Bucknell University Athletics
From the AD's Desk
9/1/2015 3:31:00 PM | General
Greetings from Bucknell and the 400 acres set apart!
Well another summer has vanished, and as the calendar has flipped to September, it means classes are in session and most of our fall athletics teams are off and running in their 2015 campaigns.
Field hockey, men's soccer and women's soccer all won their home openers, and volleyball had a successful 2-1 opening weekend at the CCSU Blue Devil Classic. Cross country, tennis, men's water polo, men's golf and football all debut this coming weekend, and we are very optimistic about our teams' chances this fall.
Bison Football is back! The football team is coming off an 8-3 season and a runner-up finish in the Patriot League a year ago, and Joe Susan's squad was picked a close second behind Fordham in this year's preseason poll. We are anticipating more than 100 football alumni returning to campus on Saturday for the season opener against Marist at 6 p.m. If you can't make it to the game, remember you can log in and watch for free on the Patriot League Network.
I'd like to formally welcome our three new head coaches: men's basketball's Nathan Davis, women's soccer's Kelly Kuss, and softball's Courtnay Foster. Coach Kuss' squad earned a dramatic 1-0 win over Towson in her head coaching debut. Coach Foster came on board in mid-July from Northwestern and takes over a program that won a school-record 35 games last season.
Coach Davis has been hard at work since his introduction in April. He and his staff have a full summer of recruiting under their belts, and now that classes are back in session they will be back on the floor for their first extended individual workouts with their student-athletes. We are all eagerly anticipating the “Friends of Bison Basketball” dinner on Saturday, Oct. 10 at Larison Dining Hall. Many former coaches and players are expected back for this special event. Contact Todd Newcomb at 570-577-1771 for more information.
Two weeks after the men's basketball alumni dinner will be Homecoming Weekend. One of the annual highlights of Homecoming is the Hall of Fame induction ceremony. There are four inductees this year. Bryan Burns '91 (wrestling), Desire Almind '04 (women's basketball) and Chris Cara '05 (men's lacrosse) are all among the all-time greats in their respective sports, and I am personally thrilled to welcome Terrie Grieb to the Hall of Fame. Terrie has been at Bucknell since 1978, first as a coach of three different sports, and more recently as our associate director of athletics for business and team services. Terrie has been a member of my administrative team since my arrival at Bucknell in 2000, and I can tell you that nobody represents Bison Athletics better than Terrie Grieb.
While on the topic of honored alumni, if you haven't been following the BucknellBison.com website recently, you might not have seen the announcements for the Patriot League 25th Anniversary Teams for each sport. The Patriot League was debuted as an all-sports conference in 1990-91, and as part of a year-long celebration, 25th Anniversary Teams were voted upon for each league-sponsored sport that started that year (note that Patriot League football actually began in 1986, so football's 25th Anniversary Team was announced in 2011).
All of Bucknell's 25th Anniversary Team honorees will be recognized at halftime of a home basketball game on Jan. 16.
The Patriot League's silver anniversary also marks the first year for Jennifer Heppel as the league's fifth executive director. Jennifer comes to the league from the Big Ten, where she had been serving as associate commissioner for governance. She also has administrative experience at Georgetown and the NCAA office in Indianapolis.
While we welcome Jen to the Patriot League, I would also like to publicly thank Carolyn Schlie Femovich for her outstanding service as executive director for the last 16 years. Carolyn took the league to new heights, particularly in the area of digital communications, and she helped the league navigate a particularly difficult era of rapid conference affiliation movement and NCAA legislative reform. On behalf of everyone at Bucknell, we wish Carolyn and her husband Bob Femovich (Bucknell Class of 1972) all the best in their future endeavors.
In conjunction with the start of the 2015-16 academic and athletics calendar, we have also kicked off year No. 5 of the Bucknell Bison Leadership Academy. Once again our colleagues from the leadership training consortium called the “Student Leader Seminar” joined us on campus on Aug. 22 for a full day of discussion and hands-on leadership activities. We received very positive feedback from the more than 50 student-athletes who attended the session.
Thanks to the backing of trustee emeritus and Hall of Fame swimmer Bill Dearstyne '62, plans are in place to expand the Leadership Academy in terms of full-time staffing and the number of student-athletes involved in the program. I would like to thank senior associate athletics director Maisha Kelly for her outstanding work in organizing and managing the Leadership Academy during its four years of implementation.
For those who may have just returned to campus for the start of the academic year after being away for the summer, you will notice significant progress on the construction of the Graham Building. Construction of the 36,000-square-foot facility began back in June, and we anticipate the new student health center/wrestling training facility opening around this time next year.
In the meantime, our facilities team has issued a “Pardon our Progress” declaration for the coming year. The ongoing construction of the Graham Building will result in some changes to vehicle and pedestrian traffic flow coming to and from the Kenneth Langone Athletics & Recreation Center from the 7th Street side of the facility, and Sojka Pavilion parking will certainly be impacted during this coming basketball season. We will be communicating some parking changes to season-ticket holders with Bison Club parking privileges. As always, if you have any questions, please contact Todd Newcomb in the Bison Club office.
Speaking of the Bison Club, thanks to the generous support of so many alumni and friends, we set new records for dollars raised and total number of donors during the 2014-15 fiscal year. Bison Club receipts totaled $2,224,290 from a record-number of 4,094 donors last year. In addition, Bison Athletics received another $103,949 in match funding as a result of gifts made during the Trustee Challenge last April, as well as another $93,646 as a result of team specific fundraising activities. In total, Bison Athletics received a record $2,421,885 in annual support in 2014-15.
I can't say “thank you” enough to all of those supporters who make the Bison Club an annual part of their philanthropy. We absolutely rely on fundraised dollars to supplement our Athletics budget to the point where our student-athletes can remain competitive in the Patriot League and beyond. We take great care in making sure that every dollar counts, and I can assure you that our 700-plus student-athletes are directly benefitting from your support.
It is never too early to make your gift for 2015-16. There is an easy ONLINE donation form, or you can send a check to the Bison Club, Bucknell University, 1 Dent Drive, Lewisburg, PA 17837.
With activity once again buzzing all around campus, we hope to see you at one of our venues this season. Go Bison!
Warmest regards,
Director of Athletics & Recreation
Bucknell University
