- Date Of Birth: May 7, 1924
- Date Of Death: November 3, 2016
- State: Connecticut
Lloyd T. Duff, 92, passed away peacefully at home in Mansfield Center on November 3, 2016, embraced in the love of family and close friends. He was born on May 7, 1924, the son of the late Edward E. and Alice (Towle) Duff, of Lakewood, OH. He shared 65 blissful years of marriage with Gwen M. Duff, who predeceased him in 2013.
Lloyd was an alumnus of Lakewood High School in Lakewood, OH, where he lettered in tennis, basketball and track and is a member of the Athletic Hall of Fame. He then attended Oberlin College where he lettered in football, basketball and track in his freshman year. His education was interrupted, as it was for many young men in 1943, when he enlisted in the U.S. Army.
During the 1948 season, he married his high school sweetheart, Gwen Moore. After graduation, they moved to the University of Pittsburgh, where he began his collegiate coaching career. He was assistant track coach for six years at Pitt while also earning a master’s degree in education. In 1954 he and Gwen moved the family to Storrs when Lloyd was appointed head coach of UCONN’s varsity track and cross country teams. He served in that capacity until 1967, at which time he became head of the newly formed Recreation Department where he expanded intramural activities and the use of athletic facilities for students and faculty—including a ski slope, “Husky Hill.” During this time, as a member of the University Senate he initiated a resolution that resulted in University President Homer Babbidge leading a group of thirty college presidents in a meeting with President Richard Nixon to express their concern about the war in Vietnam.
He retired from UCONN in 1979 to devote full-time energy to Holiday Hill Day Camp and Recreation Center in Mansfield. A life-long summer camper, Lloyd had served in positions at several camps in Michigan and Ohio before moving to Connecticut where he was a village director at YMCA Camp Hazen and the camp manager at Silver Lake Conference Center before fulfilling his dream of founding his own camp. In 1960 he and Gwen established Holiday Hill Day Camp and built it into what is now the region’s oldest and largest summer day camp serving families from all over eastern Connecticut and beyond.
Lloyd had a lifelong passion for the game of golf and was a long-time member of the Willimantic Country Club.
Lloyd is survived by his three children: Lynn and husband Mark Leu of Prescott, AZ; Robert and wife Jill of East Greenwich, RI; and Wendy and husband Dudley Hamlin of Mansfield Center; as well as his cherished grandchildren: Jamie Keehan; Laura and Graham Duff; and Spencer, Haley and Hunter Hamlin; sisters-in-law, Martha Austin of Tiffin, OH, and Shirley Duff of Cincinnati, OH; and six nephews and a niece. He was predeceased by his sister, Janet Murphy of Fort Worth, TX, and brother E. Roy Duff of Cincinnati, OH.
American Camp Association Gwen and Lloyd Duff Campership Fund
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Windham Area Interfaith Ministries
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UCONN Opera
1295 Storrs Rd. Unit 1012, Storrs CT 06269
