Joseph S. Sudarsky donated the bell in 1965 as a memorial to faculty member John Anthony “Tony” Worthington. While a memorial fund had been established in Tony’s name to support a library of German books at Loomis, the three men felt that something needed to be done to preserve the memory of Tony’s impact across the campus. The gift’s accompanying citation noted his “boundless energy, enthusiasm, and good spirit [that] inspired all Loomis students who knew him to strive to do their best whether in the classroom or on the playing field.” 

The bell was riveted to the west-facing exterior wall of Erickson Gym, its sturdy iron frame supporting the headstock from which the bell hangs as well as the large wheel that feeds the rope pull and guides the bell to swing back and forth. Around 2000, the bell was taken down in preparation for the wall’s demolition and construction of the Olcott Center. It was rehung slightly north of its original location after the Olcott Center’s opening. 

Tony Worthington taught French, German, Spanish, and Latin at Loomis. He coached JV soccer and cooked meals for Darwin Club outings. The Loomis Bulletin described Tony as having “a brilliant career as a teacher of languages.” He was just as well known for serving up legendary omelets and steaks with salad at the Darwin Club cabin in East Hartland, Connecticut, or playing his guitar and singing with gusto in the Faculty Follies shows staged at the Norris Ely Orchard Theater. Tony was a seasoned international traveler, having moved to England with his family as a child and lived there through college and graduate school at Oxford University. He joined the British Army during World War II, eventually serving in military intelligence units in Africa and Europe. His strong capacity for languages served him well; he was fluent in French, German, Spanish, and Swahili and was described as “acquainted” with Russian, Italian, and Dutch. Travels with Loomis faculty friends and solo journeys took him to Italy, Mexico, and Europe.
Tony was in his 10th year at Loomis when he unexpectedly passed away in 1964 at age 45. 

Alumni and faculty colleagues remembered Tony as someone engaged passionately in whatever he was doing: teaching, coaching, encouraging sportsmanship, smoking his pipe and telling jokes, composing long rhyming verses that mentioned every Loomis faculty member and their family as his Christmas greeting, or simply being cheerful. One student remarked the year after Tony’s death, “He was always cheerful, but more than that, he made other people cheerful, even those who barely knew him.”

As the bell signified Tony Worthington’s legacy, the families of its donors — the Cartins, Savins, and Sudarskys — would grow over time to include two or three generations of alumni, including Blanche Savin Goldenberg ’70, former chair of the Board of Trustees who recently received the Henry R. Kravis ’63 Distinguished Service Award, and Edith “Gay” Sudarsky ’39, who served as a Loomis Chaffee Trustee beginning in 1965 and was involved in planning for the merger of Loomis and Chaffee. She received the Distinguished Service Award in 1986.

In 1965, Loomis joined the ranks of colleges and schools with a victory bell, including Williston Northampton School, whose bell was given in 1962 to honor Chuck Vernon at the close of his senior year at the school. Chuck began his long career at Loomis and Loomis Chaffee in September of 1968, just over three years after Tony Worthington had passed away. Many remember Chuck, who died last year, for living life to its fullest, for his sense of humor, and for his good cheer. Above all, he was blessed with the gift of friendship, a characteristic he shared with Tony. Both men made the school a better place. That is clear as a bell.