Athletics

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Hometown: Rome, NY Major: Wellness and Adventure Education The transition from high school to college basketball was delayed and anything but normal, a fact attributable to COVID-19 and its disruption of the college sports calendar. But when Damian Call made his college debut on March 10 in UC’s season-opening 82-44 win over Elmira, “it was just basketball,” he says. And it showed. The athletic freshman wing was a perfect 5-for-5 from the field, including three impressive slam dunks, in his first collegiate game. “COVID limited, well, pretty much everything. When we were practicing in the preseason, we were staying six feet apart – even when we were defending our man. That was definitely different,” he says. “But once the basketball goes up – I’m not saying there weren’t adjustments we had to make, but you just do the same things on the court that you’ve done ever since you started playing the game.” Call, the Empire 8 Rookie of the Year, helped lead UC to a 10-2 record and the program’s first-ever conference championship. The team dedicated the championship to former team member Chris Bamba, who passed away unexpectedly last June.

Hometown: Newburgh, NY Major: Construction Management The men’s golf team won the Empire 8 championship on April 25 at Timber Banks Country Club in Baldwinsville, NY. In doing so, UC earned its first-ever selection to the NCAA championship tournament selection, which was held May 11-14 in Wheeling, WV. Josh Kienz claimed the Empire 8 individual title at Timber Banks to give UC its first-ever conference medalist. The conference Player of the Year followed his opening round 73 with a second-round 78, finishing seven-over par for the championship. “Josh played a great tournament, and we know he’s going to post a solid score. Being able to know we can count on him frees up the rest of the team from a pressure standpoint,” head coach Brian Marcantonio says. “Making our first NCAA tournament is a milestone accomplishment – for the members of our program and, really, for the entire College community.”

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High school wasn’t easy for Dr. Joan Friedenberg ’73. As a teenager in the late 1960s, the Long Island native found herself grappling with family issues at the same time she “fell in with the wrong group of friends,” Friedenberg recalls. With academics on the back burner, her GPA suffered. It wasn’t until late in her senior year that Friedenberg began to imagine college in her future. And after discovering Utica College and visiting “the peaceful, close-knit campus,” recalls Friedenberg, her college aspirations began to take shape. “Utica took a chance on me, and it turned out to be the perfect combination of things I needed that I didn’t know I needed,” she says. At UC, mentors like Professor Emerita of Anthropology Clara Nicholson and Political Science Professor Carolyn Adams helped Friedenberg, a first-generation student, discover a passion for international studies and linguistics and, for the first time, make graduate school seem within her reach. Friedenberg went on to earn a master’s and Ph.D. in linguistics and bilingual education from the University of Illinois, which led to a prolific 30-year career as a linguistics professor, author, and international consultant specializing in the problems and needs of language minority populations. In 2007, Friedenberg retired as a Professor Emerita from Southern Illinois University and now enjoys a busy “second career” as a singer and performer with her folk band, the PinkSlip Duo. Today, after reflecting on her journey, Friedenberg says the choice to include Utica College in her estate plans felt like a natural way to pay it forward. “I looked at what was most important to me and thought about the role UC played in helping me get to where I am today,” says Friedenberg. Her gift, she says, is the best way to honor the mentors—and the College—that turned her life around. “I hope my gift can help Utica College students like I was, who haven’t had a lot of breaks in life and can’t easily make it without the support of others,” she says. “Utica College saw the potential in me when I didn’t see it in myself.” To learn more about planned giving to Utica College and to explore our library of gift-planning resources, visit utica.edu/planningyourgift or contact Associate Vice President for Principal and Planned Gifts Tim Nelson at 315-792-3489 or tnelson@utica.edu