Bucknell University Athletics
From the AD's Desk
4/6/2006 8:00:00 AM | General
April 6, 2006
Previous installments of "From the AD's Desk"
-- August 15, 2005
-- September 26, 2005
-- December 1, 2005
Dear Bison Fans,
Well it seems that spring has finally arrived in Lewisburg, with temperatures reaching the 60s and sunny skies above for a busy week of home lacrosse, baseball, softball, tennis and rowing competitions. Before turning our main focus to the spring sports, I would be remiss if I didn't acknowledge the extraordinary performances of our winter programs and publicly congratulate them for earning Patriot League championships in three of the six sports.
While the Bison men's basketball program once again captured the nation's attention with a second straight record-setting year, our women's swimming and diving and women's indoor track and field programs continued "dynasties" of their own. Women's basketball, men's swimming and diving and men's indoor track and field also performed very well, helping Bucknell take the lead in the Presidents' Cup standings following the winter season.
Under the direction of Jerry Foley and his staff, the Bison women's swimming and diving squad brought home its fourth consecutive Patriot League title, nosing out Colgate in the closest meet in league history. In the process, senior Lectie Altman became one of the program's most decorated swimmers, as she won her fifth Patriot League individual title, including her third straight in the 200-yard backstroke.
Coach Kevin Donner and his staff continued Bucknell's dominance on the Patriot League women's track and field scene. This season the Bison captured a record fifth consecutive Patriot League women's indoor title, and they did so in convincing fashion, finishing nearly 70 points ahead of their closest competitor. Remarkably, the Bison received all four of the league's major awards. Coach Donner earned the league's coach of the year; junior Christa Sawko was named the Track Athlete of the Meet; junior Marjorie Grap received the Field Athlete of the Meet honor and freshman Kati Dempsey was named Rookie of the Meet. Bucknell has now won 10 of the 16 Patriot League women's indoor championships.
Not to be outdone, the men's basketball squad put together what certainly has to be considered the finest season in school history, an amazing follow-up to the terrific 2004-05 season. I won't attempt to recap all the records and highlights in this space - follow this link to "2005-06 Bucknell Men's Basketball: an Encore Performance" to relive the glory of the season in great detail - but I would like to salute head coach Pat Flannery and each member of the program for bringing such honor to Bucknell University through their inspired play and their class, wit and charm off the floor.
Thanks to the popularity of college basketball in America, in particular the "March Madness" phenomenon that is the NCAA Tournament, coaches and student-athletes are placed on a pedestal when they compete in the in the postseason. For an institution like Bucknell, this is a wonderful thing because the Bison student-athletes who appear on that stage represent a window into what Bucknell is really like. Co-captains Kevin Bettencourt and Charles Lee, for example, are really just like any other Bucknell student, except they happen to be exceptional basketball players.
As J.A. Adande wrote in his excellent column in the Los Angeles Times, "Maybe, between the corporate sponsors and the coaches hawking cars and electronics stores and the players who count the days until they declare for the NBA, there's room for college students in the NCAA tournament after all. Bucknell is the only school in the field that graduated 100% of its players in the most recent survey. The Bison have a center who's continually late for practice because he has engineering labs. Three-fifths of the starters have grade-point averages of 3.4 or better. And for the second consecutive year, the team advanced to the second round of the tournament."
Like Adande, the media in Dallas took special note of the fact that Bucknell's top three scorers - Chris McNaughton, Kevin Bettencourt and Charles Lee - also happened to earn the team's top three grade-point averages last semester, all above a 3.4. Numerous articles made mention of Bucknell's 100 percent graduation rate in men's basketball, and one publication, Inside Higher Education, even constructed an NCAA Tournament bracket based on each team's graduation rate. Bucknell was its national champion!
And it's not just the men's basketball team excelling academically. For the second straight year, Bucknell scored very well in the NCAA's Academic Performance Rate (APR), which is a formula developed to track student-athletes' performance and retention. Each of Bucknell's 26 sports easily met the minimum standards, in fact 14 Bison programs boasted perfect 1,000 scores in the 2006 report - men's cross country, men's golf, men's soccer, men's swimming and diving, men's tennis, women's cross country, women's rowing, women's golf, women's lacrosse, women's soccer, women's swimming and diving, women's tennis, women's indoor track and field and women's water polo. Others, such as football and men's and women's basketball, were well above the national average.
The results of the graduation rate and APR studies validate the hard work performed each and every day by our Bison student-athletes, coaches and staff. We will always strive to win championships here, but we also will not settle for anything less than winning the right way, with true Bucknellians gracing our playing fields.
By the way, the student-athletes on the three winter sports teams that just won Patriot League championships - men's basketball, women's swimming and diving and women's indoor track and field - had an average GPA of 3.29 last semester.
In closing, I sincerely thank all of our loyal Bison supporters for what you have given back to Bucknell. Your devotion helped us shatter school attendance records in basketball this winter, and it was wonderful to see so much orange and blue at road games all season.
Your generosity also helped the Bison Club reach all-time highs last year. Your generous support helps each of our varsity programs in their day-to-day operations, providing them with the resources required to compete successfully at the Division I level. Again, thank you for playing an important role in Bucknell setting the standard of excellence in scholarship and athletics!
I wish you all an enjoyable spring, and as always ... GO BISON!
John P. Hardt
Director of Athletics & Recreation
