BY ABIGAIL HILL ’12

KATHY (EDMUNDS) BIGLIN ’78 found her way to Wes­ley Junior Col­lege in 1976, leav­ing her home­town of Lin­wood, N.J. for the first time. Dur­ing her time at Wes­ley, she was actively involved in cam­pus life, par­tic­i­pated in var­i­ous sports, and acquired many last­ing friendships.

As a quadru­ple sport ath­lete, Biglin clearly stayed busy in her col­lege career, suc­cess­fully bal­anc­ing aca­d­e­mics and ath­let­ics. Coach Joyce Starkey-Perry, who coached field hockey, women’s bas­ket­ball and ten­nis at the time, took her under her wing early on. More than just a coach, Starkey-Perry was a men­tor to Biglin through­out her time on the Dover cam­pus and she had a last­ing influ­ence on her pro­fes­sional life.

“She was my inspi­ra­tional and moti­va­tional role model at Wes­ley Col­lege,” said Biglin. “She taught me how to set and accom­plish indi­vid­ual and team goals. I credit Coach for the suc­cess­ful ath­lete, teacher and coach that I had become.”

Biglin played field hockey at Wes­ley from 1976–1978. In addi­tion to being a cap­tain, she received hon­ors as 1st Team All-Tournament, 1st Team All-State, 1st Team All-Region, 1st Team All-American and Team MVP, all in 1977. She also played bas­ket­ball for two years, earn­ing sim­i­lar acco­lades, and she was a mem­ber of both the soft­ball and ten­nis teams for one year.

Her love of sports fol­lowed her long beyond her days at Wes­ley. In addi­tion to being inspired by Starkey-Perry, Biglin cites James Went­worth, the men’s bas­ket­ball coach and ath­letic direc­tor, as another influ­en­tial fig­ure at the Col­lege. “I learned a great deal from this Wes­ley legacy,” she said. She had absorbed so much, in fact, that the path to her future was clear. She knew she was well on her way to a career in ath­let­ics, instruct­ing and coach­ing stu­dents just like the men­tors she had observed.

Biglin grad­u­ated from Wes­ley with an asso­ciate degree in health and phys­i­cal edu­ca­tion. She went on to Pfeif­fer Uni­ver­sity in North Car­olina for a bachelor’s in the same field, fin­ish­ing her cer­ti­fi­ca­tion for grades K-12 in 1980 while also play­ing field hockey and soft­ball. Her field hockey team at Pfeif­fer par­tic­i­pated in the State Cham­pi­onship and NCAA National Tour­na­ment two years in a row.

Pack­ing an impres­sive resume on the field, Biglin had equally remark­able accom­plish­ments in her career. For 11 years, she taught health and phys­i­cal edu­ca­tion at Lawrence Town­ship Pub­lic Schools at both the mid­dle and high school lev­els. For 10 of those years, she served as var­sity head field hockey coach at Lawrence High School, lead­ing her team to count­less vic­to­ries. She was named Coach of the Year by The Tren­ton Times, The Tren­ton­ian, The Lawrence Ledger and The Prince­ton Packet a total of four times. She also was the mid­dle school girls’ bas­ket­ball coach and soft­ball coach for eight years each.

In 1992 she became var­sity head field hockey coach at Main­land Regional High School where she main­tained an impres­sive record over seven years, led her team to the Cape Atlantic League Cham­pi­onships in 1993 and 1995, and received Atlantic City Press Coach of the Year hon­ors. Then in 2007 she took on another post as var­sity head field hockey coach at Holy Spirit High School, again earn­ing a cham­pi­onship record and another Atlantic City Press Coach of the Year title.

Biglin’s pas­sion for sports and ded­i­ca­tion to teach­ing youth were evi­dent in her daily com­mit­ments. On top of her demand­ing teach­ing and coach­ing duties at school and rais­ing a fam­ily, she stayed involved in her com­mu­nity. She has served as a local soft­ball coach and umpire, the travel bas­ket­ball coach for the Lin­wood girls’ team, a recre­ational bas­ket­ball league direc­tor and offi­cial, and camp direc­tor for Shore Elite Field Hockey Camp. In recog­ni­tion of her many achieve­ments, both as a coach and for­mer student-athlete, she was inducted into the Wes­ley Col­lege Ath­letic Hall of Fame in 1984.

These days, Biglin has put coach­ing on hold and has shifted careers. She is now closer to home, work­ing as CEO of the fam­ily busi­ness, Edmunds Direct Mail, Inc., in North­field, N.J. She works closely with her hus­band of 22 years, Kevin. Their daugh­ter Lind­sey fol­lowed in her foot­steps by attend­ing Wes­ley, and since she started at the Col­lege in 2008, Biglin returns to the cam­pus often. Their other daugh­ter Devon attends Widener Uni­ver­sity. As par­ents to two stu­dents away at col­lege, the cou­ple enjoys qual­ity time with friends and rel­ishes any time they can spend together as a fam­ily, whether it is dur­ing col­lege vis­its, at sport­ing events, on vaca­tions or at their home in Ocean City, N.J. Not sur­pris­ingly, con­sid­er­ing her ath­leti­cism and active lifestyle, Biglin has taken up golf and bike rid­ing to keep busy.

Shaped by her inter­scholas­tic ath­letic endeav­ors and the coaches that guided her along the way, Biglin has had the oppor­tu­nity to pay it for­ward by being a role model for young ath­letes dur­ing her edu­ca­tion career span­ning more than 25 years and by con­tribut­ing to ath­letic causes. Today she proudly sup­ports the Wes­ley field hockey team, under­stand­ing both the needs fac­ing Divi­sion III ath­letic pro­grams, par­tic­u­larly women’s sports, and the ben­e­fits those pro­grams bring to their student-athletes. As a long-time annual donor who has recently joined the Wes­ley Soci­ety, she explained, “I feel it is impor­tant to give back to a Col­lege pro­gram that had a pos­i­tive impact on my life.”