Women and Girls in Sports Day to Draw 400 Area High School Female Athletes

By Liz Wordelmann
SBU ’10


Four hundred athletes from 18 Southern Tier high schools will celebrate the National Women and Girls in Sports Day at St. Bonaventure this month.

This year’s event is slated for Friday, April 30, and is sponsored by the St. Bonaventure University Department of Athletics, Department of Physical Education, Army Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, the U.S. Army Recruiting Command, Visiting Scholar Program and School of Education.

It is a day to support the national effort to follow through with Title IX and give young, female athletes a day of celebration and mentoring with college level peers. This year the keynote presenters will be Brig. Gen. Maureen Keenan-LeBoeuf, Ed.D. (Ret.), Dr. Ralph Pim and women cadet athletes from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. The program will begin at 9:30 a.m. in the Reilly Center Arena.

Pim is an associate professor and the director of competitive sports in the Department of Physical Education at the United States Military Academy. He is an instructor in Professional Military Ethics classes and is a member of the Moral-Ethical Committee. He oversees an athletic program of more than 3,000 cadets consisting of 27 competitive club sports and 12 company athletics sports. During Pim’s tenure, West Point has implemented the Champions of Character program and established the Mike Krzyzewski Teaching Character Through Sports Award.

He received his Bachelor of Science degree from Springfield College, a Master of Arts degree from Ohio State University and a Doctor in Education degree from Northwestern State University. Pim is a member of the Phi Kappa Honor Society and has authored or co-authored nine books. He has been a presenter in the professional development series at the National Association of Basketball Coaches convention at the Men’s Final Four since 2004 and has been a featured speaker at the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame Enshrinement, the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics national convention and the Sports Management Institute held at the University of Michigan.

Keenan-LeBoeuf is a ’76 graduate of and former student-athlete at St. Bonaventure and is on the Board of Trustees at her alma mater. She received her Master’s in Education for Physical Education from the University of Georgia, along with her Doctorate in Education. She is the daughter of the late Leo E. Keenan Jr., longtime professor at St. Bonaventure, and she and her eight brothers and sisters all received degrees from St. Bonaventure as well.

She was the director and head of the Department of Physical Education at West Point for seven years. She was the first woman department head at the U.S. Military Academy and was inducted into the St. Bonaventure ROTC Hall of Fame in 2001. Additionally, she is co-editor of the book “Fit & Active: The West Point Physical Development Program.”

Dr. Paula Scraba, associate professor in the Department of Physical Education, is organizing this year’s event at St. Bonaventure University.

“St. Bonaventure Women in Sports Day is a way for the Bonaventure Community to provide a ‘Come and See,’” said Scraba. “We invite and welcome athletes and coaches to our beautiful campus to get to know us and what we can provide for potential students in our academic programs.”

There are 18 area high schools scheduled to participate and a record number of 400 high school students registered. These schools include: Allegany-Limestone, Bath Haverling, Belfast, Bolivar-Richburg, Bradford, Cuba-Rushford, Ellicottville, Genesee Valley, Hinsdale, Olean, Portville, Randolph, Salamanca, Scio, Silver Creek, Southwestern, Southern Tier Catholic, and Lutheran/Jamestown.

“For some coaches and athletes, this is their first of many visits to campus,” said Scraba.

Sports Day activities will include softball, basketball, soccer, lacrosse, rugby, tennis and swimming clinics lead by St. Bonaventure athletes and coaches. There will be a climbing wall this year, which is provided by the Army, and will stay up for the annual Spring Weekend for St. Bonaventure students to use.

The National Girls and Women in Sports Coalition started in 1987 to remember Flo Hyman, an Olympic volleyball player. Before Hyman’s death, she worked to promote equality for women’s sports. Since then, the day has been celebrated to acknowledge past and present women’s sports achievements, the positive influence of sports participation, and the continued sports achievements of equality for women in sports.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Woman Charged with Posting
Nude Picture on Facebook

Arrests in Operation Diamond Drop

Two Arrested on Drug Charges