PRIDE SPORTS JOURNAL
THE MASTERMIND by Joe Arruda
For five-time National Coach of the Year Charlie Sullivan, coaching is like chess
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A long time coming
I
by Joe Arruda
sat amongst the organized clutter of championship memorabilia in Charlie Sullivan’s office as a brighteyed freshman. It was the first step of a four-year journey covering the men’s volleyball team on campus. I was writing a season preview and I knew the team was historically good – it was on the verge of a national championship three-peat at the time – and I knew how renowned Charlie Sullivan was as a coach. What I didn’t know, and soon became fascinated by, was that Sullivan didn’t play volleyball growing up. He had never even seen a live match until he was coaching one. That story, which begins on page 44 of this publication, has been in the works since that day. Like Sullivan, when I first got into volleyball, the extent of my knowledge didn’t reach far past what I remembered from P.E. classes. Going to Blake Arena and filling the seat at the end of the scorer’s table at almost every home match for the last four years, I almost felt like a part of the team. Like the actual athletes, I was learning from – in my mind and in the minds of many others – the greatest coach to ever do it. I used to write questions out for Sullivan post-game before I soon realized he was going to tell me what he wanted at lightspeed regardless of what I asked. But if I asked a bad question or even hinted at how good the team was, I knew I wasn’t getting an answer. Having that experience as a student journalist prepared me for what I am expecting to deal with in the “real world” – for that, I am incredibly grateful. Finally, in 2022, after two years of dissapointing finishes because of COVID, the Mecca welcomed a full season. It was one that ended on a familiar stage – the NCAA National Championship. Unfortunately, the Pride came up just short of a nation-leading 12th title. This year, however, was a win in itself. Our teams, in all three seasons, were back. Fans were allowed at games, several teams made tournament runs – “normal” is approaching quickly, and I hope we captured this special year in this issue of the Pride Sports Journal. Special thanks to our faculty advisors, Aimee Crawford and Marty Dobrow; Kelly Gonya in the Office of Communications; Brian Magoffin and Brandon Eckles in Sports Info; and of course, to the rest of our staff, who made this issue possible.
Co-Editors-In-Chief: Joe Arruda Irene Rotondo News Editors: Cait Kemp Garrett Cote Sports Editors: Chris Gionta Carley Crain Special Projects Editors: Collin Atwood Hayden Choate Staff Writer: Braedan Shea Faculty Advisors: Aimee Crawford Marty Dobrow Contributing Writers: Jac St. Jean Sean Doyle Sean Savage
Follow Us! Website: scstudentmedia.com Twitter: @TheSpfldStudent Instagram: @TheSpfldStudent Facebook: The Springfield Student Newspaper
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BEST IN THE NATION
Jarrett Anderson was recognized as the 2022 AVCA National Player of the Year.
LINEUP 10 MANGINELLI TWINS
Joey and Gianni Manginelli are twins who look exactly alike and take up similar activities — including dominating opponents on the mat for the Pride wrestling team. By Garrett Cote
16 WOMEN’S BASKETBALL
20 THE DEGUIRE LEGACY Being a Springfield College athlete is a family affair for the three Deguire siblings, who have made Alden Street a proverbial second home. By Chris Gionta
30 JAMES CHAN After a foiled plan to swim at the Division I level, James Chan ended up at Springfield College, where he set several program records. By Collin Atwood
34 BUGBEE’S MESSAGE
The 2021-22 Springfield women’s basketball team captured the attention of the campus community as it made a run to the NCAA Sweet 16. By Hayden Choate
Inspired by his late daughter, Lindsay, men’s lacrosse coach Keith Bugbee has spread his message to “Show Up” at Springfield and around the country. By Cait Kemp
During the 2021-22 academic year, three head coaches decided to hang up the whistle. Replacing them, however, is not as easy as it may seem. By Irene Rotondo
Springfield College is home to the Pride – but it wasn’t until recently that the LGBTQIA+ community was appreciated on campus. By Carley Crain
The first match the legendary men’s volleyball coach ever coached was the first he ever watched – all the result of one crucial coin toss in a little room in Rome. By Joe Arruda
The Springfield College alumna made history at the 2022 Winter Olympics when she became the first Black athlete to represent Team USA in skeleton. By Collin Atwood
24 WHAT IT TAKES TO BE A COACH AT SC 44 CHARLIE SULLIVAN
36 SPRINGFIELD’S LGBTQIA+ HISTORY 40 KELLY CURTIS Spring 2022 | Pride Sports Journal | 3
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Leading Off
Leaps and bounds
Josh Silvester finished eighth in the triple jump and claimed All-America honors at the 2022 NCAA Division III Indoor Track and Field Championships at JDL Fast Track in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Photo by D-III Photography 26038_SpCol_PSJ.indd 5
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A Pioneer Who Paved The Way Mimi Murray (‘61 G’67) has a surplus of titles: doctor, pioneer, coach, professor and many more. During her 52year tenure at Springfield College she cemented herself as a legendary gymnastics coach – winning three Division I national championships – and as a top-notch teacher. Murray also represented Springfield on the national level, coaching the USA Gymnastics team in the World University Games in Moscow and serving as president of the American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance (AAHPERD) and the National Association for Girls and Women in Sport (NAGWS). She was also a gymnastics commentator for ABC-TV’s Wide World of Sports and NBC’s Sportsworld. Murray – whom the Women’s Sports Foundation named one of the five Pioneers in Women’s Athletics – used her platform to help lobby for the passing of Title IX. The Springfield Student’s Collin Atwood spoke with her about the landmark law’s impact.
What was your initial reaction to the passing of Title IX?
Murray: When it passed, I was very excited. I thought, “This is going to be great.” But that was 1972. It didn’t really get enacted until 1976. That was the time limit that all educational institutions had to come into compliance with Title IX.
How did Title IX change your sports world?
Murray: It was overnight. By 1976 all the high schools had teams and the colleges were adding more and more teams and sports. Things were happening. It was just wonderful. What a renaissance for women’s sports.
How do you think women’s sports have changed over the years?
Murray: The skill of women in sports improved amazingly when they were given the opportunity – which we knew all along would happen. They had better equipment, better technique, better educational opportunities to learn about their sport. It’s nice to see it happening. I couldn’t be happier.
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What about Title IX has been the most meaningful to you? Murray: I can’t single one thing out. Every [level of sports] has seen change. I think that’s because the changes in high schools, colleges and all women’s sports – and of course the Olympics – finally caught on, too. We’ve seen dramatic changes and I’m excited about all sports for women.
What do you think the future holds for gender equality?
Senio
Murray: I think we need to be very careful, because people are questioning Title IX now. If Congress enacts different legislation, we’re in big trouble. What a lot of people don’t understand about Title IX is that it’s not just for athletics. It’s for everything in education. We’re still not there. I hope we continue to see changes in [terms of] earning power and respect for the kind of work and effort women can put into whatever they desire to, if they’re allowed to. But it has improved so much. Every day I think, “Wow, look at where we’ve come from.”
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Nine for IX Justine Siegal PhD’13, Former Asst. Baseball Coach
“I can’t imagine what my life would have looked like without Title IX. Without it, I wouldn’t have played high school baseball, or coached college baseball at Springfield, or become the first woman to throw batting practice for an MLB team. I wouldn’t have founded Baseball for All. I meet so many women who say they wished they could have played baseball but weren’t allowed to. I got more opportunities than they did, and yet, there’s still so much more to be done. We’re standing on the shoulders of all those who fought for Title IX.” Carolyn Blenk Sophomore swimmer
“Title IX has been a landmark for effective accommodation of student-athletes. It is great to see the change, as women’s sports have skyrocketed. As an athlete, we are playing for those after us, so they can have the same – if not better – opportunities.”
Hannah Hu
Senior jumper on the Track and Field team
“Title IX has given me the opportunity to play my sport at the collegiate level. It also gives me the same resources and opportunities as my male teammates so that I can succeed as an athlete.”
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This year marks the 50th anniversary of the passage of the Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, a landmark piece of legislation that helped create gender equality in education and in sports. We asked Springfield College coaches, administrators, athletes and alumni what the law has meant for them. – As told to Sean Doyle, Cait Kemp, Jac St. Jean, Sean Savage and Aimee Crawford.
Mary-Beth Cooper
Moira Long
President of Springfield College
Head Women’s Volleyball Coach, 2011-present
“Title IX has been transformative in so many ways. The legislation was written broadly, to cover all areas of the educational experience. For that reason, its impact has been most important because of the doors it opened for everyone to have equitable access to education. For women, in particular, access means opportunity, whether that is to receive financial aid to enroll in the college of their choice, to pursue the academic program they are passionate about or to play the sport they love. Only through access can we begin to realize the full advantage of gender equity. Title IX was a start, but the work toward equity continues, and requires ongoing vigilance and attention. Including protections for transgender students is a next vital step to achieve the spirit as well as the letter of the law.” Naomi Graves
Head Women’s Basketball Coach, 1991-present
“I always tell people that Title IX gave me opportunities. Even in the beginning, it wasn’t perfect. There wasn’t a switch all of a sudden. It took time for it to be implemented. When I was a young girl, there were certain roles that we saw ourselves in -- nursing, teaching. We didn’t see ourselves as doctors or scientists. In sport, we didn’t see a lot of growth in college opportunities until I was in high school. But Title IX changed my life. If I didn’t go to the University of Rhode Island and I didn’t have the opportunity to play basketball there, I don’t really know where I would be or what I would be doing. That opportunity changed my life.”
Kate Bowen
Diane L. Potter ‘57 Head Softball Coach, 2017-present
“When I was a young athlete, my mom was always my coach. Soccer, basketball, softball. I saw a woman in a leadership position and I was like, ‘I can do that.’ I never thought that I couldn’t be a coach. Even now, I want my team to be surrounded by women. Whether that’s our assistant coaches, our strength and conditioning coaches, our athletic counselors, our sports psychologists, I really want our players to see other women in leadership positions.
“I’m probably in the minority in that I had so many women role models in coaching. In youth sport I definitely had more men coaches. In club volleyball it was a mix of men and women. But in high school I had great role models in women coaches. My high school volleyball coach was a woman who played at Boston College. When I first applied for coaching positions, most required you to coach two sports, volleyball and softball. I didn’t have any experience in softball, yet that was the first position that I got. I was very fortunate.” Lily Gould
Junior thrower on the Track and Field team
“Title IX means promise. It’s a promise to include people, but can be used to play a performative element and check a box as well. With inclusion of transgender and non-binary athletes like myself, Title IX must be backing athletes like me, right? It is the interpretation element that challenges the inclusion for Title IX, and is why we see many laws today, [like the] Don’t Say Gay Bills… that counteract what Title IX is all about: no exclusion on the basis of sex from government-funded institutions.” Adaeze Alaeze-Dinma
Assistant Athletic Director for Recruiting, Retention, and Student-Athlete Leadership
“Title IX has affected my life in such a positive way. It has granted me the gift of choice in my life. Title IX means that I get the option to choose my intended path instead of having it chosen for me.”
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Outstanding in her field Dottie Zenaty, who played on Springfield College’s first field hockey team and coached the program to record-breaking heights, reflects on how much women’s sports have grown.
When women’s varsity athletics were introduced at Springfield College in 1963-64, Dorothy “Dottie” Zenaty became one of two women to play all four sports during that inaugural year. She also coached Springfield’s field hockey team for 34 seasons and ranks fifth on college field hockey’s all-time wins list. She spoke with Cait Kemp, a midfielder on the current Pride field hockey team, about how women’s sports have evolved on campus. What were athletics like when you attended Springfield College? Zenaty: When I arrived on campus in the fall of 1961, there were no women’s athletics here. All we had was play days, which were like intramurals. I was a junior when intercollegiate athletics started at Springfield in 1963-64. It started with field hockey, then basketball, then softball and tennis. [Softball coach] Diane Potter had to adjust the games around my tennis schedule. We had no uniforms. We started off with four teams and a little bitty schedule. What were athletics like when you coached at Springfield College? Zenaty: In the early ’70s, we weren’t in a conference. Women organized the AIAW (Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women) to give women athletes something that was comparable to the NCAA for the men. But when we won the EAIAW championship – we beat UMass, we beat UConn, we beat all of them – the College didn’t have the money to send us to the nationals, so we didn’t go. The team we beat went instead. Women’s sports still wasn’t under the umbrella with men’s sports. We had to vie for practice space. We practiced on the baseball field for field hockey. In fact, we played games there. They were trying to offer us things, but it was nowhere near what the men were getting.
How did women’s sports grow through Title IX? Zenaty: Fast forward to AIAW and us not being able to go to the nationals. The NCAA, when they saw what the women were trying to do, they decided, “We’re going to get those women to come with us.” So 1980 was the first year of women [being part of] the NCAA. I was on the first NCAA field hockey committee; I ended up being the chairperson of all three divisions. What was the field hockey program like when you coached? Zenaty: Once we joined the NCAA, field hockey was Division I. So we played all the top teams in New England and from other parts of the country. We were the smallest school and the only one that did not give athletic scholarships. My philosophy was: “I want to play the best competition we can play.” When we went Division III, I made the promise we would play the best teams – which meant Williams, Smith, Ithaca, Cortland, Middlebury – and we did. We were having a U.S. national team practice here at Springfield. Whether it was a competition or a practice, I always had my kids involved, and these are U.S. players, Olympians. I remember this one U.S. player, an Olympian, asking some of our players, “Who sponsors your shoes?” And they said, “Nobody.” The girl asked, “Then why do you go to school here?” 1963-64
JAN. 19, 1954
Women’s sports at SC: A Timeline
Women’s varsity athletics officially begin at Springfield College, as field hockey, basketball, softball and tennis teams play their inaugural seasons.
Women’s intramural basketball is introduced at Springfield. A total of 99 women, divided into 12 teams, participate.
1951
Springfield College admits women as fulltime, regular-status students.
1957
Women’s soccer is introduced at SC as an intramural sport. A total of 89 participants make up seven teams.
197
Ina sea wo vol
1966-67
Inaugural season for women’s swimming.
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National Champ
Graduate Student Winter Osborne, a Fairbanks, Alaska, native, became just the third national champion in Springfield College women’s gymnastics program history on the uneven bars when she tied a program record score of 9.800 at the NCGA Championships on March 26.
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How did Springfield advocate for women’s sports? Zenaty: Springfield really did try to get more and more women’s teams. We would alternate practices [with football] and, let me tell you, [coach] Mike DeLong did not let his players step on that turf until our practice was done. When they were on first and we were warming up, he would leave his practice, come over to the fence and say, “Dottie, we’re not going to be using that far end for these last 10 minutes, you go over there whenever you’re ready.”
1971
1977
Inaugural season for women’s volleyball.
JUNE 23, 1972
Title IX is enacted by Congress and signed into law, prohibiting sex discrimination in any educational program or activity receiving federal financial aid.
al or
ng.
2022
Inaugural seasons for women’s lacrosse and women’s track and field.
There are 11 women’s varsity teams and 11 club teams open to women on campus.
1980
Inaugural seasons for women’s soccer and women’s golf.
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Lab Partners
Juniors Joey and Gianni Manginelli may be identical, but their wrestling styles couldn’t be more different. Regardless, the Pride’s close-knit duo will always be there for one another on and off the mat.
A
By Garrett Cote
Photography by Joe Arruda and Springfield Athletics
t surface level, the Manginelli household in Dumont, N.J., is perfectly peaceful. What looks compact and crowded from the outside holds a spacious – yet cozy – feeling. The kitchen is spotless, there is no trace of dust or dirt anywhere, and the first floor is practically submerged in silence aside from casual conversation between Giuseppe and Joann Manginelli. Or, at least, that’s how the house is when Giuseppe and Joann’s twin sons are
in “The Lab.” Beneath the calm of the first floor is the storm – 500 square feet of pure chaos located just a flight of stairs below ground level. Not the chaos that couples confusion with disorder, no. But music blasting, weights moving ferociously and sweaty bodies letting out grunts as intense training takes place while athletes perfect their craft. That kind of chaos. The kind of chaos that has shaped Joey and Gianni Manginelli into an exceptionally talented wrestling duo at Springfield College. The two 21-year-olds are, and were, inseparable. They
do everything together. And it’s almost always competitively driven. “We’re around each other 24/7,” said Joey, who is eight minutes older. “We push each other to be better all the time. We want to be better than each other. Not in a selfish way, but in a way that we can both improve. If I’m walking with Gianni and he’s walking a little faster than I am, I’ll start to walk a little faster. It’s like a mental thing. We just don’t want to lose to each other.” They can turn the most simple of everyday tasks into an unnecessary competition. That’s just who they are, according to their mother, Joann. “A few months back they had a competition to see who was going to eat a sandwich faster,” she said. “And they recorded it. I don’t remember what they were doing it for, they just had to have a video of it.” Joey won, devouring a ham, egg and cheese sandwich on a bagel. Probably the most asked, highly-anticipated question they get is who would win if the two were to wrestle. The answer is simply that they refuse. Not only do they not wrestle each other, they won’t even drill together. “We would be great drilling partners, but it would 100 percent escalate to more than wrestling,” Joey said. When they did drill together, things ended badly because their approaches are so different. “I’d hit him with a hard, heavy club, and he gets all pissed off just because it’s different being brothers,” Gianni said. “Joey is more methodical and technical, he’ll put you to sleep and then put the work on you.” Gianni, on the other hand, is a self-described “rip-your-head-off ” kind of wrestler. “I don’t know if it’s because I lack technique, I just love the fight,” he said. “I love the nitty-gritty, hard hand fighting and heavy clubs.” So they agreed it was best not to drill against one another. “We don’t want to have to go home and have to sit down and eat dinner together after we just beat the crap out of each other,” Gianni added.
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SKITTLE BOYS
Meeting the Mat Joey and Gianni were destined to wrestle. Their older brother, Dominick, who is now 29, was the first of the three Manginelli boys to get involved in wrestling. He, along with Springfield College wrestling alums Ian Tolotti and Mike Vietri, as well as Jarred Tolotti, a senior on the current Pride roster, helped jump-start Joey’s and Gianni’s wrestling careers. The Tolotti and Vietri families also live in Dumont, and all three families are close. As young kids, Joey and Gianni had no choice but to hop on the wrestling mat since it was always around them. “We kind of just fell into it,” Joey said. “My older brother had 100 wins in high school, and we were just always involved. We would go see all the high school matches, hang out with the wrestling team, and one day we just fell into the practice room. It was another way to hang out with friends.” Results on the mat weren’t the primary – and probably not even the secondary – focus for the Manginelli twins growing up. In fact, the quicker they lost, the quicker they could rush to the concession stand to load up on as much candy as their parents’ money would allow. “We used to go to tournaments and other matches, and we would lose in the matches and not care,” Gianni said. “Then we would ask our mom for money so we could buy candy and all that stuff. We were known as the ‘Skittle Boys’ on our team. We didn’t see wrestling as competition.” After several years on the mat, neither Joey nor Gianni had any success. The losses continued to pile up, and they
each had yet to make a scratch in the win column. But they loved the sport and everything that came with it – there were no doubts that wrestling needed to be a part of their future. “I feel like what made it fun was more of going out and going to all these tournaments,” Joey said. “We were traveling at a young age, we went to national tournaments (with RedNose) and all kinds of state qualifiers. We weren’t seeing success, but we were with our family and friends. At that age we were clueless, I didn’t care if I got pinned in 10 seconds. I would walk off the mat with the biggest smile on my face and go get a bag of Skittles.” When the twins were in fifth grade, Giuseppe spent hundreds of dollars for the two to wrestle the whole season at RedNose Wrestling School in Hackensack, N.J. After barely dragging through what was the hardest practice they had experienced up to that point in their early careers, Joey and Gianni wanted no part of the club. They then began losing to the same handful of kids over the course of the next few years in rec league, and their competitive nature was jump started. They insisted Giuseppe give them another shot at RedNose in eighth grade. “They finally decided that
Skittles were a major motivational factor for the Manginelli twins when they first started wrestling.
they wanted to go back to RedNose,” Giuseppe said. “And I said, ‘Okay, you sure? Because I don’t wanna be paying this money again, you screwed me last time.’ And they said they wanted to go, and then they started to realize they could do it and be good at it.” Around the same time, Dumont High School was throwing away an old wrestling mat after their freshman year, so the Manginellis jumped at the opportunity and took a corner of it and squeezed it into their basement. And with that, “The Lab” was born. From there they took off. Gianni became Dumont High School’s all-time wins leader, wrapping up his career with a 145-23 record and placing eighth in the state his senior
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or the restling.
year at 126 pounds. He also was crowned the district champion that same season. Joey, despite dealing with a handful of injuries throughout high school, including a broken jaw and torn labrum (more on that later), racked up three district championships – with the jaw injury holding him back from a potential fourth his junior year. He too eclipsed 100 wins, finishing with a 112-19 record at 120 pounds. Both Joey and Gianni went undefeated in dual meets in their senior campaigns. “It was awesome for our program to watch them grow,” said Dumont head coach Mike Rooney. “You definitely don’t see it in the moment. You reflect when they’re gone, and now you reflect on it and it’s like, those two kids are the cornerstones to our program and what we’ve been doing for the last several years now.”
The Muscle Hamsters hit Alden Following Joey and Gianni’s first visit to Springfield College, it was a no-brainer they were going to be living on Alden Street for the next four years. “When we came to Springfield, it was the Tolottis, Vietri and all their friends that kind of brought us in,” Gianni said. “We all meshed pretty well when we visited and from there it was a pretty easy decision.”
BROTHERS IN ARMS
Joey Manginelli celebrates the win that sent him to the 2022 NCAA Wrestling Championships, while Gianni waits for his match in the background.
During their first year with the Pride, the twins turned heads right away. Joey went 20-3 and punched his ticket to the NCAA Championships in Iowa while earning All-American honors at 125 pounds. As Joey wrapped up his final workout in Iowa just 12 hours before weigh-ins, he was more than ready for his first bout on the big stage. But then his mood shifted dramatically when he looked at his phone. Springfield head coach Jason Holder had texted him some gut-wrenching news. “He said all winter sports were canceled for the rest of the year because of COVID,” Joey said. He didn’t get a chance to redeem his ticket. “I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t want to believe it,’ Joey said. “And Holder said ‘Joey, I’m sorry to break it to you, but this is true.’” Gianni didn’t have access to the starting lineup right away like Joey did. He had to battle for a spot in the 133-pound class, a class that consisted of All-American Chris Trelli (who now starts at 141), eventual
100-wins club member Jacques St. Jean and current 149-pound starter Chase Parrott – all of whom are tremendously skilled. Gianni still managed to go 30-5 in his first year. “The practice room was crazy tough that year,” said longtime family friend Jarred Tolotti. “The fact that we had four kids all placing in the same weight class at most tournaments was crazy. I think everyone knew Gianni deserved a shot that year, and was honestly really close at the end. I think it made him work even harder. He just wants to be the best around.” Using that first year as fuel, the twins took the COVID-canceled sophomore season to focus on the little things they wouldn’t have time for during a full season. They worked a lot on finishing takedowns in different positions as well as setting up attacks, which drastically improved their wrestling abilities. “(The COVID year) was great, because it gave us an opportunity to practice in the college game without worrying about weight cutting,” Joey said. “All we had was a whole Spring 2022 | Pride Sports Journal | 13
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JANUARY 2021
Springfield’s wrestling season is officially canceled leaving Joey and Gianni unable to compete in their sophomore campaigns.
MARCH 2020
APRIL 2021
Joey qualifies for nationals but is unable to wrestle to due COVID cancellations.
year just to get better at wrestling. We were practicing every day and lifting three times a week. We took some time to really sharpen the fine details of the sport.” Toward the back end of their sophomore year, in April of 2021, Joey had surgery on his right shoulder to treat his torn labrum – an injury that had bothered him since his senior year of high school. Joey continued to work and rehab during the offseason and was ready to go by the time their junior year rolled around. At the start of their junior season in November of 2021, a disoriented and troubled Gianni paced back and forth outside of the Doug Parker Wrestling Room, pleading on the phone with several different specialists. He tried to convince them that his right shoulder (the same injury Joey dealt with) didn’t hurt him that bad following the 2021 Ithaca Invitational – the first tournament of the year. But it did hurt him. His labrum was fully torn. However, he insisted they let him wrestle the rest of the season. “The doctors were saying my labrum couldn’t get any worse, but it could begin to affect my rotator cuff, so that’s why some weren’t allowing me to wres-
Joey has surgery on a torn right labrum; he fully recovered to be ready for the start of junior year.
tle,” Gianni said. “And that’s when I thought I was done for the season. Then I called another doctor in New Jersey, and he asked me if I felt pain. Obviously I’m going to say no. And then he cleared me.” Competing the entire season with a torn right labrum, Gianni didn’t match the success he had his first year. But he still had one shot to flip his below-average (at least by his standards) season into a dreamcome-true by earning a trip to Nationals at the Regional tournament at Springfield College. He battled through day one. During the first match of day two, he was told by the Springfield athletic trainers that he tore his LCL in his left knee. It still wasn’t enough to stop him. Even on a bum shoulder and a bum knee, Gianni managed to crawl his way into the third place match at Regionals – with a trip to Nationals on the line. “He went out there and wrestled with all heart,” Giuseppe said of Gianni. “He went through a lot of pain. I saw a lot of matches where he was in tears. And he pushed through it. He was amazing.” Before Gianni’s final match, Joey – who had also fought into the third-place match as well, at the 125-pound weight class
– took to the mat. In front of a partisan Springfield College crowd, Joey clinched a spot in the national tournament for a second time after grinding out a 5-2 win over New England College’s Chris DeRosa. He waved his arms to pump up the fans and soaked in the moment. “It’s always fun to accomplish something at home,” Joey said. “I had all my friends in the stands, I had the whole team behind me. It’s just different doing it in your own arena. I had a tough loss and then had to beat two very tough guys to take third, and I was just so happy. I wanted to win the whole thing, but I got the next best thing.” Perhaps feeding off of Joey’s win, Gianni mustered up the strength to go out there one more time. He fell just short of joining his brother in Iowa (dropping a 5-4 heartbreaker to Johnson and Wales Gabriel Leo-Esparolini), but it didn’t matter to his teammates, friends or family. The fact that he was able to show his determination and heart was most important. He left everything he had on the mat. “You know what, I’m more proud of Gianni than I am of Joey,” Giuseppe said. Joann chimed in, “He was in so much pain, but it never stopped him. I couldn’t believe he was wres-
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NOVEMBER 2021
MARCH 2022
Gianni finds out he tore his right labrum as well, but finds a doctor who clears him to compete the rest of the season.
Gianni finally has surgery on his torn right labrum, but is expected to make full recovery and be ready for senior year.
FEBRUARY 2022
Joey takes third at Regionals and earns a trip to Nationals. Gianni takes fourth at Regionals after tearing his LCL on day two.
tling with the injuries that were bothering him.” The twins share the same love for wrestling, the same competitive spirit, and, heck, they even share the same injuries. No matter the circumstance, Joey and Gianni genuinely do everything together. “I think it’s very cool, because they will never see (how unique their relationship is) unless they hear it from someone else,” Rooney said. “There’s nothing like these two guys. They come home together, they live together, they go to school together, they work out together. Everything they do is together. I’m sure there are fights left and right, but their bond is special and it helps both of them in their own ways without them even realizing it.” Regardless of those fights, Joey and Gianni certainly acknowledge each other as their main source of ambition. “Gianni is my biggest motivator, for sure,” Joey said. “Even though we don’t wrestle together, we want to be better than the other. We motivate each other. Even if we don’t say anything, we could just be looking at each other. We may
not acknowledge it, but we both know we are our biggest motivators.” Aside from the intensity the Manginelli twins bring, there is a soft side to them as well.
every day.” Although the “Muscle Hamsters,” as the Springfield wrestling team calls them, may not be able to wrestle together, something they can – and will – definitely do together is own a wrestling club and name it after their very own sacred basement, where they spent so much of their time developing the skills that have brought them this far. Their goal is to own a wrestling club one day and call it “The Lab.” “(Over the summer) I ask people to come over from Dumont and nearby towns,” Gianni said. “We try to help them, and I don’t charge them or anything. My goal right now is just to build a DAPPER DOPPELGANGERS brand, build a name and Like many twins, Joey (left) and Gianni (right) were often dressed in the same clothes growing up. just build good wrestlers so they can say that they trained in the Manginellis baseThey are never afraid to show ment.” affection to their loving mother “Me and Gianni wouldn’t be in any situation, even if it’s in where we are right now withpublic at tournaments. out the people that came before “They’re never embarrassed us,” Joey said. “We feel like, for to come up and hug and kiss us, us, we have to give that back. whereas other kids may not do We have the same passion and that,” Joann said. “And they still we have the same drive. do it. I could be in the kitchen, “It’s gotten us this far and we and they would say, ‘Come on, want to help others as well.” mom, let’s dance.’ That’s almost Spring 2022 | Pride Sports Journal | 15
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The Year of The Posse The Springfield College women’s basketball team made a historic run to the NCAA Sweet 16 on the strength of its competitive culture and close bond.
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By Hayden Choate
Photography by Joe Arruda and Springfield Athletics
he scoreboard told the story: 1.1 seconds on the clock in overtime. 71-71. A spot in the Sweet 16 on the line. Fans in the rowdy Ithaca College home crowd were hurling insults as loud as their voices would permit. Springfield College guard Sidney Wentland eyed her team’s leading scorer, forward Sam Hourihan, on the left baseline. Wentland delivered the ball. Hourihan hauled it in, went up, and released the shot while tumbling to the hardwood. The only sound that followed was the scrape of the nylon. In an instant, the boisterous crowd had turned silent. The ball sailed through the air landing in the hoop. All Hourihan could sense was her jubilant teammates’ shock and delight. “Nothing will feel like that joy,” said longtime Pride head coach Naomi Graves. “I don’t think you ever feel like that again – and we got to experience it.” This was the moment of the year for a team that went 13-0 at home, started the season with a 16-game win streak, and was ranked as high as ninth nationally. Although
Springfield’s journey would end a week later with a loss to Trine, this buzzer beater in Ithaca was the shining moment of an unforgettable season. It all began on the Senior Green months before …
Start of a Special Run
On a warm day last September, the players gathered on the Senior Green. They played a little volleyball, then sat and talked for hours. It was the start of what would become a strong bond. Seniors Grace Dzindolet, Stephanie Lyons and Amanda Carr, and juniors Sam Hourihan and Rachel Vinton were the only players left from the roster two years ago. Springfield gained two graduate transfers in Wentland and Summer Matlack, along with several first-years and sophomores. “I think there was a competitive culture part of it,” Lyons said. When the Pride hosted RPI in their season opener on Nov. 5, it was their first game in Blake Arena in 616 days. Springfield sprinted out to a 21-2 lead on the way to a 73-38 win. The next week, after dominating cross-town rival Western New England 72-45, the Pride traveled 200 miles north for their first road games, against Southern Maine and Maine Maritime. After a five-hour bus ride, the team arrived in Castine, Maine, in cold, pouring rain. The players were hungry, but nothing was open close to their hotel. “We asked Coach if we could walk to get pizza,” Lyons said with a laugh. Lyons, Wentland, and senior forward Amanda Carr walked more than a mile in the pouring rain to get three large pizzas. They stuffed the boxes into a huge trash bag to keep them dry, then trudged back to the hotel, where their famished teammates awaited. “That just shows the culture that we have,” Lyons said. “We’ll do those types of things.” Springfield won both games in Maine to jump out to a 4-0 start. The Pride’s first tough test came right before the Thanksgiving break, when they gutted Spring 2022 | Pride Sports Journal | 17
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out a 64-59 win on the road against Williams. They closed out the semester with a 4937 road win over Connecticut College to improve to 10-0. Springfield started appearing in the national rankings. “That’s when we started looking at the records,” Dzindolet admitted. After spending the holidays at home, Pride players returned to campus on Dec. 27 and began a different kind of streak – one that would, unfortunately, last until the beginning of March. Over the next two months, they averaged two players testing positive for COVID-19 each week. “The hardest part was having the phone calls and hearing them be emotional and cry,” Graves said. “I’d be like ‘It’s going to be okay’ but inside I wanted to hit a wall.” Although it was a stressful stretch for the short-handed team, the silver lining was that everyone was forced to step up – and did. “I honestly think it made us stronger because we had to dig in. We were down to eight (players) at one point,” Carr said. A win at home against Babson on Jan. 12 improved Springfield’s record to 13-0. After the game, tears streamed down Dzindolet’s face. It was the only time in her career she had beaten the Pride’s NEWMAC rival. Carr and Lyons were both in quarantine and couldn’t share in the moment. But the fellow seniors were there in spirit. “The entire time, Steph and I were on Facetime watching the game,” Carr said. “Seeing Grace win that was huge. I was just tearing up watching it.” It was one of many short-handed victories for Springfield during the stretch
between January and March. It was during that stretch that Graves really saw her team come together. “The struggle, the emotions,” Graves said. “Through adversity you can either split or come together.” Following another long bus ride on Jan. 18, the Pride held off Middlebury 69-56 and then crushed Wellesley 73-18 at home four days later to improve to 16-0, the best start in the program’s Division III history. The win over a tough NESCAC opponent, along with the undefeated streak continuing, was a moment that set up the Posse for the rest of the season. “We really had a target on our back,” Lyons said. “We knew that they could have beat us so just knowing we were able to win that game gave us confidence for the rest of the season.” Alas, Springfield’s undefeated season – came to an end in a hard-fought, 76-72 loss at MIT. The Pride then fell short 56-51 in their rematch at Babson. They went 5-1 over the next few weeks before ending the regular season with a win over Mount Holyoke and a 21-3 record – earning the third seed in the NEWMAC tournament and the right to host a quarterfinal-round game. The Posse was focused on a new goal: the quest for a NEWMAC championship. They drew Coast Guard in a quarterfinal matchup. It was a back-and-forth, physical game. The turning point came with 3:40 left in the third quarter. Angela Czeremcha came down with one of her 12 defensive rebounds. Hourihan found Lyons in the corner for a three-point shot. Another three, this time by Hourihan, ignited the Blake Arena crowd. “You could feel the floor shaking,”
Czermacha said. The Pride pulled away to win 76-60 and finish the season undefeated at home. “In my mind we weren’t going to lose,” Dzindolet said. “That game was electric. It was awesome. We earned it.” A third matchup with Babson in the conference semifinal was not the charm. Springfield lost 70-53 – and lost the chance for a conference championship and an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. The seniors and grad students wondered: Had they just played their last game together? A New Season
On the final day of February, the entire team and coaching staff gathered in a classroom below Blake Arena to watch the NCAA tournament selection show. They sat, eyes glued to the screen, clutching each others’ hands, waiting to find out if their season would continue.
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LOVE FOR THE MECCA
The Springfield women’s basketball team – known for years as The Posse – hadn’t played a home game since February 2020, but attendance in Blake Arena increased as the team continued to find success during the 2021-22 season. “Home games this year just felt so refreshing to have the community back,” senior forward Amanda Carr said. “I think that just shows you how much love everyone had when we were playing at home.”
The bracket regions were unveiled, one by one. The first six were revealed. Springfield was nowhere to be seen. “We were like, ‘Oh, that’s it. That was our last game,’” Carr said. “We started to get emotional.” The final bracket featured Ithaca as the host. Messiah and Catholic would also play at the site. The host of the selection show paused. There was one team left to reveal. “A big exhale for the Springfield College Pride,” the host said. Pandemonium ensued. The Posse had received an at-large bid to play in the NCAA Division III Championship. “We all got up and started roaring,” Lyons said. “It was like, ‘We’re not done yet!’” Three days later, they got on I-90 going west. After four hours, they arrived in Ithaca, determined to keep the special season going. In the first round, Springfield faced an experienced team in Messiah, which had won its
conference six years in a row and had been to the Sweet 16 the past three tournaments. “We told the kids ‘We belong [in the NCAA tournament],’” Graves said. “They believed it, but at the same time they hadn’t experienced it.” The Posse took their coach’s message to heart – and took a 36-29 lead into halftime in the tournament opener. Led by the speed of Vinton, who had 20 points, the Posse out hustled and outplayed the more experienced Messiah squad. “I don’t know if they had ever been down like that,” Carr said. Springfield hung on to win 73-68 and advanced to face the host team, Ithaca, in the Round of 32 the following day. “After the Messiah game they were like, ‘Oh my gosh … I think we do belong,’” Graves said. The next day, Springfield had to contend with both Ithaca and its hostile home crowd. Passionate Ithaca students crowded under the opposing team’s basket, hurling insults and creating
distractions for the Pride while they shot free throws. “I don’t think we’ve ever been chirped harder than that game,” Carr said. “They were coming at Coach, our bench, our parents. I told the team, ‘Listen to yourself and listen to the team. Zone everything else out.’” Springfield stayed focused – and in the driver’s seat – for most of the game. Then, with a little over two minutes left in the fourth quarter, Ithaca staged an 11-point comeback. The lead shrunk to 64-61 with nine seconds left. A buzzer-beating three point shot by Ithaca sent the game into overtime – and the crowd’s volume into overdrive. “I looked down the bench. Everyone’s faces just dropped,” Carr said. “I turned to them and said, ‘Pick up your faces. This game is not over.’” A clutch shot may have taken the wind out of the Pride, but Graves reminded her team in See Posse continued on Page 55 Spring 2022 | Pride Sports Journal | 19
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Deguire Dynasty
By Chris Gionta
Photography by Chris Gionta and The Deguire Family
Kevin and Michele Deguire knew what their parental duties would entail as soon as their firstborn son, Ryan, uttered his first words. “Ryan’s first word was ‘ball’,” Michele said. “[Kevin and Ryan] played these crazy football games in the living room — just the two of them — and [Ryan] could barely walk, and they were playing football, throwing a ball and whatever he could get him doing.” Ryan and his younger twin siblings, Hailey and Jake, would each go on to etch their names into Mohonasen High School record books, and eventually brought their athletic prowess to Springfield College. Before they reached the college level, each of them found their respective athletic identities in their younger years, and did not have to look far for athletic influence. Observing Ryan and Kevin’s affection for football, Jake, who is four years younger than Ryan, was attracted to the game as well. “I think one of the most important and most influential things for [Ryan and Jake] was going to Kevin’s flag football games,” Michele said. “They grew up right on the sideline with all the big guys, and they talk about it to this day — that was something that was very memorable to them.” Ryan and Jake certainly did not limit their athletic endeavors to the gridiron. The oldest brother played baseball and basketball along with football all the way through high school. Jake also played football, baseball and basketball at a young age, and additionally grew an affinity for wrestling. He eventually stopped playing basketball at around the age of 12 because of its inter-
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ference with wrestling, but kept with football and baseball in high school. Hailey took a disparate path to her love of athletics. She tried T-Ball and dance before eventually following the path of her mother when she began playing volleyball in seventh grade. “My mom actually played Division II volleyball,” Hailey said. “So she was a big reason why I got into the sport of volleyball. I used to go watch her play beach volleyball as I grew up, so I definitely got interested in it through her.” Also like her mother, she ran high school track, and even put herself in the record book. Hailey was part of 3x200 and sprint medley relay teams that set records at Mohonasen. The culture of athletics was easily absorbed by the Deguire family, and has added to their family dynamic throughout the years. “We’re all really competitive,” Jake said. “I mean, just going to the beach — like spikeball, Kan Jam, wiffle ball — we’re all really competitive.” Prior to Hailey being part of record-setting track squads, Ryan set Mohonasen’s single-season rushing record in his senior year when he ran for 2,011 yards. He also set the single-season school record for rushing touchdowns in the same year with 25. With such a resumé in high school, he had a lot of options of where he could play at the next level. However, Springfield College’s atmosphere stood out from the rest for him and his parents. “The football coaches, the graduate assistants — they were unbelievable,” Ryan said. “They just made it feel like home for me, and they made me feel like I was a part of something special, and obviously it is something special at Springfield College, especially with the football program.”
His father was equally impressed with the coaching staff and the general environment of Alden Street. “As far as the school goes, I loved it right from day one,” said Kevin. “It just seemed to be a genuine place. It wasn’t fake. It wasn’t forced by the coaches. And especially with the football program, they use the term ‘Brotherhood.’ They truly seem to live it. It’s not just words.” Once Ryan’s sophomore year at Springfield College arrived in 2018, “We’re all really competive,” Jake said. (Photo courtesy of he gained a significant the Deguire family) role in the Pride’s runheavy offense. He averaged 5.4 yards per carry on 40 During most of their older attempts in his sophomore cam- brother’s time at Springfield, paign, then averaged 7.4 yards Hailey and Jake were continuing per carry on 46 attempts in his the Deguire legacy at Mohonasen junior year. In each season, he High School. Hailey was the Cohad two rushing touchdowns lonial Council Conference Defenand a receiving touchdown. sive Player of the Year in volleyLike most 2020 fall athletes, ball three times in her high school Ryan did not have a football career, and earned that honor season. For this reason, he did because of her 699 career digs, not do his final college semeswhich is a Mohonasen record. ter in the spring of 2021, but Jake also had a collection of instead pushed it to the fall of honors, trophies, and records, 2021. This was when he had his with his coming from his efforts best collegiate year, as in the on the wrestling mat. In his soph2021 football season, he ran for omore year, he won the Section 443 yards and four touchdowns. 2 championship for the state This lifted him to over 1,000 of New York in the 132-pound career rushing yards at the colweight class. In his junior year, legiate level. he won that championship in At Stagg Field, earlier in his the 138-pound weight class, and college career, rooting for Ryan finished in 5th place for the entire and also immersing themselves state of New York. His name in the campus atmosphere were is attached to Mohonasen High his younger siblings, Hailey and School’s single season win record Jake. (44), career win record (156), “Them always coming up to single season pin record (32), and support me at games and being career pin record (110). around the campus — it just Given their high school made that feel like a second achievements, Hailey and Jake home to them, and made them were destined for college athletfeel comfortable,” Ryan said. ics. Without any pressure from
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tesy of
family elders, the twins knew where they were headed. “Throughout the whole recruiting process, the whole time, I wanted them to come here,” Ryan said. “That would be so cool — having my siblings go to the same school that I did. I know the campus and the people that are here, too, and that was big for me. Just knowing they were going to a place that cares about them more than just being a student or just being an athlete.” The twins did not need much convincing when it came time to make their decisions. “Ever since like the first time being here, I kind of knew this was kind of where I wanted to go,” Jake said. “It’s just such a nice atmosphere and environment to be around.” Along with her experience on campus supporting Ryan, Hailey’s connections with the players and coaching staff of the women’s volleyball team attracted her to Alden Street. “One of my brother’s closest friends, Camryn Bancroft — she spoke highly of the team, spoke highly of our coach,” Hailey said. “And I never heard anything bad about Coach (Moira) Long, and she was nothing but great, just reaching out in the recruiting process, and just keeping in contact, making sure our team supported us and just stayed in contact with us, and just made us feel welcome.” The decision of both twins coming to Springfield College met the approval of their older brother and their parents. “I’m definitely thankful that they chose [Springfield],” Ryan said. “And I mean, COVID obviously wasn’t the best thing in the world, but it gave me the chance
to go to school with them, and be there with them for a semester, and I was definitely thankful for that.” For Kevin and Michele, the security of having the twins come to Springfield was reassuring. “It made it a lot easier knowing they were together,” Kevin said. “Even to this day, driving away, it’s comforting to know that they’re together. If they have some ups and downs, they know they’re within a building or two away from each other.” Both Hailey and Jake established themselves on their respective Springfield teams in their first seasons on campus. Hailey played in 30 of the Pride’s 31 games in a season that resulted in a NEWMAC Championship and NCAA Tournament appearance. She compiled 213 digs, which were fifth-most on the team. No one on the team was able to gather more in a single game than Hailey in 2021, as she dug 30 balls against Clark in a four-set match. When Ryan and Hailey’s seasons finished, it was time for Jake to succeed in his sport, which is just what he did. He dominated the 157-pound
weight class with a 22-5 record and 19 pins. His impressive season included a “Most Pins Award” honor at the prestigious Doug Parker Invitational, along with being recognized as an honorable mention for All-New England Wrestling Association. Schenectady, NY will always be home to Ryan, Hailey, and Jake Deguire, but a figurative second residence lies on Alden Street for the trio. “My parents call it ‘the home away from home’,” Hailey said. “It was nice to have both my brothers here as a freshman, so it definitely is a home away from home.” Following his graduation with a degree in physical education after the 2021 fall semester, Ryan earned a job as a physical education teacher for kindergarten through second grade in the Cobleskill-Richmondville school district in New York. Hailey and Jake plan to graduate from Springfield College in the spring of 2025, with Hailey looking to get a degree in psychology. No matter where they end up, the triangle will have a place in their hearts due to its impact on their education, athletics, and family bond.
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A Status Symbol
Three head coaching vacancies during one academic year would be a daunting task for any athletic department, but Springfield provides its own unique challenges.
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By Irene Rotondo
Photography by Joe Arruda and Springfield Athletics
he face of every Springfield College head coach has been drawn by hand and framed in glass on Craig Poisson’s office wall. They’re all done by the same caricature artist, who is given a picture of a newly-hired head coach, and a few facts or characteristics about the individual. He brings their images to life in a way only a human hand can do — a literal staring reminder of who Poisson, the Director of Athletics for the College, must support. These 21 head coaches are pillars to the Humanics philosophy — spirit, mind and body — and they implement that philosophy beyond their fields, courts, and mats as teachers in the classroom. A point of reference for Poisson, he looks to the wall to remind himself of his own mission: to grow these coaches personally and professionally. “Coach” is a status symbol on campus, and Poisson says it comes from their immediate link to not just student-athletes, but the like-minded body of learners that is the school community. The coaches themselves
are what makes the title so special, and it’s because of the unique experience of being a Springfield College head coach that makes it so valued. *****
Bidding farewell after their seasons this year are three head coaches who have deeply impacted their respective programs. Melissa Sharpe, Charlie Brock and John Gibson are drastically different people, but each has been an invaluable asset to Springfield athletics. Sharpe, head field hockey coach, came to the College as an undergraduate student, and has bled maroon for almost two decades since. After playing the sport for four years, Sharpe became a field hockey GA at Springfield and continued to support legendary head coach Dottie Zenaty, right up until Zenaty announced her retirement midway through Sharpe’s second year in graduate school. Sharpe applied for the job immediately, and after an arduous process, she was told the job was hers the day before she graduated with her Master’s. “I think those of us that have been here a long time, you live your life here, you’re going to go through some life experiences, losses in your family,” Sharpe said. “And then you see your colleagues around you, just so supportive, and people make meals for each other, and they bring things to each other’s house… that family feeling is probably the biggest thing that stands out to me being a coach here.” But being committed as a Springfield College head coach engulfs all other priorities in one’s life — and as a mother to a 9 and 7-year-old, Sharpe says she can no longer bring the same kind of attentive energy required. “Both of my kids are very athletic and involved, and I was missing so much of their activities. And then to stay at the level of success that I had earlier in my career … the volume of recruiting has grown, so the last couple of years I’ve really struggled,” Sharpe said. “It was not an easy decision, but it
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w … s f h
a m a s b t t
c b t h t d u i a
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was a decision I made last year … I don’t want the program to suffer if I tried to put my kids first. And I felt that that would happen.” Brock is in a similar boat — after 24 seasons as head coach of men’s basketball at the College, along with it being his 42nd season as a head coach of men’s basketball overall, Brock feels he, too, is ready to step back from the massive commitment. With practices, games, recruiting, and everything else in between, coaches are required to stand on the sidelines for hours at a time — and in season, those hours turn into multiple days’ worth of being physically upright. Brock has, as he puts it, “some things in my leg that aren’t supposed to be there.” Though he’s healthy and fit, after 45 years of standing on hardwood floors, it’s getting more
difficult for him to be present without minding the pain from having had both knee and ankle replacement surgery. “I’ve been doing it a long time, and sometimes when you do something for a long time, the little nuances sort of escape,” Brock said. “I thought the timing for me was good … the timing for the team is good. They’re all very, very young, and they’re going to get a good new person working with them and have them for three years. “My hope is that the person can come in and be patient with the situation, because it’s going to take some time and be comfortable enough in their own skin to do things the way they think they need to be done, not the way that someone else thinks they ought to be done,” Brock concluded. As for Gibson, stepping back
from the women’s soccer team was something he felt was just right for the point he’s at in life. Like Sharpe, he has family members who require much of his attention and like Brock, he feels a younger person with more energy is the answer to keeping his team going. Gibson was 11 years old when he knew he wanted to be a coach. A native of London, England, he wrote to the Football Association of Wales — the Welsh governing body of soccer — to inform them he was ready to begin his training as a coach. Someone from the Association wrote back kindly, encouraging Gibson’s dreams, and he has manifested them into reality by being head coach at Springfield for 22 seasons following coaching and teaching at other schools. “I think it’s better to stop before … I say, ‘I don’t feel like Spring 2022 | Pride Sports Journal | 25
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I’m where I need to be,’ and the players say, ‘What do you mean? You’re fine,’ and my colleagues and teams agree. But it’s better to stop before they’re all going, ‘You should probably quit.’ It’s probably better to leave a couple years early than late; it’s just kind of blunt, but that’s what you get from it,” Gibson stated. When each coach was asked what they would miss most about Springfield College, their answers were all the same: the people. Current head coach of women’s volleyball for the past 11 seasons, Moira Long, summed up their points eloquently. “I think it always comes down to the people, right? This is unique to Springfield; I’ve been at two other institutions, and I could ask any person on the campus what their philosophy is, and they wouldn’t have a clue. They wouldn’t know what they were about as an institution,” Long stated. “I think what’s unique about Springfield is that we understand what it means to be Humanic, and we strive to be
Humanic in all parts of our life. That coupled with being in a community that all are striving for the same thing … it always comes down to the people here that believe in being Humanic.” Finding the right people who will fit in with the College’s philosophy, though, is a task the Department of Athletics and the School of Physical Education, Performance and Sport Leadership takes very seriously when it comes to hiring new teacher-coaches. Though Sharpe’s position has now been filled by Mia Olsen — former assistant coach at Amherst College and Westfield State University — the process of finding a new head men’s basketball coach and head women’s soccer coach is ongoing. *****
To replace three coaches simultaneously is not an easy position for any institution to be in, and especially when it’s done in Springfield College fashion. Unlike other schools, coaches need to have a master’s degree
in order to be considered for the position. Ideally, the degree should be in something related to Physical Education, but the College accepts degrees related to athletics. Applicants also need CPR and AED certification, but most importantly, they must possess a passion for teaching -- after all, they’re faculty members. Poisson and Sue Guyer, the Dean of the School of Physical Education, Performance and Sport Leadership (PEPSL), are now in the process of filling the gaps left by Gibson, Sharpe, and Brock. As with every new teacher-coach hiring process, the pair first puts together a screening committee composed of teacher-coaches, staff, and then pedagogists or other instructors or professors in the PEPSL school. “These are academic appointments; these are teacher-coaches, and it’s in large part no different than how the institution would hire a chemistry professor. The academic side of the house is involved, between the chair of the physical education, health education program, and the Dean of PEPSL, Dean Guyer,” Poisson said. As for what the College looks for in candidates, it’s not only important to the institution the person has prior collegiate coaching experience, but experience in a classroom. Because each coach is also a faculty member — a professor of Physical Education — it’s imperative the candidate has a passion for teaching students as well as athletes. The selected screening committee will go through the pool of applicants and choose anywhere from six to ten semi-finalists to have a Zoom interview with. Then, the pool is cut down to three or four candidates who get to physically come to campus.
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“I call their time on campus ‘the gauntlet’ because there’s a lot of people they meet with on campus,” Poisson said. Each person goes through a full roster of individuals. They begin by meeting with Poisson himself and then go to the chair of the department, the Dean and the head athletic trainer. This year, Poisson added the strength and conditioning and support staff, along with an assistant coach or teaching fellow if they’re available. “We select team representatives depending upon the outgoing coach’s recommendation, typically rising seniors — they interface with the candidate,” Poisson said. Finally, the screening committee gets to speak with the finalist in person as well. The committee collects feedback from all involved, and there is an open forum that all of the PEPSL school and the Admissions Office is invited to attend and hear from the candidate. “The screening committee chair puts together all the feedback and submits it to myself and Dean Guyer. The chair of the PE Department weighs in, and then Dean Guyer and I get together and go after who we think is going to be the most impactful for the student-athlete experience,” Poisson said.
This intensive process has worked well for the College’s teacher-coach model, especially to reinforce a coach’s status symbol on campus. Though head coaches are always professors of Physical Education, their classes vary according to their areas of expertise, educational backgrounds, and personal interests. Michelle Moosbrugger, Chair of PEPSL, knows these teacher-coaches more intimately than most. Moosbrugger received her bachelor’s from Springfield in 2000, and knows many of the coaches from her time here. Now, she works as a mentor to support all of the faculty members in the department, including the teacher-coaches. “When we hire a new teacher-coach, part of that process includes interviewing with me, and I see them teach a sample lesson,” Moosbrugger said. “Once they’re hired, we bring them on board; I work with them to find out what their strengths are as a teacher and what they can bring to the table for the department.” All teacher-coaches teach either one three-credit course per semester or multiple one-credit courses. Moosbrugger helps find the courses that best fit a coach’s expertise — for example, Gibson teaches a three-credit sports philosophy grad class because he
has his PhD in the philosophy of sport. “If you go to class with a teacher-coach, you’re learning firsthand things that are happening right now. They are on the cutting edge of everything because this is it, they’re doing it … you’re learning from someone who’s hands-on in it right now,” Moosbrugger said. “It fits really well at Springfield College, because we think of the whole person, we think of the Humanics philosophy, and our teacher-coaches are really able to foster that … it works well because of the types of majors we have, and the emphasis on being active as well.” Students who are not involved on a team get to interact with these head coaches, which makes them all that more involved off the field and in daily campus life — and they’re still endowed with the title of “Coach” everywhere they go. However, those inside and outside the community also feel it is important for these students and student-athletes alike to be taught and coached by individuals that look like them. Diversity is a hot topic at the College; there have been calls to action by students, faculty, and administrators to bring in more BIPOC individuals across the
“Being a coach on this campus is a pretty big deal; there’s a level of respect that a lot of institutions don’t have. You’re looked at as more than just a person who is in the gym or on the field, you’re looked at as a faculty member. And because you teach, you have input, so how does it compare?” - Naomi Graves Spring 2022 | Pride Sports Journal | 27
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board while also creating an inclusive environment, and those in positions of leadership are trying to answer those calls. As the College searches for candidates that fit their ideal of the Humanics philosophy to fill the two remaining empty head coaching positions, they’re looking to hire from programs and initiatives that give opportunities to BIPOC individuals. ***** the 21 head coaches, only two are BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, or Person of Color). Men’s golf coach Joe Eadie is
Out of
Black, and head coach of men’s and women’s tennis Mike Louis is Asian. Eadie has been a head coach at Springfield for the past 30 years and has been involved in various Western Mass. golfing organizations for about 35. He said he’s seen about 40 to 50 of his students over the years go on to work in careers related to golf, and he feels honored to have had an impact on them as much as they have on him. “Being a coach at Springfield has helped me grow more as a person than I expected to,” Eadie said. “I have 11 or 12 young men on my team every year for 31 years; I have 11 or 12 personalities each year, and that has helped me to grow as a coach and as a parent ... I would say this much: I wouldn’t coach anywhere else than in Springfield because of the support I have gotten from Dr. Poisson.” Louis is only in his fourth season at the College, and though he has almost two decades of prior coaching experience between the University of Connecticut and the University of Hartford, he too has fully
bought into all that it means to be a coach at Springfield. “When I went through the whole interview process with Dr. Poisson and the whole hiring staff, I’d never been to a place that felt just so comfortable, where everyone was talking the same lingo,” Louis said. “It really resonated with me; it’s year 18 or 19 coaching college for me, and with that interview process, I had never had that feeling.” Regardless of how welcomed and respected the two feel, the lack of BIPOC coaches is still an issue the Department of Athletics is continually working on. =one that has presented itself in
coaches in the entire country who identify as non-white. This is not indicative of the efforts colleges are making to bring in BIPOC coaches, but of the systemic problems that prevent BIPOC individuals from even considering collegiate coaching as a career. Part of the issue, Louis believes, is the fact that many sports are considered to be “traditionally white,” or a “country club sport.” His sport of tennis, for example, has typically attracted white students to his team. Though Louis experienced diversity in his youth playing in New York City, he believes many of the problems come from stereotypes surrounding certain sports. “My family and I have always been fortunate, just middle class, but a lot of my buddies came from really tough situations, where if they didn’t discover tennis because of a junior tennis league or an after school program, then their options are very limited,” Louis said. “Looking from an integral sport, if you don’t have a first path to grow participation in a diverse way, then the coaching and the teaching, the leadership aspects, are kind of hard to find.” Keith Bugbee, head coach of the men’s lacrosse program in his 39th season with the team, also acknowledged that his sport is stereotypically and predominantly white. In his experience with recruiting players, he said the communities that usually produce the best lacrosse players are the ones with money in their programs. This is because the efforts and resources used to support athletics in these predominantly white, wealthy communities are more plentiful and accessible than those same efforts and resources available to those in poorer areas.
“We don’t want people to come here to build their careers and move on; we want people to come here and stay because they belong.” - John Gibson the lack of BIPOC head coaches at the College, and is perpetrated through national daily issues of prejudice. When Poisson joined Springfield in 2015, he said it was part of his personal mission to “listen” to the concerns of those around him and work toward a diversified Department of Athletics. And he’s done just that; the College is involved with an array of initiatives, organizations, training programs, and other methodologies created to attract more BIPOC individuals to join Springfield’s athletics. However, when Poisson set out to fill the head field hockey coach position this fall, he came across a staggering statistic: there are only two D-III field hockey
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And, systematically speaking, individuals who populate those poorer areas are BIPOC — they’ve been pushed there because of years of prejudice and lesser opportunities due to the color of their skin. With the Black Lives Matter movement gaining momentum back in 2020, these conversations that should have started decades ago have begun, but the effects of systemic racism still pervade through every aspect of society. A career in coaching is not spared. Springfield College Athletics is working hard behind the scenes, though, to make the institution an inviting place for BIPOC coaches to work. Poisson said that, along with the new implicit and explicit bias training the screening committees must go through before the hiring process begins, the College is involved with multiple NCAA initiatives designed to increase teacher-coach and athletics diversity. “(The NCAA) has maybe 13 to 15 different initiatives that deal with diversity, and Springfield College is actively engaged in the vast majority of them,” Poisson said. “For example, the NCAA
Ethnic Minority and Women’s internship grant started around the year 2000. A two-year internship, Springfield College has been the beneficiary of that internship four times — other institutions might have gotten it more, but I doubt it.” The first time the College was a recipient of the grant, Poisson was not yet the Director of Athletics, but he recalls a white woman being hired as part of the grant. Though she was not considered BIPOC, hiring a woman is considered to be a step toward diversification. In the second time around with the grant, Poisson said the woman hired “may have passed the eyeball test as a white woman, but was not.” For the third hire, another white woman, Poisson said the College again was happy with its steps toward diversification but, “the goal was to hire more diversity based on skin color.” However, Springfield has not been a recipient of the grant for about four years now, though it has applied each year. Poisson said this is because other colleges and universities applying for the grant were upping their ante;
that is, they were adding their own financial incentives to the positions at their schools on top of what the NCAA was already offering. Poisson went to President Mary-Beth Cooper and informed her of the issue, and the pair worked together to rewrite the College’s grant offering. Their efforts came to fruition with the hire of Adaeze “Daisy” Alaeze-Dinma with the grant — there happened to be an opening with the athletic department’s leadership team, and she moved into the position in 2020. “It took literally four iterations to get what the previous Director of Athletics was trying,” Poisson said. Working internally, the College has been able to hire students of color to positions within the athletic department, and regularly track BIPOC students during their time at Springfield they feel would be strong candidates for teaching fellow positions in particular sports. See Coaches continued on Page 55 Spring 2022 | Pride Sports Journal | 29
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International Waters James Chan’s original plan was to swim for Division I St. Bonaventure, but after a difficult turn of events, he ended up a standout for the Pride.
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By Collin Atwood Photography by Springfield Athletics
few weeks before the 2019 fall semester began, James Chan was on his way to Allegany, N.Y., hoping to secure a spot on St. Bonaventure’s swim team. The only thing on Chan’s agenda for that 15-hour flight from Hong Kong, China, was to sleep and watch movies. It was worth the wait; Chan was ecstatic to land in the States. Chan arrived in New York and settled at his aunt’s house. They spent the day shopping for new winter clothes and did some sightseeing. For the first time, Chan got to walk on Wall Street and see the Statue of Liberty. The next day he was scheduled to visit St. Bonaventure with the impression that he would be signing up for orientation and making his enrollment official. But Chan had his doubts. “I knew that there were some problems,” Chan
said. “I didn’t expect something big was going to happen.” There were two possible outcomes when Chan arrived at the St. Bonaventure swim team’s office: he would either be one step closer to achieving his dreams, or everything he had worked for would crash and crumble right in front of him. Finally, the coach walked in and delivered the news that would flip Chan’s world upside down. “James, I’m sorry,” he said. “Your GPA couldn’t get you on the swim team this season.” Chan was very angry, upset and disappointed with himself. In just two days, Chan went from being on top of the world to suddenly falling to the ground – hard. “I washed my face with tears every day,” he said. “I didn’t see any color... the world was all gray.” With the beginning of the semester just two weeks away, Chan found himself in Upstate New York with his swimming dreams teetering on a ledge. He started to panic; his search for a new school had to start immediately. Many international students have a sort of agent who helps them contact schools in the country they wish to attend. Around the same time Chan was denied from St. Bonaventure, John Taffe, Springfield College’s head swim coach, was working with one of these agents, trying to get another student from Hong Kong to swim for the Pride. The same agent contacted Taffe about getting Chan into Springfield. Because it was so close to the start of the semester, Taffe said he would call admissions and see what he could do. “In a very short amount of time, everything came together and soon after, James was here,” Taffe said.
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Chan was born in Hong
Kong and lived there until he came to Springfield three years ago. His whole life was dedicated to swimming, beginning when he was 3 years old – and he hasn’t stopped since. Chan was 8 years old when he won his first swim competition and the competitive spirit in him was unleashed. “I just can’t be a loser. I must win,” Chan said. His “must-win” mentality led to years of intense training and dedication to the sport. In Hong Kong, Chan would spend two to four hours each day training, with most days consisting of a practice in the morning and at night. He would swim at least 60 laps in a 50-meter pool, swimming various strokes to workout different parts of his body. For about half of the laps he would hold a ball and only use his legs to swim. For the other half he would hold the ball between his legs and only use his arms. And he would do it for 3,000 meters. His workouts would also consist of off-the-block sprints and long-distance aerobic swimming. Even when Chan wasn’t in the pool, he spent his free time doing something related to swimming. Rather than picking up a new hobby or hanging out with friends, Chan would stretch, work out or sleep. “I used to be an all-swimming guy. Hanging out with someone else was pretty rare,” Chan said. He enjoyed being in the water. It served as his form of meditation – all he could hear was the water flowing past his ears. Unlike most children, Chan was able to streamline his
focus. In order to achieve his dreams, he had to push himself to unique limits. “I want to be an Olympian. I want to swim for Hong Kong,” Chan told his parents at 8 years old. For Chan, his hard work didn’t pave a straight path to success. At the age of 15, shoulder and back injuries forced him out of the water and kept him
in. “I thought I would be discriminated (against),” Chan said. Those thoughts quickly vanished. In the beginning of Chan’s first year, the swim team did a biathlon where they swam two miles and ran a three-mile loop leading back to Springfield College. “James was ahead after the swim, went out for the run and got lost,” Taffe said. “He ended up running about 10 miles.” Before he knew it, Chan was at a local gas station asking people for a map. “Everybody on the team went out looking for him,” Taffe said. “I think that said something; I think it helped lighten the atmosphere for him a bit.”
“There were two choices: quit or keep swimming.” - James Chan
from training. “People (were) telling me that I should quit,” Chan said. “There was two choices: Either quit or keep swimming.” Of course, he kept swimming. *****
Coming to America has always been a necessary step in Chan’s dream to swim for his country. But Chan wasn’t thrilled about coming to Springfield College. It wasn’t because he didn’t like the school – he hadn’t even seen it yet – but he was just so close to swimming at the Division I level. “I didn’t even know about Springfield College,” Chan said. The possibility of a culture shock contributed mightily to his reluctance. He wasn’t sure how he would fit
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Now, Chan is just as close with the swim team as he was in 2019. “We do everything together,” he said, “We are like bros.” Part of that connection to the team comes from Chan’s literal brother, Jonathan. Jonathan is a first-year student at Springfield and has been swimming with his brother in Hong Kong all his life. Back home, they would train six days a week together. Unlike James, the younger brother came to Springfield by choice, but it did take a little convincing. Jonathan’s family told him to go to America so he could experience a new culture. “We just wanted to try and push him out of his comfort zone,” James said. Over the course of his first year, Jonathan has gotten used to the culture and is satisfied with his performance in the pool. James also learned a lot about American culture in the last three years, but his biggest discovery is the one he made about himself. “I think my takeaway from Springfield is not necessarily from swimming, but more about communication and enjoying the moment,” Chan said. Chan is so hard on himself that whenever he is congratulated on a performance that he thinks is sub-par, he’ll brush the compliment off and talk about all of the things he did wrong. He has learned that the better approach would be to acknowledge the compliment and then talk about ways to improve. “I could show my appreciation to people’s compliments, but at the same time telling them that I really think
James (left) and Jonathan Chan (right). (Photo courtesy of James Chan)
that there’s a couple things I could’ve done better,” Chan said. “Learning how to understand someone’s feelings is still something that I’m learning.” Chan has no problem when it comes to critiquing or giving himself a reality check. No one is harder on him than himself. He expects greatness, and when he doesn’t live up to his own expectations, he gets discouraged. “I don’t think I’ve been getting any faster since I came here,” Chan said. “It’s just frustrating sometimes to see yourself not improving.” Although Chan’s perception of himself in the pool these past three years has not been great, his numbers would say otherwise. Chan currently holds three solo swim records for Springfield College (500 freestyle, 100 and 200 butterfly) and contributed to two relay records (400 medley relay and
800 free relay). Chan was also named the NEWMAC Men’s Swimmer of the Week on Jan. 18, 2022. Still, Chan would say, “It wasn’t really a good year.” Chan has one more year left at Springfield and after that he plans on applying to grad schools to get his doctorate in physical therapy, but doesn’t ever want to give up swimming. He will alway stay open to any opportunities to swim competitively. But even if no opportunities arise, Chan won’t give up the sport he loves so much. Swimming is a part of who he is. “If you suddenly take something that costs you two to four hours a day away from your life, your life is going to fall apart very quickly.”
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S
K F f s i t o k w s b
t h f
e t
s w i t w s U r t
h t 1 H t d t f c m c
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SHOW UP A calm and cool Keith
Bugbee strode onto Stagg Field one sunny afternoon last fall. The stands were filled with student-athletes, probably thinking they just had to sit through this lecture and they could go on with their day. Little did they know, Bugbee’s story would touch them in a way other speeches and lectures hadn’t before. It wasn’t the typical motivational speech, a coach preaching hard work and leadership on the field. No, this was something different. Bugbee simply told the crowd to show up. “Show up.” It seems like a simple concept. The message was straightforward– yet so impactful. It was something that students could get on board with, and many of them can be seen sporting the yellow “Show Up” wristbands every day as a reminder of what Bugbee told them that day on Stagg field. Bugbee, who has been the head coach of the men’s lacrosse team at Springfield College since 1984, was named the 2021-22 Humanics Professor, an honor that is given out each year to a deserving professor. Along with this recognition, the chosen faculty member is required to create programming that promotes Humanics to the campus community. Upon receiving this honor, Bugbee instantly knew what he wanted to do. He had already begun preaching the idea of “showing up” to his team and
used the symbol of the sunflower and color yellow to honor his daughter, Lindsay Bugbee Crosby, who passed away in 2018. After Lindsay, a former standout lacrosse and soccer player at Springfield, died suddenly after giving birth to her third child, her family was devastated. Keith Bugbee said that the people who showed up for him -- via visits, phone calls or texts -- were what kept him going through those dark times. He began to share elements of this ideal with his lacrosse team. A tradition began where every week the coaches give two players the coveted yellow helmets, representing Lindsay’s legacy and the act of showing up for their teammates. The following week, the players take the responsibility of choosing the next honored teammates, and the cycle goes on. “Most of the content was about Lindsay and how she was that kind of person, she showed up, certainly as an athlete, captain of two sports here, and certainly as a daughter, as a mother to her children. She just kind of showed up in life,” said Bugbee. Bugbee has instilled a sense of togetherness and brotherhood amongst his team that goes much further than the turf. The ability to make a difference in a young person’s life is difficult, and Bugbee has mastered the craft. Through his Professor of Humanics title, Bugbee has been able to share his “Show Up” lecture to more than just
By Cait Kemp the Springfield College campus. Through the initial program, more and more people started to hear about it and request that he come to speak to their schools. He has now spoken at over 15 high schools and colleges, spreading an important virtue. “It organically became this journey,” Bugbee said. “It’s kind of like ripples on the water, it just keeps rippling.” It wasn’t the message itself that was taken so positively from students, but it was also in Bugbee’s delivery. He is a calm, evenkeeled speaker. The lecture is not over-rehearsed; it is presented eloquently and authentically. Bugbee is known in the Springfield College community as well as the college lacrosse world as a successful, prominent coach. He is respected, honorable, and courageous. Though “Show Up” began as a yearlong initiative to share with the College community, it has become so much more. Bugbee’s message has reached many students, coaches, and athletes and will continue to do so as it continues to ripple. “I didn’t know where it was going to go, I just knew it was going to go somewhere,” Bugbee said with a short chuckle. It definitely did go somewhere, and still does. It was a simple message; who knew that telling kids to show up would make such an impact? Bugbee knew, ever since he saw it in Lindsay in the way she lived every day. Spring 2022 | Pride Sports Journal | 35
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Raising the Rainbow Flag Springfield College hasn’t always been welcoming to LGBTQIA+ athletes. But, in recent years, the campus has seen a shift led by student advocates and leaders.
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By Carley Crain
Photography by Hayden Choate and Springfield Athletics
er bright rainbow sash was hard to miss as she walked side-by-side with students in the front of the pack. The vibrant display of color worn across her chest was not only a visual representation of Springfield College President Mary-Beth Cooper’s commitment to equality, but also a sign of how far the College has come in regard to LGBTQIA+ rights on campus. This year marked the second annual Pride Parade on campus. Cooper has been at the forefront of each of them. Springfield College has been home to some of the most prominent members of the LGBTQIA+ community, but for some, their sexual identity was actively surpressed on campus.
Tom Waddell (‘59), a student who excelled in a unique trio of sports – gymnastics, football and track – was one of the best Springfield College athletes of all time. He qualified for the 1968 Mexico City Olympic Games in the decathlon, and placed sixth. A few years later, Waddell came out as gay in People Magazine, but for most of his life, he closeted his sexuality. He knew that, with his growing platform as an athlete, he had a bigger purpose. Waddell started the Gay Games in 1982 with the hopes of celebrating LGBTQIA+ athletes on a global scale. The Gay Games’ mission is to promote equality and inclusivity throughout sport. Not long after he started the Gay Games, Waddell was diagnosed with AIDS. He died in the summer of 1987 after a two-year battle fighting the disease. In the fall of that year, Springfield College’s alumni magazine featured a remembrance piece in his honor. Both his sexual identity and the Gay Games were left out, however, as the piece simply stated: “He is survived by his wife, Sara Lewinstein, and their daughter, Jessica.” To some, leaving his sexual orientation out of the article was purposeful. Two alums, Physical Education professor James Genasci ‘50 and his wife, Jean, who graduated in 1955, wrote a letter to the magazine criticizing the College’s actions: “To have Tom’s gayness omitted from the alumni magazine article reflects the omission and silence in our society that perpetuates homophobia, and prevents the Humanics philosophy from achieving full maturity.” The letter was never published. Three years after his death in 1990, more questionable acts arose surrounding Waddell. Many thought that Waddell would be one of the first athletes inducted into the Hall of Fame because of both his extraordinary athletic ability and commitment to equality in sports globally. His name was not announced until 1990. The original plaque located in the Springfield College gymnasium men-
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tions nothing about Waddell starting the Gay Games, but does glorify his athletic achievements, such as being the New England Champion in both “tumbling” and the “flying rings.” It does, however, describe Waddell as a “Catalyst for Greater Understanding and Acceptance of All People.” An additional plaque has been added recently for Waddell’s Athletic Hall of Fame achievement that highlights more of who he was as a person. For some former students, like Waddell, the closet was their home in college. Phyllis Plotnick ’69, a former three-sport athlete at Springfield College, knew this all too well. Until 1973, homosexuality was classified as a mental illness in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental
Disorders (DSM). Because of this, homosexuality was condemned and shamed. When Plotnick was a student at Springfield, she was in a constant state of fear over her sexuality. Being gay felt unsafe at the time. There was essentially no open LGBTQIA+ community on campus. “Nobody talked about having romantic feelings for another person that was not straight,” said Plotnick. “I had a few boyfriends at Springfield, and that always felt acceptable. I felt like I was a part of the mainstream. It always felt kind of refreshing, in a very superficial way, to be accepted and to belong. It never had any depth to it because it was never who I really was.” Plotnick felt lonely, like she was
stuck in a maze and could not escape. “At the time people were doing counseling to help someone make changes. I had friends that had electric shock therapy,” Plotnick said. After graduation, Plotnick didn’t feel compelled to stay connected with the College. Decades later, she stumbled upon Tom Waddell’s story after learning about the suicide of Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover, an 11-year-old boy who was taunted by peers because of his sexuality. His death motivated Plotnick to reach out to her alma mater, which led her to Waddell. Plotnick wrote a letter to the Springfield College community after his death stating that she wanted to establish an endowment in honor Spring 2022 | Pride Sports Journal | 37
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of Tom Waddell. The funds from the Tom Waddell endowment are given to clubs yearly who promote diversity and sensitivity on and off campus. In 2015 -- 45 years after she graduated -- Plotnick returned to campus to speak on a discussion panel as Springfield celebrated Tom Waddell Day. “When I spoke on that panel it was the first time I have felt like this is where I belong,” Plotnick said.
A Student’s Perspective
Alden Street now has a completely different landscape. The College recently won the LGBTQIA+ Division III Athletics Department of the Year Award. “I think that recognition was quite special,” said Marty Dobrow, Professor of Communications at Springfield. “I think it is something we should all be proud of and mindful of the fact that our teams’ names are the Pride, and that Pride is something that is very much associated with the LGBTQIA+ community.” Junior track athlete Lily Gould was also recently nominated for the NCAA Div. III LGBTQIA+ Student-Athlete of the Year. Being openly gay is more accepted now than it was during Waddell’s or Plotnick’s time on Alden Street. Former Springfield track athlete and current junior Tyler Olds waited to come out until college, even though he has known that he was gay since he was in sixth grade. The fear that came along with coming out was starting to become destructive for Olds. What if people don’t see me the same? What if my loved ones aren’t
supportive? “I am always on edge, looking over my shoulder,” Olds explained. “When the word ‘gay’ would be casually tossed around, I would be like ‘Uh oh’ and I would stress out even though it was never directed toward me in any way. Any chit-chat about the LGBTQIA+ community threw me on edge because I was so afraid of being found out.” The “what-if ’s” were all-consuming. At the end of his freshman year, however, Olds knew he couldn’t hide his sexuality anymore. In order for him to live the life he wanted, he needed to share his secret. “It was hurting me to not live true to myself. I realized I needed to do it because I wanted to be myself,” Olds said. “It’s not fair that I couldn’t 100 percent be myself.” Olds’ former Springfield teammate, Will Delaney, came out as gay during his junior year of high school. After Delaney established himself as a leader on his high
school team, he felt more comfortable sharing who he really was. Delaney noted that had he not been in a position of power, coming out may not have been as safe. As a first-year student at Springfield, he was hesitant to share his sexuality openly during the preseason. “I came out to everyone in college about two days in because I had to feel it out and make sure it was fine to do so,” said Delaney. “I wanted to make sure I wouldn’t get harassed or anything.”
Current Landscape on Campus
Springfield has taken steps to make the LGBTQIA+ community on campus feel safe and heard. Most recently, Springfield was the first college in the entire NCAA to include pronouns on athletic rosters – which was a monumental milestone considering the College’s controversial
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WE’VE COME A LONG WAY
Pictured at top: Phyllis Plotnick poses with the Tom Waddell Hall of Fame plaque. Pictured at bottom: Women’s basketball senior Grace Dzindolet with Athletic Director Craig Poisson and Springfield alum Aaron Kelton after Dzindolet accepted the Tom Waddell Award at the 2022 Sports and Social Justice Symposium.
LGBTQIA+ history. The Athletics Department also created a video series titled “True Colors,” where student-athletes and staff were invited to share their coming-out stories. Louise McCleary, the interim Vice President of D-III, applauded Springfield College for its efforts to foster a safe environment for the LGBTQIA+ community. “The LGBTQ Working Group and all of Division III applaud Springfield’s dedication to creating and sustaining an LGBTQ-inclusive athletics department, campus, and community. The athletics department’s leadership and demonstrated promotion of LGBTQ inclusion within the Division III membership is appreciated and commendable,” said McCleary in an article posted on the Springfield College website. The creation of an Athlete Ally chapter on campus also proved the college’s commitment to equity. Gould and senior Grace Dzindolet formed Athlete Ally through the Student-Athlete Leadership Team (SALT).
Their research into bringing an LGBTQIA+ athlete speaker to campus led the pair to Athlete Ally, which is a non-profit organization that aims “to end the rampant homophobia and transphobia in sport and to activate the athletic community to exercise their leadership to champion LGBTQIA+ equality.” The club gives students the opportunity – athletes or not – to gather and talk about their feelings in a trusted environment. Dzindolet’s and Gould’s shared passion for inclusion sparked a shared lifetime goal – making everyone’s voices feel heard. Athlete Ally does just that. “I wish there was some way that Tom Waddell could look
at the campus now. I know he would be smiling from ear to ear,” said Dobrow. A special connection was made between Waddell and Dzindolet on April 8 at the seventh annual Sports and Social Justice Symposium– as Dzindolet was given the Tom Waddell Leveling the Playing Field award for her commitment to creating a safe environment for the LGBTQIA+ community on campus. Waddell paved the way for Dzindolet and other LGBTQIA+ students on campus to not shy away from who they really are. “I think it is a story of significant progress, but not a mission accomplished story,” said Dobrow.
“When I spoke on that panel it was the first time I have felt like this is where I belong.” - Phyllis Plotnick ‘69 Spring 2022 | Pride Sports Journal | 39
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Fast Track
Ten years after she graduated from Springfield College, Kelly Curtis made history as the first Black skeleton athlete to compete in the Olympics for Team USA.
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By Collin Atwood
Photography by Springfield Athletics and Getty Images
eading into the final event of the heptathlon at the 2012 NCAA Division III Track and Field Championships in Claremont, Calif., Kelly Curtis held sole possession of first place with the second place competitor trailing by 81 points. After six grueling events, the odds of the New Jersey native running away with the title were becoming more likely. As a senior in college who had a lifetime of athletic competitions under her belt, finishing her collegiate career on top would have been ideal. Unfortunately, Curtis came down with a sickness that made the 800-meter run particularly challenging. She excelled in every other event of the heptathlon, but when it came down to the finale, Curtis huffed and puffed her way to 18th place. This final run – of the competition and her college career – resulted in her dropping to fifth on the leaderboard. “I’ll never forget her coming to me afterwards saying ‘I’m sorry dad,’” said Curtis’ father, John. “I thought that was the end of her competitive days.” Little did John or anyone else know, Curtis’ competitive days were only just beginning.
After Curtis graduated from Springfield College in 2012, she made her way to St. Lawrence University to pursue a masters degree in educational leadership. But because of her strength and conditioning coach at Springfield, Daniel Jaffe, she decided to put her attention somewhere else. Jaffe thought that Curtis possessed the necessary abilities - power, explosiveness and speed - that it took to be successful in the sport of bobsled. Her skillset reminded Jaffe of another heptathlete who competed for the Pride, which led to him promoting the fast-paced sledding sport to Curtis. This particular athlete was Erin Pac Blumert ‘03, who earned a bronze medal in bobsled at the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, British Columbia. “Speed and strength are the key factors essential for a quality start,” Jaffe said. “With Kelly’s talent, motivation, and drive to succeed no matter the challenge, it seemed like a perfect fit.” Jaffe’s assessment of Curtis’ skills were correct. After trying bobsled in the summer of 2013, she was invited to a driving school in Lake Placid, a village in the Adirondack Mountains in New York, that December.
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In the midst of learning how to be a better sled driver, Curtis’ attention was drawn to a different sport that involved sliding 80 miles per hour on the ice. She noticed other people sliding down hills on a skeleton sled and thought that she’d give it a try. Curtis said. “The people in that sliding school looked like they were having a lot more fun than I was driving a bobsled.” Rather than sitting upright in a bobsled that is built like a miniature car, she preferred to dive head first, where the only thing stopping her from falling off were two pieces of metal pressed to the body. She liked to slide. From that point on, Curtis committed her time to becoming a world-class skeleton athlete. “I would slide all winter and then train all offseason,” Curtis said. “Every decision that I’ve made leading up to this point has been, ‘Is this going to help my training or hinder my training?’” The only way to be successful at a sport that not a lot of people participate in or even know about is to give it your all. “Coming into our sports of bobsled and skeleton, you definitely had to have a strong mindset, determination and a lot of dedica-
tion to the sport,” Blumert said. Curtis’ hard work and dedication proved fruitful in 2017 when she won the gold medal at the Women’s Skeleton North America Cup at Lake Placid and again at the Whistler Sliding Centre in British Columbia. Her most important world cup event took place on Jan. 14, 2022. Although she didn’t medal, the result of her last ride down the track at St. Moritz Olympia Bob Run in Switzerland was nothing short of spectacular. To qualify for the Olympics, Curtis had to be ranked in the top two for women skeleton athletes in America. Going into her final ride at St. Moritz, a track she had never gone down, Curtis needed a miracle to bridge the gap between her and the other American athlete ranked higher than her. As she came across the finish line, Curtis recorded a personal best and finished sixth at the BMW IBSF World Cup. This tremendous feat pushed her ahead of her fellow American on the leaderboard. “For me to be able to pull it out on a track that I had never been to, in Switzerland, was unbelievable,” Curtis said. Curtis’ next stop: the 2022 Beijing Olympics. Spring 2022 | Pride Sports Journal | 41
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This past February,
Curtis made her Olympic debut in Beijing. “I’m still digesting,” Curtis said. “It was a whirlwind for sure.” Curtis competed in three out of four heats at the Olympics. She needed to finish in the top 20 at the end of heat three to have a chance at a medal. By the end of her third run, she was one spot short of advancing with a total time of 3:09.23. “My results weren’t too great, but I was really proud of my effort,” Curtis said. “For me to be able to say I’m one of the best in the world at something is amazing.” Although she didn’t medal or perform the way she had hoped, her appearance at the Olympics was about much more than sliding down a track as fast as possible. Curtis became the first Black skeleton athlete to compete in the Olympics for Team USA. “To think about the journey that my family has made throughout the generations for me to get to this point, I’m just extremely proud to be here and to represent everything that [my parents] have gone through,” Curtis said. Many supported Curtis for this accomplishment, but she also received some backlash from people who didn’t recognize her as being biracial. “I don’t typically present as Black to a lot of people, so I think a lot of people found it challenging to recognize me as being the first, but I am,”
Curtis said. This behind-the-scenes controversy messed with Curtis’ mindset going into the Olympics, but she says that she will try to not let non-skeleton related issues bother her in further competitions. ***** Curtis’ eyes are now set on the 2026 Olympics in Milan, Italy. In fact, shortly before her Olympic debut in Beijing, Curtis and her husband moved to Italy to get familiar with the tracks there. Now, the 33-year-old can train for the next four years right in Milan’s backyard. “It’ll almost be like a home track to her,” John said. While Curtis is training, she will also be serving as an airman at the Aviano Air Base in northeastern Italy. Curtis enlisted in the U. S. Air Force in 2020 and quickly joined the World Class Athlete Program. The WCAP is a military unit that specifically allows soldiers to participate in the Olympics. Curtis was a member of this program while she trained for the Beijing Olympics. “It has not been difficult to balance because the Air Force has put the emphasis on me representing them at this level of competition,” Curtis said. Curtis’ entire life has revolved around balancing responsibilities. As a kid she
played softball, basketball and wrestled. By the time she hit middle school, she wanted to try track and field as well after she went to the Penn Relays with her father. Being involved in athletics was “encouraged by the family,” John said. Curtis grew up with two older brothers and they were very involved in athletics. John was also very involved in athletics. Before he graduated from Springfield College in 1971, John played football, baseball and also ran track and field. His success came on the football field and he ended up getting drafted to the New York Jets in the 11th round of the 1971 NFL Draft. Going into college, Curtis decided to focus on track and field. Before running for Springfield in 2010, Curtis enrolled at Tulane University. During her time there, she realized that Springfield College
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Kelly Curtis ‘12, who competed in the heptathalon for the Springfield College track and field team as an undergrad, made her debut on the Olympic stage in the 2022 Winter Games.
would be better for her career path. “I knew that the Springfield sports management program was world renowned and they would definitely have connections that I could use later on in life,” Curtis said. The path to Alden Street was inevitable for Curtis. Not only did her father play for the Pride, but so did her brother. Curtis followed her brother into multiple things, including the Air Force and wrestling. “Going to Springfield was almost like going back home because I would go there basically every year growing up as a child for my dad’s homecoming and to go watch my brother play football,” Curtis said. Curtis remains in the record books at Springfield College to this day. She holds the
record in the 60-meter hurdles for indoor track and field with a time of 9.22. During her collegiate career, Curtis also won the heptathlon at the Penn Relays in 2011. “I was shocked. I was in total shock because I had been going to the Penn Relays since I was seven,” John said. “It was an emotional moment for me.” Seeing his daughter make it to the Olympics through an unconventional sport was just as mind blowing for John. He realized that Curtis’ determination would lead her to success in anything she put her mind to. “Her mother and I couldn’t actually believe what we’ve seen,” John said. The US Olympic Committee flew Curtis’ father, mother, husband and brother-in-law out to Park City, Utah to
watch her Olympic debut. Along with them were hundreds of family members of other Olympic athletes. All of the family members stuffed into one room inside of the Hilton Hotel. The room was filled with one large screen and a few other smaller screens. The more popular the sport, the bigger the screen they appeared on. Curtis’ first run aired at around 7 p.m. in Utah. By that time, 50 people were gathered around one of the smaller screens to see her slide. Her family rose from their seats and cheered her on with signs that read, “Go Kelly” and “Team USA.” Too nervous to eat, her family watched Curtis make Olympic history for Team USA. “It was something I’ll never forget,” John said.
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The Grandm
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By Joe Arruda
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Photography by Joe Arruda and Springfield Athletics
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Charlie Sullivan and Ed Greene sat on the edge of a bed inside a little room in Rome, Italy, prepared to let a coin decide what one of them would end up doing for the rest of his life – but they didn’t know it yet. Marymount International High School had become co-ed just before Sullivan and Greene, two bright-eyed Springfield College graduates, arrived with their PE degrees in the fall of 1991. They were tasked with creating an athletics program to attract more students. The only problem was there were no coaches.
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So the pair had to tackle coaching duties for just about every team the school had. Soccer was a no-brainer, as they both spent four years kicking it around at Springfield, and basketball was no issue either. But when it came to volleyball, they knew nothing. “We had a meeting with admissions and I was like, ‘Yeah, I haven’t even been to a volleyball game, there’s no way I could do that,”’ Sullivan said. Neither of them wanted to do it. So, they had to settle things the old-fashioned way: with the flip of a coin. The punishment was simple: Loser coaches volleyball. As the coin rotated in the air, the direction of Sullivan’s future floated in the balance. One small decision – heads or tails – was about to alter the trajectory of his life. Neither of them remember what he called, they just know he lost. “So he became the volleyball coach and I was the middle school sports coordinator,” Greene said. “I was like, ‘Sucker!’” The first live volleyball match Sullivan ever saw was the first he ever coached.
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Charlie Sullivan, or “Chaz,”
as he was then called, was that guy in his Alden Street heyday. He was the “popular, baby-faced assassin” – as Greene, his best friend and soccer teammate, called him, but on the field he wasn’t that guy. Sullivan wasn’t an everyday starter, nor one of the team’s three All-Americans, and you’d rarely ever read about him in the write-ups. But he was, and still is, someone who always put his team’s interests above his own. “I don’t think in four years I ever heard Chaz complain,” Greene said. “It was always, ‘The team, the team, the team … what’s best for the team?’ And the way he was as an athlete, I think that’s the way he is as a coach. He expects the same thing – he expects players to put the team first.” Sullivan was calm and easygoing, but he was always observing. He understood the ins and outs of the game and was invested in – and loyal to – the team. “The reason Charlie is wellliked is because of who he is,” former Springfield College soccer coach Peter Haley said. “There’s an integrity about Charlie and a professionalism. You’d look in a crowd and you could probably pick out Charlie because of the way he presents himself, the way he is.” During their senior year, Sullivan and Greene lived in the soccer house off of Shillingford Street -- now, an empty parking lot. Unlike most of their roommates, they had no idea what they were doing after graduation. One afternoon, while playing RBI Baseball on Nintendo, they concocted a plan for their future. A graduate student
had told them about the Moroka Swallows, a professional soccer team in Johannesburg, South Africa. “All of a sudden we got it into our heads that we were going to be professional soccer players,” Greene recalled. After graduation they would move to Sullivan’s parents’ house in Madison, N.J., and work with Sullivan’s brothCharlie Sullivan in his days as a soccer player on ers painting Alden Street. Sullivan still shows his soccer skills houses. “We’re anytime a ball needs to be sent away during a match. going to paint (Springfield College Archives) houses, we’re going to make a bunch of money and then think they’re going to become we’re going to fly to London professional soccer players in and stay with my cousins in South Africa?” London for about six months. It was the early 1990s. Nelson And then we’re going to make Mandela had just been released our way to South Africa,” from prison, and the apartheid Greene said. government in South Africa When they eventually arrived was falling apart. in England, the duo met up Greene’s mom called him with Greene’s aunt. She immeback and said, “You guys are diately called their plan crazy. idiots. Take the job in Italy.” Rather than supporting their “So, we took the job,” Greene half-thought-out South African said. soccer dreams, she offered them They became PE teachers, infull-time jobs where they could tramural coordinators and varuse their degrees – teaching sity coaches – but it was only a PE at an international school in short-term plan. Professional Rome. They declined. soccer was still in their sights. So Greene’s aunt phoned his “We just fell in love with mother in New York, and said, Rome,” Greene said. “We finally “What are these two knucklerealized what idiots we were. heads doing? Do they seriously We had full-time jobs, we were
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living in one of the best cities in the world – it was incredible. And we ended up staying there.” Sullivan stayed two additional years at Marymount International School, coaching soccer, basketball and volleyball.
The Grandmaster
In Sullivan’s head, coaching is like chess. Every move has an impact on the final outcome of the match. Attention has to be paid to the positioning of your pieces, and even more is directed to that of your opponent. It is a concept that Sullivan’s brain is exceptional at capturing. “There’s a lot that goes through his head,” said graduate student Johjan Mussa Robles, who is in his sixth year playing volleyball for Sullivan. “Trying to understand Coach, you’re gonna get into a maze. It’s fascinating to me how he has many, many, many different things in his head, and they’re very organized.” When he was coaching a Marymount girls basketball playoff game, Sullivan was the grandmaster. Marymount was one of three private international schools in its league; the rest were American military bases. Sullivan’s team had one American player named Christina who could dribble. The rest of his team consisted of the children of Italian celebrities. “We had these upper-class, wealthy Italians,” Sullivan said. “Valeria was this Italian girl on my team. She was a great athlete and could learn anything really fast. So we had Christina, Valeria and then this compilation of players who had really never played basketball before.” The extent of his offense consisted of avoiding the paint (to
avoid a three-second violation) by standing on the block just outside. If a player got a rebound, she fed the ball to Christina. When Sullivan began his pregame scouting work on Vicenza, he didn’t think his team had a chance. Vicenza ran a suffocating full-court zone press that turned teams over with regularity and led to easy scores. “I don’t think they had won a game by less than 40 all year,” Sullivan said. Getting his pieces into position, Sullivan knew if he could break the press they would go back into a halfcourt zone. Most important, there was no shot clock in the league. “We were a Catholic school so I said, ‘If, by the grace of God, we could break their press and they sat back in the zone, we would just dribble at half court the whole quarter,’” he said. So, Sullivan constructed a movement pattern to get the ball over half court. That’s all he wanted to do. And his team did it. Sullivan remembers fans yelling in the small gym that his game plan was against the rules, objects being thrown in his direction, opposing coaches yelling too, but the Vicenza five on the court anticipated some sort of offense to come catch them off guard so they stayed back in the zone. The offense never came — Sullivan’s team just kept on dribbling. After the first quarter the score was 0-0. “Our team had no idea what was going on,” Sullivan said. “Christina was the only girl who could dribble so she’s dribbling at half court like, ‘This is what you want me to do?’’’ Marymount got the ball at the start of the second quarter
11
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475-189 Career record
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National Div. III Coach of the Year Awards
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USA Volleyball All-Time Great Coach Award
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and did the same thing. In the middle of the quarter Vicenza switched into a person-to-person defense in an attempt to block Sullivan’s move and end the stalemate. But, he had a plan for that too. Marymount set a backside pick for Valeria, who was open and made the layup. “Our girls ran off the floor like they had won the Super Bowl, they’re on the bench hugging each other and Vicenza inbounded the ball and got a layup (to make it) 2-2,” Sullivan said. “And then we had to call a timeout like, ‘Guys, that was really great we scored, but if we ever score again you need to stay on the floor and play defense.’” At halftime the score remained 2-2. Marymount eventually lost 14-12 and missed about 16 layups. “It was a cat-and-mouse game, which is what I love doing in volleyball,” Sullivan said. “In the middle of the third quarter, that’s when I decided I was gonna be a coach.”
‘From Not Coaching Baseball To Coaching The Yankees’
Sullivan was only upset about losing the fateful coin toss for “maybe a nanosecond,” Greene said, before he bought in. He reached out to Rita Crockett, who is considered one of the best all-around volleyball players ever in the world and who was inducted into the International Volleyball Hall of Fame in 2011. Crockett played in Rome for a few years while Sullivan was coaching, so he talked to her and she brought him to one of her practices. He then worked as a volunteer coach with one of the best pro teams in Europe. “So, I went from not coaching baseball to coaching with the Yankees,” Sullivan said. “Not coaching, just getting water and shagging balls and stuff, but I was in the gym. I was learning and watching and just getting a sense of the game, but that’s the level I started to observe at, which was really fortunate.” Sullivan didn’t stop there. He called Joel Dearing, the men’s volleyball coach at Springfield, and told him he was flying
Sullivan won a bronze medal in the 2016 Rio Olympic Games with Team USA.
back from Rome for the summer and he would be working at Dearing’s volleyball camp at the College. Dearing told him he didn’t have any positions – that besides, he remembered him as a soccer player. With his eyes set on a new plan and a desire to be the best, Sullivan refused to take no for an answer. He countered, and said he didn’t need to be paid a nickel. He would volunteer his summer. He just wanted to know everything Dearing knew about the sport. “What did I encounter?” Dearing said. “The only person on the planet that talks faster than me: Charlie Sullivan. The only person I know that processes as fast as me: probably Charlie Sullivan. He was just itching to learn and asked a million questions. That’s exactly who you want to be interacting with – somebody who’s like a sponge and has enough self-confidence to take it on.”
Return To Alden Street
After his four years coaching in Rome, Sullivan realized he was more into the competition than the kids were. He wanted to go to another level. He knew he needed a Master’s degree to get there, so Sullivan returned to Alden Street, much more mature than when
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ON THE BIG STAGE
Pictured below: Charlie Sullivan and the Springfield men’s volleyball team were honored at Fenway Park on May 7, 2014 – just after winning a national championship. Sullivan threw out the first pitch – “straight heat, homie,” he said (Springfield Athletics)
Sullivan’s coaching prowess and knowledge of sports psychology – his favorite class to teach – has led some of Springfield’s greatest coaches to invite him to speak with their teams. His office in Blake Arena is on the end of a hallway with men’s and women’s basketball coaches Charlie Brock and Naomi Graves, as well as women’s volleyball coach Moira Long. They call it the “Hall of Fame Suite.” This year, before the women’s basketball team began its historic run to the Sweet 16, Graves asked Sullivan to address her players. He spoke with them about climbing a skyscraper. He talked to the Pride again after they earned an at-large bid to the NCAA Division III Tournament, and once more before the team left for the third round in Kentucky. “He will tell you this, ‘When you’re going into the NCAA Tournament, it’s not so much about basketball or volleyball anymore. It’s about the culture,” Graves said. “You already know your basketball, it’s about your culture and what you stand for.”
Toughest Opponent he left it, and became a Graduate Assistant in Phys Ed. At the same time, he volunteered with Haley’s soccer team and with the volleyball team under Sean Byron, who was in his first year at the helm after taking over for Dearing. “I think good athletes and good spatial thinkers relate to him,” Byron said. “I think if he was a football coach, he’d be a good football coach. I think if he was a basketball coach, he’d be a good basketball coach. Just because he understands the spatial mechanics and the timing and the athleticism and what it is that you need to be successful at those games.” Sullivan got the men’s volleyball GA position in his second year of grad school but he was still deciding whether he wanted to coach soccer or volleyball. During his final semester he decided he would pursue a college coaching job in volleyball with a PE Master’s and Athletic Administration concentration. After interviewing for Athletic Director positions at several private schools, Sullivan took a job at a college in Davenport, Iowa. He was paid $16,000 to be the men’s volleyball coach, sports information director and admissions counselor. The school is no longer open. A year later he filled Byron’s head coaching job at Springfield. Since then, his list of accolades has continued to grow.
The Springfield College men’s volleyball team was the favorite to win the Division III Championship in 2020, with its 19-2 record and No. 1 national ranking. The Pride had six regular-season games remaining on their schedule and just over a month before the NCAA Tournament when the world stopped. Once the confusion surrounding COVID-19 began to clear, all that was left was disappointment after the balance of the season – and the NCAA Tournament – was canceled. The next season, after becoming the first team to host an in-person athletic event at Springfield College in March 2021, the men’s volleyball team was only able to complete six matches. Despite their 5-1 record and No. 2 national ranking at the end of the season, the Pride didn’t receive a bid into the 2021 NCAA Tournament. It wasn’t their fault, nor was it anyone else’s. Because of COVID cases – mostly involving their opponents, but some of their own – 18 matches were canceled. The team was looking forward to a full, somewhat “normal” season in 2021-22 Spring 2022 | Pride Sports Journal | 49
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when the virus infiltrated again on Monday, Feb. 7 – this time it got Sullivan. He was in disbelief. Is this really happening again? Sullivan went right to Five Guys, ordered curbside pickup, and spent the rest of the day bummed out. Just like after the fateful coin flip, he was upset for maybe a nanosecond, and immediately began coming up with a solution the next day. Obviously there was no way for him to get inside Blake Arena, to coach his team from the sideline for its match against Nichols that Thursday, and he would still be out for Saturday’s tri-match that featured Stevens, the No. 2-ranked team in the country. “It was very nerve-wracking,” Sullivan said. “It’s not like you’re nervous that our guys can’t play without me, but you just live to be involved. Just like that game in Vicenza versus that basketball team – that was the day I realized this is what gets me excited. This is my heart, this is my dream. “When you can’t do that because of COVID, and you don’t have any symptoms, you’re just sitting in your bedroom, you’re antsy. Like everyone else, when you have desires and what you’re getting; there’s a huge gap between them, that causes trauma and stress.” He returned to the drawing board, again, determined to outsmart the virus once and for all. Sullivan coached Wednesday’s and Thursday’s practices over Zoom – a test run, if you will. He calculated that the Athletics webcast from Blake Arena was on a seven-second delay. The average volleyball rally lasts eight seconds. So he couldn’t just be on the phone. The Grandmaster was going to call his shots over Zoom. There is a sort of “unwritten
rule” in volleyball, where anyone not on the bench cannot have communication with the bench. But unwritten rules can be broken. Sullivan went through the NCAA and the Championship Committee, as well as the USA Volleyball committee, for clearance to coach from home. It was a little weird, but what hasn’t been in the COVID world? Thursday came, Nichols came, Sullivan didn’t. He logged onto Zoom and called senior libero Justin Brosnan, who was out with an injury. Brosnan stood on the sideline next to Graduate Assistant coaches Shaun Ermi and Steve Duhoux with an airpod in his left ear. Sullivan set up with the live Zoom and the webcast “replay,” and another screen showing the match stats, all in his bedroom. It started out rough. The Pride looked different in the first set, very unlike the No. 1 nationally-ranked team. Sullivan wasn’t the only one out – two starters had also contracted the virus at the same time he did. The first set featured 13 tied scores and six lead changes before Springfield won 25-23. Sullivan was too involved. A “control freak,” in his words. He knew he needed to step back. It just wasn’t working with him in the middle. Springfield ended up defeating Nichols in a sweep to improve to 8-0. After all, Thursday night was a tuneup for Saturday. Sullivan had coached big matches before. Some internationally in Rome and with the U.S. Volleyball team, and plenty in Blake Arena. None with as much stress as the three he coached from his Connecticut home. “I wanted to say I did a load of laundry while I coached a volleyball match,” he said. “So I did a load of laundry.” Saturday came and the opera-
tion was well-oiled. Springfield swept Stevens and then Rivier – the Pride didn’t lose a set without Sullivan. “If we’re gonna play that well again I might just get the hell out of here, do a load of laundry every big match,” he joked. “The only thing that was good about it was the commute was a lot better. When I was done with practice I was in the kitchen like 30 seconds later. Everything else was nuts. Insane. Wacky.”
He Lost But He Won
When Sullivan sat next to Greene in that room in Rome, they thought they’d be making a decision – the coin would be making a decision – that would impact the next couple of months. Almost 30 years later, that loss has resulted in nearly 500 wins at Springfield, several stints with the United States National Team, a bronze Olym-
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Pictured below: The Springfield men’s volleyball team gathers around senior Justin Brosnan (sitting) to hear from Sullivan over the phone after he watched a practice over Zoom with COVID in February 2022. (Brian Magoffin/Springfield Athletics)
pic medal, 11 national championships and USA Volleyball’s All-Time Great Coach Award. Nuts. Insane. Wacky. A wall in Sullivan’s office is plastered with All-American plaques, one for each of the 59 honorees he’s coached during his 24-year tenure – aside from the most recent ones because he ran out of wall space. Chairs line the floor, several opened for sitting, others folded up for more room, as souvenirs from National Championships. Tucked away, out of sight from his desk on a shelf above the window, sit his five Molten National Championship trophies. He doesn’t look at them, but they are right there for recruits to see. The only trophies he does see are for second place. A new addition will soon glaree back at him after a 29-2 season in 2022 fell just short. “Those are my favorite ones,” he said. And he has the Springfield Volleyball creed pinned to his wall. The blue piece of paper outlines
13 promises he came up with sitting in church one day with his wife and three children. Lines 1-4 read: I believe in Humanics, the almighty ruler of focus and distraction eliminator. And in Spirit, Mind and Body, the sons and facilitators. We are SCVB and we believe in maximum effort toward cohesion, communication and positive body language. We believe in forming, suffering, learning and as a result performing at a Championship level. In 2017, the court on which Sullivan once took part in PEAC courses was transformed into the site of the NCAA National Championship. Springfield fans clad in white flooded the Blake Arena bleachers, and after the fourth set Sullivan stood calmly in his classic blue blazer and khakis, hugging his assistant coaches as the sea of white swallowed the team on the court. Confetti fell from the rafters as Darius Rucker’s “Wagon Wheel” blasted on the speakers. “You start with a 2,000-seat facility and before the game the fire
marshal closes the door because there’s 2,500 people in the building. We only have 2,600 people who attend the school,” Sullivan said. “So right there it tells you a lot about the community that was here that day. I thought it was a celebration of Springfield College. I thought the way our guys played, acted, behaved and just the community there, it was just Springfield College throwing around its Humanics muscles a little bit.” Sullivan has embodied the Humanics philosophy since his days playing Nintendo on the second floor of Alumni Hall with his “knucklehead” friends, since he was Chaz and as he matured into Charlie. And, because of that coin toss in the little room in Rome, he is an all-time great coach who has helped build the most successful Division III men’s volleyball program in the country. “I’ve always said this to Charlie,” Haley said. “‘You lost – but you won.’” Spring 2022 | Pride Sports Journal | 51
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Extra Innings
Noah Bleakley (left), Jack Simonetty (center) and Jack Cooney (right) are all fifth-years on the 2022 Springfield baseball team. The Student’s Chris Gionta quizzed them on why they stuck around for another season.
What’s the weirdest interaction you’ve had with one of the current fifth-years on the team? Simonetty: It was freshman year. Jack [Cooney] and I were in the same Intro to Exercise Science class, and it was an afternoon class so we were going straight from there to the first day of fall baseball… We were trying to figure out how we were going to rush from class to baseball and not be late. So, one of my first interactions with Jack was us changing in the bathroom in the P.E. complex — I had no idea who this kid was. We just ran out onto the field together. And that’s all she wrote. We’ve been friends since then.
Women’s Lax?
What did you miss most about a full college baseball season?
Bleakley: I think one of the things is it being a predictable season. With COVID, it was going weekby-week. We played on the weekends, and we’d get that COVID test on Wednesday. [If the tests were positive] it could get canceled for a weekend. It was tough to stay focused on playing and keep that energy within the team. And [we missed out on] going to Florida. I think that is a big one, because that’s when you have team bonding, and you get to know a lot about the guys during that week that you might not in the COVID season.
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What’s the biggest difference in the team since your first year? Bleakley: The overall culture of our team has changed since my freshman year. I feel like everyone’s bought into the system, where in past years we had some outliers. Just showing up to lift on time, doing all the things you need to be a successful team. A lot of the guys bought in the last few years.
What’s the most interesting thing you’ve learned about a current fifth-year on the team? Simonetty: A good fact about Noah Bleakley is he’s an excellent cook. He takes pride in his skills in the kitchen.
What were the most important factors in you coming for a fifth year?
Cooney: For me, it had to make sense school-wise first. And obviously, I didn’t feel like my baseball career was over. But, I wanted to get my master’s and get my coaching experience along the way, so it was kind of a no-brainer -- once I figured out my grad school [plan] -- that I was going to come back and play baseball, knowing that I could swing it. And it all kind of depended on school, and obviously, all of us talked with Coach Simeone. He was all for it, so we all kind of got on the same page there and figured it out.
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THE NATIONAL STAGE
On April 16, 2022, Dominic Ramalho became just the second Springfield College men’s gymnast to compete in the all-around finals of the NCAA Championship.
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Football The Springfield football team won the NEWMAC and earned its first NCAA bid since 2017. Senior Lou Cocozza was just the second in program history to receive AP, AFCA and D3football.com Division III All-America honors.
Chloe Dewhurst
Women’s Volleyball
Luca Brashear
Softball
Competing at the NCAA Division III Indoor Track and Field Championship at JDL Fast Track in Winston-Salem North Carolina on March 12, 2022, Dewhurst took sixth in the high jump and earned All-America honors.
The women’s volleyball team won its first 11 matches en route to a 23-8 season. The Pride earned an at-large bid into the NCAA Tournament and defeated Rowan in a five-set, first-round thriller. Senior Ashley Tanner is pictured below.
The only member of the swim and dive team to qualify for the national competition, Brashear earned All-America honors after finishing ninth in three-meter and 12th on the one-meter board in the NCAA Div. III Championship.
In its first full season since 2019, the Springfield softball team jumped out to a 25-5 record – the best in program history through 30 games. Junior Mackenzie Doyle hit .500 with 18 stolen bases during that stretch.
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Welcome To My Office Springfield College coaches explain the stories behind the most treasured items in their offices.
By Braedan Shea
Mark Simeone – Baseball
Moira Long – Women’s Volleyball
Moira Long’s favorite thing comes from a Christmas present she received a few years ago. When her son was in ninth grade, he worked tirelessly in his woodshop to carve the words “All I do is win” into a wooden board, including staying after class. The effort and content didn’t go without appreciation. “He kind of encapsulated his mother in that one gift,” said Long. “I am always saying that it is the best present I have ever gotten, because you get me. You get that I just want to win.” Tommy Crabill – Men’s Soccer
Baseball coach Mark Simeone does not have just one specific thing in his office that is his favorite, but two stand out more than the rest because of the team successes behind them. The first comes from 1999, when Springfield won the Division III New England ECAC Championship. “I just remember the joy from the players on that team who really had a good season, and ended with a postseason championship,” he said. The second plaque is from when he was a player here at Springfield College. His junior season the Pride won the Northeast State Championship. “Whenever I see those teammates, great stories, they are always entertaining and great to hear from. It is always great to remember those stories and memories with group success.” Kate Bowen – Softball
At first glance, the laptop stand in men’s soccer coach Tommy Crabill’s office seems nothing more than a creative homemade project. While not necessarily wrong, the backstory behind it represents something much more beautiful and unique. “I made it out of the same wood that I used to build the archway that my wife and I got married under,” he said. Crabill decided to make the pergola because he wanted to help his wife out any way that he could during the wedding planning process, especially with the added struggles from the pandemic. “The pandemic gave us so much stress - her so much stress - so I wanted to have something else for her to be excited about, and to take the pain away of all the work out of the wedding.”
With a 10-1 victory against Westfield State on March 26, 2022, softball head coach Kate Bowen pushed herself past the 100-career-win mark. But even with the recent milestone reached, she finds that her favorite thing is something that brings her back to when she first started. Framed and resting on her windowsill sits the game card from her first-ever win, a 4-3 victory against The College of New Jersey five years ago. She keeps the card with her because it stands for something bigger. “It’s a reminder of where I started and to work as hard as I did on day one.”
54 | Pride Sports Journal | Spring 2022
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Coaches continued from Page 29
Another program from the NCAA is the “Leadership Collective.” Poisson said he has been in communication with the leader of this initiative, who organizes a sort of “pool” specifically for BIPOC professionals, administrators, and coaches. Colleges and universities are able to check the pool of vetted candidates, but Poisson said it’s competitive for a variety of reasons. “You could imagine Division I schools are looking to hire a coach, Division II and Division III. And you could well imagine the going rate of coaches at Division I versus Division III … it’s your personal choice what drives you, and sometimes compensation is that driver,” Poisson said. According to the springfield.edu website, 21% of the student population self-identifies as a person of color. The undergraduate enrollment data from 2016-2020 on the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion’s page also shows there has been no insignificant increase nor decrease in BIPOC student enrollment during those four years. So, when specifically asked why a BIPOC individual would want to come to Springfield College to become a head coach, Poisson said when candidates are looking for a job, “that person also has to feel it’s a fit and it’s a match, and that in of itself may prevent people from applying.”
Posse continued from Page 19
the huddle that they still had five minutes left to play. “I’m really proud of our kids for holding their focus,” Graves said. “Many players would fold in those circumstances, but none of them did.” Overtime was a back-and-forth battle. With the game tied again with 11 seconds left, Springfield had the ball – and the opportunity to get the final basket. After a deflection out of bounds, Springfield set up a baseline play with 1.1 seconds remaining that freed up Hourihan, who hit a mid-range jumper as time expired to lift the Pride into the Sweet 16 for the first time since 2005. “That game felt like we won the championship,” Lyons said. “That was the game that I will always remember.” The magic finally wore off for the Pride on April 11 in Lexington, Ky. – when they came up short
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When it comes to Springfield, Poisson said the match truly has nothing to do with skin color — it all goes back to just being the right kind of person. “The whole thing to me is teaching, because coaching is teaching, and you’re doing it in the classroom with walls and the classroom without walls. I think that’s the attractive piece about us that regardless of the color of your skin, or however you define diversity, I hope would be attractive to others,” Poisson said. It appears the issue of the lack of BIPOC head coaches at Springfield is fueled by a variety of reasons from the top down, but it’s something Poisson and the rest of the College is well aware of and working to change — especially with the open positions in basketball and soccer. Becoming a “diverse” institution is something Springfield has worked hard to accomplish and promote, and because many of the hurdles it faces are systemic, it is only natural that something that has been an issue for centuries will only be solved through time, hard work, and dedication. Perhaps in the near future a BIPOC coach will be featured in a frame on Poisson’s wall.
against Trine University. Springfield finished with a 25-4 record. After the game, the players gathered at the middle of the court and hugged each other. The season was over, but the bond that had formed on that warm September day on the Senior Green would live on. And, along the way, the Posse had captured the campus’ collective imagination. “The Springfield community was amazing. It renewed my faith in why we are who we are,” Graves said. Everyone from President Mary-Beth Cooper to members of the Springfield women’s gymnastics team – who held signs that spelled out P-O-S-S-E in Ithaca – had traveled to cheer them on. “It was the most support we had ever had,” Lyons said. “The amount of people who reached out on campus was insane.” “Women’s sports don’t get as many fans as men’s sports, and sometimes that’s really difficult for us,” Lyons said. “But this year it was different. We were good, and people wanted to watch us.”
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