Brian KattenJohn Biddiscombe, in his 37th year at Wesleyan and 24th as its athletics director, will be one of 12 individuals along with one team inducted into the Middletown Sports Hall of Fame on Jan 26. Biddiscombe came to Wesleyan in 1974 as a three-sport coach of football, wrestling and track and field. He was head coach of wrestling from 1974 to 1989 with a won-loss record of 128-85-3, and in 1984 the team won the New England championship. He was voted New England wrestling coach of the year in 1984 and 1989, and was inducted into the New England Collegiate…
Patti Klecha-Porter, who has directed the field hockey team at Wesleyan since her arrival in Middletown in 1985, was inducted into the Connecticut Lacrosse Hall of Fame on Nov. 13, for her long-time service as a lacrosse umpire. Klecha-Porter was one of eight individual enshrined during a ceremony in Southington, Conn. Klecha-Porter graduated from Ithaca College in 1981. As a student athlete at Ithaca, she was captain and MVP of both the field hockey and lacrosse teams. After graduating she continued playing field hockey at the U.S. Hockey level as well as club lacrosse for Hampshire New England. Klecha-Porter was…
Wesleyan inducted the fifth class into its Athletics Hall of Fame during a ceremony Nov. 5 as part of the university’s Homecoming/Family Weekend activities. The addition of five individuals and one team will bring the total in Wesleyan’s Athletics Hall of Fame to 30 individuals and five teams. (more…)
When asked about his strongest football memory from his playing days at Wesleyan, Sandy Herzlich ’81 came up with a 20-7 win at Amherst in 1979. “We beat Amherst up there in just a great game,” Sandy recounted. “Kosty [defensive coordinator Peter Kostacopoulos] put in a wild game plan and we were shuttling personnel in and out, and it worked. I remember that as being a very satisfying win.” Head Coach Bill Macdermott called it “one of the best defensive games I’ve ever seen Wesleyan play.” Mac was in his ninth season at the helm. Sandy’s memory of his first…
Jeff McDonald, an assistant football coach at Wesleyan, will have a trio of instructional DVDs and an article produced by American Football Monthly (AFM) magazine, one of the premier trade magazines for football coaches in the United States. The article will appear in the August issue of the magazine and will be accompanied by online promotional samplings of the instructional DVDs, each of which will run approximately one hour. McDonald flew to Florida in June to help prepare the DVDs. In each he presents instruction on different techniques and defenses, including defensive schemes, unique approaches to eight-man defensive fronts, and…
Approximately 115 students from the Woodside Intermediate School in Cromwell joined Wesleyan student-athletes from the men’s and women’s basketball, men’s and women’s ice hockey, football, softball, women’s tennis and wrestling teams and the rugby club for an hour in the Bacon Field House for “recess.” Three play stations were set up, allowing groups of third- to fifth-graders from Woodside to interact with the Wesleyan students in kickball, capture the flag, red light/green light and basketball. The Wesleyan football team, through an arrangement between assistant coach Jeff McDonald and Woodside principal Bo Ryan, who met during their college years in the…
Kate Mullen, who recently completed her 19th year in charge of the Wesleyan University women's basketball team, was inducted into the Connecticut Women's Basketball Hall of Fame at its 24th annual induction ceremony April 13. Coach Mullen was honored as one of seven inductees. She was the only individual inducted as a college coach. Two others were honored as high school players, one as a high school coach, one as a college player, one as a referee and another in the honorary area. Hired as an adjunct assistant professor of physical education at Wesleyan in 1992, Mullen guided her teams to nine consecutive winning…
Two Wesleyan athletes are going to the NCAA Championships. Kyle Roosa '13 will represent Wesleyan at the NCAA Division III Wrestling Championships at The University of Wisconsin-La Crosse March 11-12, while Tommie Lark ’12 will participate in the NCAA Division III Men's Indoor Track Championships at Capital University in Columbus, Ohio, March 11-12. Roosa ’13 recently extended the wrestling team’s string of claiming at least one New England Wrestling Association (NEWA) title when he claimed the crown at 174 pounds during the annual NEWA Championships hosted by Trinity Feb. 26-27. The Cardinals, with two runner-ups, three fifth-place finishers and one…
Wesleyan’s men’s ice hockey will play in its first NESCAC semi-final ever when it takes on No. 2 seed Williams on March 5. It is just the latest in a series of firsts by this squad. They began their record-setting run by Jan. 15 by knocking off Middlebury for the first time in 35 all-time meetings with a 4-3 overtime decision. On Jan. 21, the Cardinals defeated defending national champion Norwich 5-2, which was the first time a Wesleyan men's hockey team had beaten a team after they had won a national championship.. The string of firsts continued on Feb.…
Wesleyan's varsity four entry Elliot Skopin '11, Terrence Word '11, Trevor Michelson '13 and Spencer Hattendorf '12 with coxwain Peter Chu '14 turned in an outstanding performance during the Collegiate Four event at the prestigious Head of the Charles Regatta in Boston Sat., Oct. 23. With a time of 17:41.27 over the three-mile course, the Cardinals quartet of rowers bested 39 other crews in the 41-boat affair, trailing just WPI by a seven-second gap. Wesleyan made up more than two minutes in moving past the University of Massachusetts team. (more…)
Ten members of the Wesleyan University football squad visited the Woodside Intermediate School in Cromwell, Conn., Oct. 1 to join in some of the activities enjoyed by the students in grades 3-5. Arrangements for the visit, which is one of four the Cardinals will make during the season, began during the summer through a connection between Wesleyan assistant coach Jeff McDonald and Woodside principal Bo Ryan, a former quarterback at Western Connecticut State University. Plans formalized after McDonald spoke with the Wesleyan team captains and each Friday before Wesleyan's home games, a contingent of players will travel to the school…
Junior left-fielder Julian Sonnenfeld '11 became the second Wesleyan athlete during the 2009-10 academic year to receive national recognition from the College Sports Information Directors Association (CoSIDA) as a member of a CoSIDA/ESPN the Magazine national academic All-America squad. Sonnenfeld, who led the baseball team to a 22-14 record and its second straight appearance in the NESCAC tournament, was named a third-team academic All-American. He was a first-team all-NESCAC choice, a third-team all-New England selection by the American Baseball Coaches Association (ABCA) as well as a first-team District I academic All-American. During the 2010 season, (more…)