From The AD's Desk
Fall, 2011
Greetings once again from Buckhannon and the beautiful campus of West Virginia Wesleyan College. Another academic year is well underway and that means our athletic teams are once again in full swing. The fall season is a busy one with eight varsity teams in their championship segment. It seems that there is a contest involving one of our teams almost every day…making every day exciting!
The 2010-11 athletic year was another historic one for Wesleyan. We won both the President’s and Commissioner’s Cups for overall athletic excellence in the WVIAC for the fourth consecutive year. I don’t think there is any doubt that we are the best overall athletic program in the WVIAC! Women’s soccer, softball, men’s track, and men’s tennis all won WVIAC championships, and those four, along with men’s soccer and men’s basketball, participated in their respective NCAA tournaments. We finished #76 (out of 302 Division II schools) in the national Learfield Director’s Cup standings for NCAA success, Wesleyan’s best finish ever and tops in the WVIAC. We also had the 5th most student-athletes in the nation recognized on the Division II Athletic Director’s Academic Honor Roll. Finally, women’s soccer and track standout Megan Zayas ’11 and baseball Player of the Year Cy Mozingo ‘11 were both awarded prestigious and highly competitive NCAA post-graduate scholarships.
It was an eventful summer as we welcomed five new members to our athletic department. Philip Fetty, assistant Sports Information Director at Fairmont State, is our new SID. April Staniszewski is our new Head Swimming Coach and Director of Aquatics. April comes to us from DII powerhouse California (PA). We were able to add a new full-time position to our department this year, Director of Compliance and Academic Services. Our new director is Alison Clausen, a former college student-athlete who comes to us from the academic services department at Ivy League member Cornell University. Our new women’s basketball coach is Jackie DeVane, a veteran coach with 15 years of head coaching experience, including ten at the Division I level. Jackie is a member of the Hall of Fame at her alma mater Delaware State, where she still holds the record for rebounds in a game. Our new men’s basketball coach is West Virginia native Jim Boone, who comes to Buckhannon after serving as the head coach at Division II Tusculum for the past six years. Jim has 26 years of head coaching experience, including ten at the Division I level and ten at Division II power California (PA), where he took the Vulcans to two Final Fours and was inducted into their Hall of Fame. Finally, our new football coach is Jonas Jackson. Jonas was promoted from his defensive coordinator position when Denny Creehan resigned in late June to become athletic director at Alderson-Broaddus. Jonas is the first African-American head coach at a non-HBCU in WVIAC history.
The real stars of our department remain, of course, our talented and dedicated student-athletes. Whether you are staff, student, alum, parent, or friend, you should be proud knowing that such outstanding young men and women are representing you every day. We are over 540 student-athletes strong, comprising almost 40% of Wesleyan’s student body and still the biggest athletic program in the state of West Virginia, including Division I WVU and Marshall.
We have exciting plans for a new athletic website, wesleyanbobcats.com, set to launch by December 1. We look forward to bringing you many new features that I’m sure you will enjoy. Homecoming is October 14-16 and our Hall of Fame induction will take place on February 11, 2012. We hope to see you in Buckhannon for one or both of these important events. In the meantime, if you have any questions or comments, please feel free to contact me at (304) 473-8098 or tyler@wvwc.edu.
Remember, every day is a great day to be a Bobcat! I’ll see you at the games.
Best wishes,
Ken Tyler
