Pasquale (Pat) Sinatro passed away on Saturday, May 2, 2015.

Pat Sinatro. Photo courtesy of UConn Athletics Communications Office

By Ronni Newton

Pat Sinatro, a prominent West Hartford businessman, local philanthropist, and patriarch of an extended family of children and grandchildren – most of whom reside in West Hartford – passed away on Saturday, May 2 at his West Hartford home, according to his obituary in the Hartford Courant.

Sinatro, 87, was honored by the UConn Club with the Red O’Neill Award just last week. Pat, UConn ’51 and his son Mark, UConn ’88, were the first father and son combination in history to receive the prestigious award which honors “character, leadership, athletic ability, and later, a successful career.”

Mark Sinatro said last week that while winning the award was an “unbelievable honor,” he was bittersweet about celebrating while his father was suffering. Due to Pat Sinatro’s illness, neither attended the awards ceremony on April 28.

Pat Sinatro, a U.S. Air Force veteran who served during the Korean War, was founder along with his brother of the Sinatro Insurance Agency, and managed the Sinatro Realty Company.

Sinatro and his family, most of whom attended UConn, are longtime supporters of the University.

“Pat was always approachable and willing to step up whenever the University was in need of fulfilling an initiative for funds. When Gampel Pavilion was being constructed, Pat, his wife Jo and their children donated the funds in honor of their UConn education,” the UConn Athletics Communications Office wrote in a release about the Red O’Neill Award.

The Sinatro family also contributed to a chair in Italian Studies and construction of the Babbidge Library, led a parent fundraising drive for the Husky Dog Park, and are members of the Founders Society of the UConn Foundation and established the Sinatro Family Scholarship, according to UConn.

Pat Sinatro was involved in multiple ways with the West Hartford Youth Football and Basketball leagues and the National Junior Tennis Association.

Court #5 at the Hartford Tennis Club, where Pat served as president and the family belonged for many years, was awarded to Pat this year for his “diligence, excellence and devotion to the game of tennis,” UConn said.

Pat also received the Certificate of Excellence in community service from the Daughters of the American Revolution and worked with Conard High School to establish a West Hartford Fallen Heroes Memorial Monument.

According to the obituary, a wake will be held on Tuesday, May 5, from 2-7 p.m. at Saint Peter Claver Church, 47 Pleasant St., West Hartford. The funeral will be held at 10 a.m. on Wednesday, May 6, 2015 at Saint Peter Claver. Burial with military honors will follow at Fairview Cemetery. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the University of Connecticut Foundation/Sinatro Family Tennis Scholarship c/o University of Connecticut 2390 Alumni Drive, Unit 3206, Storrs, CT 06269-3206; Wounded Warriors; or St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Online expressions of sympathy may be made at www.molloyfuneralhome.com.