Franklin & Marshall Athletics

Stepien Named to Don Hansen All-South Region Team

2006-01-09T17:14:00.000-05:00

LANCASTER, PA -- Franklin & Marshall College linebacker Chris Stepien (Sr., Fairfield, NJ/West Essex) has been named to the 2005 Don Hansen's Football Gazette NCAA Division III All-South Region third team.

The honor marks the fifth consecutive year a Franklin & Marshall College player has been recognized on the All-South team following first team honors for wide receiver Justin Salton ’03 (2003) in 2004 and second team recognition for defensive lineman Chris Gallino '03 (2001 & 2002), punter Mark Rowand '02 (2001) and punter Dan Eggertsson ’05 (2004). Gallino and Rowand's selection in 2001 marked the first for F&M since defensive end Mike Quartey '00, linebacker Joe Gillespie '00 and punter Andy Gilburg '01 were named to the third team in the fall of 1999.

A 2005 All-Centennial Conference first team selection, he registered 88 tackles (43 solo, 45 assist), with four sacks for 22 yards, three interceptions for 31 yards, four pass breakups, a fumble forced and a fumble recovery in 11 games as he led the team to the 2005 Eastern College Athletic Conference Southeast Bowl.

The September 25, November 6 and 13 Centennial Conference Defensive Player of the Week, he ranked third in tackles for loss in the CC with 12.5 (10 solo, five assist) for 42 yards, an average of 1.25 per game.

In Centennial Conference games, he finished with 51 tackles, five tackles-for-loss of 16 yards, 2.5 sacks for 15 yards, three interceptions for 31 yards, three pass breakups and a fumble forced as the Diplomats went 4-2 to finish second in the final standings.

The 2004 Al Brooks Defensive Player of the Year, Stepien compiled 54 tackles (27 solo, 27 assisted), including nine tackles-for-loss of 31 yards and 0.5 sacks for nine yards, with two passes defended, one fumble recovery and a forced fumble as a junior as he led the Diplomats to the 2004 Centennial Conference championship and the ECAC Southwest Bowl title.

One of 11 Division I-AA, II, III and NAIA football players named to the 2005 American Football Coaches Association's (AFCA) Good Works Team for outstanding performance on the field and in community service activities, Stepien concludes his career with 160 tackles (84 solo, 76 assist), 24 tackles-for-loss of 77 yards, five sacks-for-31 yards, three interceptions for 31 yards, eight passes defended, two fumbles forced and two fumbles as he led the team to a 21-21 record.

A total of 75 players were chosen for the Football Gazette All-South Region team from the 63 schools that sponsor football in the South Region. The All-South first and second team selections will now be on a national ballot to choose the 2005 Football Gazette All-America Team

This year marks the 14th straight year that Don Hansen has selected an All-South Region team.

The Football Gazette website is at http://www.donhansen.com.

F&M Goalie Robyn Jones Featured in Lancaster Sunday News

2005-09-10T17:00:00.000-04:00

LANCASTER, PA - Franklin & Marshall College soccer coach Steve O’Day had an opening for a goalkeeper this offseason.That it’s been filled in spectacular fashion is not because of O’Day’s recruiting brilliance. His program and school were recruited by the new goalie, not the other way around.

Robyn Jones spent the last two years as a starting keeper on half-scholarship at Division I Rutgers.

In 2003, as a freshman, Jones helped the Scarlet Knights reach the second round of the NCAA tournament, compiling an 0.92 goals-against average.

Last season the team wasn’t quite as good but Jones was better, with an 0.82 goals-against and shutouts of national power Santa Clara and eventual NCAA champion Notre Dame, the only game all year in which the Irish failed to score.

“She really is a national-class goalkeeper,’’ O’Day said.

Now she’s at F&M, where she is, uh, not on scholarship. No athletes are at Division III schools.

“I was on half-scholarship there, and here, I had to take out a loan,’’ Jones said Wednesday.

She said that when the folks at Rutgers found out she was thinking about leaving, they offered more scholarship money.

So you’re thinking: Is this kid nuts?

“A lot of people have wondered that,’’ Jones admitted. “Money really wasn’t an issue for me.’’

It was for mom and dad, of course. They were foremost among those questioning their daughter’s sanity when she decided to transfer here.

“They’re a lot more on board now that they’ve seen the school, where I’m living here and everything,’’ Jones said.

Jones attended a small private high school in New Jersey, the Pennington School. Rutgers’ student body is about 90 times the size of Pennington’s and 20 times the size of F&Ms.

Although she spent two years at Rutgers’ sprawling campus and the soccer experience was fine, Jones never managed to feel at home there.

“In high school, everybody cared about you as a person,’’ Jones said. “At Rutgers, professors would say, ‘Don’t ask if I remember you, because I won’t.’ “

Jones chose F&M because she has some personal connections to the school. She e-mailed O’Day last spring, and sort of walked him through the steps required to make the transfer happen within NCAA rules. O’Day couldn’t communicate with Jones without receiving approval from Rutgers’ athletic department, for example.

“I was impressed with how methodical and professional she was about the whole thing,’’ O’Day said. “It was like a quick tutorial for me.’’

A junior, Jones is already experienced at the highest level of soccer she’ll see in college. Rather than the awful break this could have been for the two freshman keepers O’Day did recruit — Erin Roy and Miriam Marcus — it’s turned out to be a giant positive.

Jones was of course the starter when F&M’s season opened Friday, but O’Day said that, “I don’t see her playing every minute of every game.’’

Jones has also been a leader, which matters a lot because no matter how good a freshman could be, she couldn’t replace the intangible contributions of last year’s goalie, Melissa Ruff, a four-year starter and team captain.

“An instant leader,’’ O’Day said of Jones. “She’s totally embraced that role with the new players, and they [Roy and Marcus] have raised their level as a result.’’

A stocky, powerfully-built kid, Jones is not a goalkeeper from Central Casting. She is a pure athlete, though. She was a four-year starter in goal for high school soccer teams that reached the state final four times, winning it twice.

She also played basketball and softball at Pennington, and did winter track her senior year, specializing in that classic combination of sprints and … shot put.

Jones has been bugging O’Day about leaving the net once in a while and playing in the field. She’d like to play softball at F&M this spring.

Not a couch potato.

“What sets her apart is her athleticism,’’ O’Day said. “I’m convinced she could excel at any sport.’’

Still, from big-time D-1 on scholarship to D-3 in the middle of a successful college career? Imagine, for example, a Penn State football player starting as a freshman and sophomore, and then transferring to F&M because he felt like a number in Happy Valley.

“This came out of nowhere,’’ O’Day admitted. “It might be a little more common in women’s soccer than in big-time football, but not much.’’

One wonders if it doesn’t have something to do with the difference between men and women, men seeing a team as a means to an end and women seeing it as a family.

“No question, there are differences between male and female athletes,’’ O’Day said. “That family atmosphere is something we very much try to cultivate.’’

“Actually, the team at Rutgers was very close,’’ Jones said, “but I didn’t have as much of a voice as I will probably have here.’’

On the other hand, she added that, “A Penn State football player can think about the NFL. Women don’t have that opportunity to play professionally.’’

Jones still wants to play professionally some day, perhaps before or during a career as a counselor and coach, if pro soccer is then an option for women. It isn’t now, at least in America, with the folding of the Women’s United Soccer Association two years ago.

For now, though, there is a new and happy family.

“I felt really welcome here right away,’’ Jones said. “I knew right away this setting was better for me as a person.

“As far as how good the soccer can be, that really depends on how much you put into it.’’

2005 Football Season Preview Now Online

2005-08-21T18:39:00.000-04:00

The 2005 F&M football season preview is now available online at http://server1.fandm.edu/departments/athletics/football/stories/05D4026823.html

F&M Announces 2005 Athletics Hall of Fame Class

2005-08-12T16:16:00.000-04:00

The Franklin & Marshall College Department of Athletics & Recreation has announced the 2005 Athletics Hall of Fame inductees.

The class of 2005 consists of Jerome Maiatico ’00 (men’s basketball), Lee Belknap Lionetti ’91 (women’s squash), Tanya Blakeman Ikeda ’84 (women’s swimming) and Lt. Col. Louis Martucci ’79 (track & field).

The inductees will be honored at a dinner event on September 30 beginning at 6:30 p.m. and during a halftime ceremony at the Franklin & Marshall College versus Muhlenberg homecoming football game on October 1.

Go to http://server1.fandm.edu/departments/athletics/releases/05CE579DB6.html for more information on the inductees and the Hall of Fame.

Centennial Conference Fall Preseason Polls

2005-08-11T12:57:00.000-04:00

Follow all of the action as the Centennial Conference releases the fall sports preseason polls at www.centennial.org/polls/fall05.html

Diplomats Pick Up Votes in Preseason D3football.com Poll

2005-08-02T08:57:00.000-04:00

The Franklin & Marshall College football team received 15 votes in the 2005 D3football.com Preseason Top 25 Poll to rank 39th.

The ranking marks the first time that Franklin & Marshall has appeared in a D3football.com poll since the website’s founding in 1999.

The Centennial Conference co-champions and Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) Southwest titlist, the Diplomats finished the 2004 season with an 8-3 record, 4-2 in Centennial Conference play, following a 4-6, 3-3 Centennial Conference, record in 2003.

Historically, the Diplomats were one of five teams to win the Centennial Conference title last year joining Johns Hopkins University, Dickinson College, Muhlenberg College and McDaniel College as the CC became only the third league to finish with five champions in the history of college football.

Among Centennial Conference teams in the D3football.com poll, the Diplomats are ranked second as Johns Hopkins received 22 votes to rank 37th, while Muhlenberg picked up 13 votes for 42nd and McDaniel received 10 votes for 43rd.

Overall, the Diplomats will face five of the 58 teams in the preseason poll as Franklin & Marshall will also meet Hobart (38th) and Union (57th) this season.

Franklin & Marshall will return to the field to defend its Centennial and ECAC titles on September 3, 2005 at Bethany College in West Virginia.

Kruger Flying High in Colorado's Mountain Collegiate Baseball League

2005-08-01T10:36:00.000-04:00

LANCASTER, PA – Franklin & Marshall College’s Gary Kruger (Sr., East Islip, NY/East Islip) is having a season to remember for the Fort Collins (CO) Foxes of the Mountain Collegiate Baseball League.

Kruger, who has been playing third, second and leftfield for the Foxes, has led Fort Collins to the first place in the league with a 32-9 overall record as the team has clinched a playoff spot.

Through July 26, he is hitting .323 (30-for-93) with six doubles, two triples, 10 runs batted in, 23 runs scored, 16 walks and is 10-for-11 in stolen bases.

The Mountain Collegiate League is a four-team league as Fort Collins is joined with Laramie, Cheyenne and Greeley. Fort Collins clinched the top seed in for the best of three Championship series where they will face Laramie August 11, 12 and 13, if necessary.

F&M Announces Volleyball Recruits

2005-08-01T09:30:00.000-04:00

LANCASTER, PA – The Franklin & Marshall College Athletic Department has announced that nine recruits have submitted their deposit and declared their intention of joining the F&M women’s volleyball team for the 2005 season:

Name (Position, Hometown/High School)
Sarah Beimfohr (MH, Asbury, NJ/North Hunterdon)
Krysta Brown (Setter, Schuylkill Haven, PA/Schuylkill Valley)
Holly Cordisco (Setter, Bethlehem, PA/Notre Dame)
Kalasia Daniels (MH, New York, NY/Frederick Douglas)
Julia Hughes (Libero, Dumfries, VA/Bishop Ireton)
Ginelle Krummey (OH, Harrison City, PA/Penn Trafford)
Tricia Lapera (Setter, Shelton, CT/Shelton)
Margot Phelan (OH, Ellicott City, MD/Centennial)
Valerie Pusateri (Setter, Ellicott City, MD/Chapelgate Christian Academy)

Three players to watch for immediate impacts are Cordisco, Pusateri and Phelan.

An honorable mention All-State selection as a senior at Notre Dame High School, Cordisco was named to the PIAA District XI first team in addition to earning first team honors from the Easton Express Times and the Allentown Morning Call.

An Express Times Player of the Week, she established new school assists (993 in a season, 2,199 career), service attempts (505 season, 1,109 career) and service aces (80 in a season) records and led Notre Dame to the District XI championship.

A Gatorade Player of the Year award recipient, Pusateri was named to the Howard County second team and earned MVP honors at the Lancaster Bible Tournament. An IAAM A Conference All-Star, she served as team captain at Chapelgate Christian Academy last year.

The Howard County Player of the Year and a first team All-Metro region selection, Phelan was named to the Baltimore Sun and Washington Post first team as a senior as she led Centennial High School to the Howard County, 3A East Region and State championships.

Franklin & Marshall concluded the 2004 season 20-10 with a 9-1 record in the Centennial Conference as the team advanced to the semifinals of the conference championship tournament.

Boretti Named Head Baseball Coach at Columbia University

2005-07-28T12:39:00.000-04:00

Franklin & Marshall College baseball coach Brett Boretti has been named head baseball coach at Columbia University in the City of New York. He succeeds Paul Fernandes, who completed his 23rd year and second term as the Lions’ head coach in May of 2005.

The 24th head coach in Columbia University history and the career wins leader at Franklin & Marshall College with a 116-82 record over the past five seasons, Boretti joined the F&M coaching staff in July of 2000 and led the Diplomats to unprecedented heights.

He made history in 2005 as he coached Franklin & Marshall to a 25-16 record, including a school record 15-3 mark in Centennial Conference play, as the Diplomats won the Centennial Conference title for only the second time in school history and ranked seventh in the final ABCA Mid-Atlantic Region poll.

The championship marked the third in school history as Franklin & Marshall last won the Centennial Conference title in 1995. In 1978, the Diplomats finished 14-11-1 to win the Middle Atlantic Conference championship.

“Brett is a top-quality individual and a proven winner,” Columbia University Director of Intercollegiate Athletics and Physical Education Dr. M. Dianne Murphy noted. “He has demonstrated integrity and excellence as a player, assistant coach and head coach. He has experience with the Ivy League and Major League Baseball and we are very pleased to have him lead our baseball program.”

During his tenure, the Diplomats posted 24 or more wins in three of Boretti’s five seasons as head coach

In 2004, he led the Diplomats to a 24-19 mark on the year to finish second in both the regular season and the Centennial Conference championship tournament. It was the first time in school history that Franklin & Marshall reached the CC Championship series.

In 2002, the Diplomats finished with a school record of 31 wins as the team recorded a 16-2 mark in conference play to finish as the CC regular season runner-up. In the post-season, F&M advanced to the title game of the Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) South Region championship tournament.

An assistant coach at the Ivy League’s Brown University in 1999 and 2000, he coordinated the Bears’ recruiting efforts, coached hitting and the outfield and was responsible for all daily operations of the program

Prior to Brown, he served as an assistant at his alma mater, Davidson College in North Carolina from 1996-98 following a one-year stint at Endicott College in his hometown of Beverly, Massachusetts.

“I am very excited to have the opportunity to join the Columbia athletics family and be a part of one of the most outstanding universities in the world,” Boretti said. “I am looking forward to returning to the Ivy League, one of the most prestigious conferences in the country, as well as the challenge ahead, continuing to build the Lions’ program up to a championship level.”

A 1994 graduate of Davidson, he was a four-year letter-winner behind the plate for the Wildcats. Ranked among the top 10 in slugging percentage, hits, home runs, total bases, runs-batted-in, games played and at bats, he is Davidson's career leader in doubles (52) and sacrifice flies (16).

A team captain and Most Valuable Player in 1994, he earned All-Southern Conference first team honors in 1993 and 1994. A member of the Southern Conference's academic honor roll in 1994, Boretti was the Davidson football team's Offensive Player of the Year in 1990 as a freshman.

During the summer while attending Davidson, he participated in the prestigious Cape Cod League in 1992 and 1993, making the all-star squad in 1993.

After college, he was an all-star catcher for the North Central Professional Baseball League Champion Brainerd Bears of Minnesota. In 1995, he spent spring training with the Cleveland Indians as a free agent catcher.

The third head baseball coach for Columbia in the last 28 years, he takes over a program with a storied history in baseball.

The alma mater of 20 Major Leaguers, including Hall of Fame players Lou Gehrig and Eddie Collins, Columbia University’s baseball team has won five Ivy League titles (1933, 1934, 1944, 1963, 1976) and earned five Academic All-Americas in its history.

The Role of Sports in Small College Life

2005-07-28T10:10:00.000-04:00

John A. Fry did not take long to get people at Franklin & Marshall College riled up about sports.

In 2002, six months into his tenure as president, Mr. Fry published a 30-page white paper with his assessment of the college's strengths and weaknesses. By far the most controversial point was his observation that some faculty members and administrators considered sports superfluous to campus life, a comment that upset athletes and staff members alike.

"It revealed that there really was a divide" between the two groups and their perceptions of each other, Mr. Fry said last month at a meeting here of participants in the College Sports Project, an effort sponsored by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to get liberal-arts colleges like Franklin & Marshall to confront problems with their sports programs.

The workshop brought together administrators, coaches, and faculty members from 10 colleges to discuss ways to ensure that small-college athletes are full participants in other areas of college life.

While the event did not produce a concrete plan for colleges to follow, it represented a model that the foundation hopes the National Collegiate Athletic Association and athletics conferences will replicate to help their members deal with the issue on their own campuses.

At the conference, foundation officials also announced a five-year, $1.5-million plan for a database, to be housed at Northwestern University, that will track the academic credentials of students, both athletes and others, and their subsequent performance in college.

The database and the pilot seminar are the culmination of the Mellon Foundation's four-year-old effort to deal with what its president, William G. Bowen, has described as the "athletic-academic divide" at independent colleges, especially those with highly selective admissions policies. They do not have the commercial pressures of Division I sports, but they do share concerns about the amount of time their athletes are spending on sports instead of participating in other areas of campus life.

Participants in the conference were not unanimous, however, about solutions to this problem, and many of the coaches present were not even sure that it existed.

"Why is it an issue if we're getting good kids and they're doing what they're supposed to do?" asked Bill Raleigh, head men's basketball coach at Southwestern University, in Texas.

Mellon's Crusade

The impetus for the project was Mr. Bowen's two books on the subject: The Game of Life: College Sports and Educational Values (with James L. Shulman, Princeton University Press, 2001) and Reclaiming the Game (with Sarah A. Levin, Princeton, 2003), along with a series of conversations and rule changes at the NCAA's Division III convention in recent years.

Using data gathered from the foundation's "College and Beyond" database, Mr. Bowen argued that athletes at highly selective colleges were not doing as well as other students in the classroom, that they were concentrated in only a few majors, like business and psychology, and that they were underperforming academically relative to students with similar academic credentials. Mr. Bowen's senior adviser, Eugene M. Tobin, in charge of discussing those findings with college presidents, found them disturbed by the situation.

By the time of the June workshop, 136 colleges had signed on to become members of the College Sports Project, and the foundation brought together representatives of 10 of them -- Carleton College, Franklin & Marshall, Pomona College, Rhodes College, Southwestern, the State University of New York College at Geneseo, Ursinus College, Washington University in St. Louis, Washington & Lee University, and Wesleyan University, in Connecticut -- to discuss ways to involve athletes more fully in college life.

Participants noted many reasons for the divides between athletics and other college programs. The key issues, said Robert Malekoff, one of the project's directors, are an increase in the time commitments required of Division III athletes, often to 30 hours a week or more; the pressure on coaches to win consistently; the specialization of coaches in a single sport; the intensity and specialization of athletes at a young age; and the ever-present desire to have better teams and facilities than one's rivals.

"Division III athletics contributes more, in some ways, to institutional culture and ethos than in Division I," said Mr. Malekoff, a former soccer coach and athletics director who is now a professor of sports studies at Guilford College. At liberal-arts colleges, he pointed out, athletes often make up a third or even 40 percent of the student body.

The workshop did not attempt to come up with a set of policies or a list of best practices, but participants did talk about programs that had worked on their own campuses. One much-discussed topic was whether coaches were or should be faculty members; while none of the participating colleges grant coaches tenure, many do give them "para-faculty" status and allow them to serve on campus committees and to vote in faculty senates.

Several colleges, including Rhodes and Wesleyan, have also started "faculty mentor" programs, in which professors are assigned to teams for a season or an entire year. They attend some practices and go to both home and away games, getting to know athletes and the demands on them.

The problem with such programs, observed Carleton's president, Robert A. Oden Jr., is that they tend to attract only faculty members with a built-in interest in sports. Those who are hostile to sports or merely apathetic do not get any more exposure to the athletics program or its participants.

Carleton's athletics director, Leon Lunder, said that early in his career as a coach and administrator, he would often run into faculty members at a campus snack bar, where they would have a chance to talk about any issues that had arisen with particular athletes.

Now, he said, the added pressure of coaching jobs and the separation between academic and athletic cultures has made such "serendipitous moments" much rarer. Carleton, he added, was trying to lure staff and faculty members into the gym by offering free personal training and health-and-wellness programs for them.

Broadening the Conversation

Until last month, the College Sports Project had consisted mostly of conversations among college presidents and Mellon Foundation staff members. For the foundation, inviting faculty members, provosts, athletics administrators, and coaches to the workshop was a new step -- and one that was not eagerly received by all of the coaches present.

Echoing Mr. Raleigh, the Southwestern basketball coach, many of them said that their athletes were doing fine in the classroom, and that if the students were not at every lecture or community-service project, that was their choice.

Moreover, the coaches worried that by criticizing the amount of time that athletes commit to their teams the foundation was essentially trying to de-emphasize sports. "Why would we promote mediocrity here when we promote excellence everywhere else?" Mr. Raleigh asked.

The Mellon Foundation staff members and college presidents at the meeting said they were trying to find an appropriate balance between intercollegiate athletics and the other functions of a liberal-arts college.

"In other countries, students go straight into pre-med or pre-engineering or other curricula at age 18," said Mr. Oden. At liberal-arts colleges, "we say it's worthwhile to take four years and also do a whole bunch of other things."

In addition to studying how well athletes are integrated into college life, the College Sports Project is comparing their academic credentials and outcomes with those of other students. Like bigger colleges, Division III institutions have been criticized for recruiting athletes who are not as well prepared for college life as their classmates are.

Mr. Tobin, of the Foundation, told participants that the 136 colleges involved in the project would submit the academic profiles and information about the participation of their incoming freshman classes in sports to the new data-collection center at Northwestern. The resulting database will track the class ranks and graduation rates of those Classes of 2009.

http://chronicle.com
Section: Athletics
Volume 51, Issue 44, Page A32

F&M Listed Among Top 20 Turnarounds in American Football Monthly

2005-07-28T10:06:00.000-04:00

The Franklin & Marshall College football team is listed among the Top 20 Turnarounds of the 2004 season in the July edition of American Monthly Football magazine.

The Diplomats improved by four games last season as the 2005 squad won the Centennial Conference and Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) Southwest titles as the Diplomats finished with an 8-3 record, 4-2 in Centennial Conference play following a 4-6, 3-3 Centennial Conference, record in 2004.

The turnaround was historic for the Diplomats as F&M finished with eight wins in a season for the first time since 1996 (9-2), won their first Centennial Conference title since 1995 (7-3), advanced to the postseason for the first time since 1996 as F&M previously went 0-10 (2000), 1-9 (2001), 4-6 (2002) and 4-6 (2003) over the last four seasons.

More information on American Football Monthly is available online at www.AmericanFootballMonthly.com

Franklin & Marshall will return to the field to defend its Centennial and ECAC titles on September 3, 2005 at Bethany College in West Virginia.

American Football Monthly 2004’s Top 20 Turnarounds
1. University of Texas-El Paso
2. Sam Houston State University
3. Carthage College
4. Dakota Ridge High School
5. Sterling (KS) College
6. Texas Lutheran University
7. Auburn University
8. James Madison University
9. Monterey Peninsula Junior College
10. University of North Carolina
11. Michigan Tech University
12. Texas A&M
13. College of Mt. St. Joseph (OH)
14. Itasca (MN) Community College
15. University of Louisiana-Monroe
16. Scottsdale (AZ) Community College
17. Arizona State University
18. University of Wyoming
19. Franklin & Marshall College
20. Thiel College

Five Named to Tom Gilburg Division III Punter of the Year Watch List

2005-07-28T10:03:00.000-04:00

Kevin Soflkiancs of Baldwin-Wallace College, Chris Kemmerer of Buena Vista University, Mitch Schaeuble of University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, Clint Rushing of Austin College and Tom Roszak of University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh have been named to the “Watch List” for the 2005 Tom Gilburg Division III Punter of the Year Award.

Presented to the top small college punter in the nation each year by the Franklin & Marshall Football Association based upon the American Football Coaches Association (AFCA), D3football.com, Associated Press “Little All-America” and Don Hansen’s Football Gazette All-America teams, like the Division I Ray Guy Award, which honors the best punter at a major university, the Gilburg Award honors the punter as a team player and a vital part of winning.

The national leader in punting average last season at 42.7 yards as a freshman, Soflkiancs was named to the All-Ohio Athletic Conference first team honors, in addition to earning All-North Region and All-America first team honors from Don Hansen’s Football Gazette as he punted 55 times for 2,351 yards in 10 games.

Kemmerer finished fourth in the nation in punting average at 41.1 yards in 10 games (64 punts for 2,630 yards) as a sophomore last season. A D3football All-America honorable mention selection, he was named to the Don Hansen’s Football Gazette All-West Region third team and Iowa Intercollegiate Athletic Conference first team.

A Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference honorable mention selection, Schaeuble finished sixth in the nation in punting average at 40.7 yards in 10 games (51 punts for 2,074 yards) as a freshman.

Rushing finished seventh in the nation in punting average in 2004 at 40.5 yards as he kicked 72 times for 2,913 yards in 10 games as a sophomore.

A Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference first team selection, Roszak finished 11th in the nation with a 40.0 yards average in 2004 as he punted 59 times for 2,360 yards as a sophomore.

Founded in 2004, the Gilburg Award was presented to Franklin & Marshall College All-America punter Dan Eggertsson ’05 last season as he was named to the 2004 American Football Coaches Association (AFCA) Division III Coaches first team, D3football.com All-America second team, Associated Press Little All-America third team and Don Hansen’s Football Gazette All-America third team.

The head football coach at Franklin & Marshall College from 1975-2002, Gilburg was a standout punter first at Syracuse University and later in the National Football League with the Baltimore Colts. A native of Chappaqua, New York, he compiled a 160-112-2 record in football over 28 seasons on the sidelines at F&M, the most wins by a coach in the program’s history.

A member of the 1959 national championship football team at Syracuse University as the Oranegmen defeated Texas 23-14 and was named unanimous AP and UPI National Champions, Gilburg was a standout player.

A three-year letter-winner with the Orangemen, he was a blocking tight end and linebacker his sophomore and junior seasons, then moved to tackle and nose guard as a senior. While at tackle, he blocked for All-America running back Ernie Davis.

Prior to his senior season in 1960 he was switched to inside tackle on offense and middle guard on defense while continuing to serve as the team’s punter. Following the season, he was honored with the Bill Horr Award winner as the team’s MVP and was selected to compete in the All-America Bowl and East-West Shrine Game. The 1961 Syracuse "Athlete of the Year" and a first team All-America selection as a senior, he played in the 1958 Orange Bowl (23-6 loss to Oklahoma) and was a standout lacrosse player for Syracuse during his four year collegiate career as he was selected for the 1961 North-South All-Star game.

Following Syracuse, he was selected in the second round of the 1961 National Football League Draft by the Baltimore Colts where he played five NFL seasons at offensive tackle and punter under coaches Weeb Eubank and Don Shula.

A highlight of Gilburg’s professional career was playing in the 1964 NFL Championship game versus the Cleveland Browns.
Upon his retirement from the NFL, Gilburg turned down numerous job offers to become a coach.

From 1966-70 he served as defensive coordinator and linebackers coach and assistant men’s lacrosse coach at Hofstra. In 1971, he moved south to Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania where he served as men’s lacrosse coach and linebackers’ coach before being named as the 37th head football coach in F&M history.

Highlights of Gilburg's 28-years at the forefront of the F&M gridiron include five Centennial Conference Championships (1986, 1987, 1988, 1993, 1995), two Eastern College Athletic Conference Championships (1987 & 1989), eight first team All-America selections and 11 Conference Most Valuable Player honors.

Gilburg is the first former Syracuse University Orangeman and the second Division III head football coach to have a national football award named after him following St. John University’s John Gagliardi. On the Division III level, the award is just the second national award recognizing excellence on the gridiron as the Gagliardi Award is presented to the top football student-athlete.

F&M Announces Women's Soccer Recruits

2005-07-28T10:02:00.000-04:00

The Franklin & Marshall College has announced that 16 recruits have submitted their deposit and declared their intention of joining the F&M women’s soccer team for the 2005 season.

The 16 players will join a team that lost goalkeeper Melissa Ruff, defenders Emily Knapp and Kate Gardner and midfielder/defender Jennifer Sewell to graduation last season.

With the loss of Ruff, the Diplomats will turn to newcomers Brittany Allen (Fr., Ridgefield, CT/Kent), Miriam Marcis (Fr., Flemington, NJ/Hunterdon Central), Erin Roy (Fr., Boxborough, MA/Middlesex) and Robyn Jones (Jr., Titusville, NJ/Pennington).

In front of the goal, the Diplomats will have a group of talented defenders to replace the loss of All-Conference defenders Gardner and Knapp as Kara Adnopoz (Fr., Mount Kisco, NY/Horace Greeley), Erin Gleason (Fr., Bayonne, NJ/Mt. St. Dominic), Megan Hunter (Fr., Allentown, PA/Emmaus), Michelle Shea (Fr., Redding, CT/Staples) and Noel Stinchfield (Fr., Washington, D.C./Bullis) will don the blue and white this season.

On the offensive side of the ball, Nicole Boyle (Fr., Boca Raton, FL/Spanish River), Amy Cawley (Fr., Fleetwood, PA/Oley Valley), Kathryn Cogar (Fr., Baltimore, MD/Friends), Danielle David (Fr., Plymouth Meeting, PA/Germantown Academy), Brittany Easter (Fr., Haworth, NJ/Northern Valley), Shannon Summers (Fr., North Wales, PA/Hill) and Kelsey Tylus (Fr., Skillman, NJ/Hun) will all try to make an impact in their first year for Franklin & Marshall.

Franklin & Marshall will open the 2005 season at home as the team hosts the F&M Tournament on September 2-3 with Marymount University, Eastern Mennonite University and Roger Williams University.

F&M Announces Wrestling Recruits

2005-07-28T10:00:00.000-04:00

The Franklin and Marshall College Athletic Department has announced that the following list of recruits have submitted their deposit and will join the F&M wrestling team for the 2005-06 season:

Weight Name Hometown/ High School
125 Doug Ritchey Curryville, PA/Central
125/133 Zachary Shindell Atlanta, GA/Weber School
133/141 Chris Kelly Pittstown, NJ/Delaware Valley
133/141 Inchul Shin Deerfield Beach, FL/Deerfield Beach
149 Al Gianforti Rochester, NY/Canandaigua Academy
149/157 James Schulz Wycoff, NJ/Ramapo
165/174 Justin Herbert New Milford, PA/Blue Ridge
197/HWT Nico Somers Green Village, NJ/Madison

The Diplomats have plenty of talent in the incoming class as Ritchey was a two-time state qualifier and finished sixth at the 2005 the Pennsylvania State Championships, while Shindell was a Georgia AAA State Champion in 2004 and finished second in 2005.

At 133/141, Kelly qualified three times for the New Jersey State Championships and finished sixth at the 2005 meet, while Shin qualified three times for the Florida State Championships.

Gianforti placed third and fifth at the 2004 and 2005 New York State Championships, respectively, at 149 lbs., while Schulz qualified twice for the New York Championships

Herbert finished sixth at the 2004 and seventh at the 2005 Pennsylvania State Championships and Somers qualified twice for the New Jersey Championships.

The only Division I sport at Franklin & Marshall College, F&M athletes wrestle a university-level schedule and qualify for the NCAA Division I championships through the prestigious Eastern Intercollegiate Wrestling Association (EIWA) championships.

Welcome Diplomaniacs

2005-07-27T18:51:00.000-04:00

Welcome to the Franklin & Marshall Athletics & Recreation blog site. This site will serve as a way for all of the Franklin & Marshall College athletics fans to share their stories, opinions and other input on Diplomats athletics.