Ath­letes serv­ing the community

By Geoff Goyne

Wes­ley quar­ter­back Shane McSweeny and safety Aaron Ben­son bust a move with Ms. Harrington’s preschool class from Hartly Ele­men­tary this past fall.

While the 2008-09 year was suc­cess­ful on the field and in the class­room, Wesley’s stu­dent ath­letes were also a hit in the com­mu­nity. Sev­eral Wolver­ine teams par­tic­i­pated in vol­un­teer projects over the past year.

In the fall, mem­bers of the Wes­ley base­ball team served as coaches in the Kent County Parks & Recre­ation Tee-Ball League. Sopho­mores James Over­street and Kevin Mur­phy and junior Colin Warner joined for­mer Wolver­ine stand­out Dan Bun­nion in the dugout, each coach­ing one of the league’s four squads.

The women’s lacrosse team trav­eled to each game of the World Series at Citizen’s Bank Park in Philadel­phia to vol­un­teer as part of Major League Baseball’s Team Green­ing pro­gram, which orga­nizes and sup­ports the many environmentally-sensitive prac­tices put in place by the var­i­ous base­ball clubs. Coach Lind­sey Eich­ner, grad­u­ate assis­tant Stacy Fim­mano, seniors Leslie Cer­venka , Amanda Brown­ing and Nora Gal­lagher, sopho­mores Stephanie Bai­ley and Anna Moore, and fresh­man Latria Richardson-Carter pro­moted recy­cling ini­tia­tives at the ball­park. They even appeared on the “Danc­ing with Ellen” seg­ment of the Octo­ber 28 episode of “The Ellen Degeneres Show” for their efforts.

Mean­while, mem­bers of the men’s lacrosse team were busy vol­un­teer­ing their time in set­ting up and admin­is­ter­ing a United Cere­bral Palsy Lacrosse Tour­na­ment. The event, which took place Novem­ber 2, raised funds to pro­vide schol­ar­ships for chil­dren and young adults with Cere­bral Palsy to attend camp and play lacrosse.

Just a few months later, the men’s bas­ket­ball pro­gram spon­sored a clinic for the Ban­neker Ele­men­tary Spe­cial Olympics, run­ning the team through basic instruc­tion and skill build­ing. The Wes­ley team also put on a dunk con­test for the chil­dren. “The kids were so excited,” said Lau­rie Moor­man, a basic skills teacher and Spe­cial Olympics pro­gram direc­tor at Ban­neker Ele­men­tary. “They’ll talk about this the rest of the year.”

The Wes­ley foot­ball team also reached out to the com­mu­nity. In Octo­ber and again in Feb­ru­ary, play­ers trav­eled to local ele­men­tary schools to read to chil­dren. The team vis­ited Fairview Ele­men­tary in Dover this fall to take part in the “Jump­start Read for the Record” read­ing pro­gram. Seniors Steve Scan­lon and Jason Schatz, juniors Mike Pen­newell and Josh Nevid, sopho­mores Leonard Steven­son, Adam Bobertz and Jesse Trump, and stu­dent assis­tant coach Tim Kane made an appear­ance and read the pop­u­lar book Cor­duroy to the school chil­dren. In Feb­ru­ary, sopho­mores C.J. Bac ote, Aaron Ben­son, Collin Blugis, Zach John­son, Bren­dan Kee­lan and Shane McSweeny were among the Wolver­ines on hand at Hartly Ele­men­tary School to take part in “I Love to Read Month.” Quar­ter­back McSweeny and safety Ben­son pulled dou­ble duty and showed their prowess on the dance floor to Ms. Harrington’s preschool class.

Women’s Lacrosse Coach Lind­sey Eich­ner and play­ers Stacy Fim­mano, Leslie Cer­venka, Amanda Brown­ing, Nora Gal­lagher, Stephanie Bai­ley and Anna Moore pro­moted recy­cling ini­tia­tives by vol­un­teer­ing dur­ing last year’s World Series in Philadelphia.

Head Coach Mike Drass and Coach Steve Azzanesi joined the play­ers for the event at Hartly Ele­men­tary. The foot­ball coach­ing staff as a whole has encour­aged the team mem­bers’ involve­ment with the read­ing pro­grams, rec­og­niz­ing that it is not only ben­e­fi­cial for the ele­men­tary school stu­dents, but is also grat­i­fy­ing to the play­ers. “It’s great to have the guys go out and get involved with the local schools,” Drass noted. “Jen Plews [wife of Wolver­ines’ Spe­cial Teams Coor­di­na­tor Shawn Plews] teaches at Fairview Ele­men­tary and men­tioned some­thing to Shawn and it seemed like a great thing to get involved in.”

Both the women’s bas­ket­ball team and the vol­ley­ball team helped raise money for breast can­cer aware­ness this year. The women’s bas­ket­ball squad par­tic­i­pated in a Women’s Bas­ket­ball Coaches Asso­ci­a­tion “Pink Zone” con­test dur­ing their sea­son, while the vol­ley­ball team took part in a “Dig for the Cure” con­test ear­lier in the fall. The Wolver­ines’ vol­ley­ball team also ran the first Kent and Sus­sex County USA Vol­ley­ball pro­gram from Decem­ber through May. This pro­gram served 60 res­i­dents of the two counties.

While many of the teams have been active in car­ry­ing out their own vol­un­teer projects, sev­eral on and off cam­pus events this year have demon­strated how the Wes­ley ath­let­ics pro­grams have worked together to ben­e­fit impor­tant causes and serve the local com­mu­nity. Dur­ing the month of March, Wes­ley Col­lege hosted Andrew Geyer SADD Day. The event was held in remem­brance of for­mer stu­dent ath­lete Andrew Geyer, who was trag­i­cally killed by a sus­pected drunk dri­ver over the win­ter. With home events in soft­ball, base­ball, men’s lacrosse and women’s lacrosse on March 21, the Wolver­ines took the oppor­tu­nity to raise aware­ness of drunk dri­ving at this free event with a drunk dri­ving sim­u­la­tor on cam­pus. Stu­dent ath­letes from var­i­ous teams col­lected dona­tions, which were split between the Stu­dents Against Drunk Dri­ving orga­ni­za­tion and the Andrew Geyer Endowed Schol­ar­ship Fund.

Wesley’s Stu­dent Ath­lete Advi­sory Com­mit­tee came together in April to run the Dover Parks & Recre­ation Easter Egg Hunt at Dover Park. Seniors Cer­venka and Gal­lagher were joined at the event by class­mates Megan Street and Brandy Win­hauer, sopho­mores Brielle Bogan and Julia DeFe­lice and fresh­man McKen­zie Davis.

In addi­tion, many of Wesley’s ath­letic pro­grams run camps and clin­ics for local youth dur­ing their off­sea­son. Cur­rently, camps are offered in base­ball, bas­ket­ball, field hockey, foot­ball, lacrosse, soc­cer, soft­ball and vol­ley­ball. Inter­ested par­ents and youth can find more infor­ma­tion by vis­it­ing Wesley’s ath­letic web­site at www.gowesleyathletics.com and vis­it­ing the respec­tive sport’s home­page. W