20 for 20: The First Fall

The 2020-21 athletic year is the 20th year that I (Paul Welker) have served as Alfred State's Sports Information Director. During this school year I plan on writing a 20-part series on my time covering the Pioneers.

I stepped on to the campus of Alfred State as an employee in late June 2001, just seven weeks before my first fall semester serving as the Sports Information Director at the college. I came to Alfred State after serving as an assistant baseball coach, assistant women's basketball coach, and the first ever SID at Mercyhurst North East.

New Challenges:

Moving to Alfred State and covering 18 sports was quite a change from covering nine sports and coaching two of them during my two years at Mercyhurst North East. One of the major challenges I faced was covering football. I had never designed a 40 page program (that changed four pages every game), never ran a press box, and never done computerized stats for a football game. On top of covering football; cross country, volleyball, and both men's and women's soccer were in full swing by the middle of August. Learning how to balance and cover everything to the best of my ability were key.

The Way Things Were:

Things in 2001 were different at Alfred State. Facilities and reporting to the media were drastically different.

In 2001, Alfred State didn't have a home football field. The team had a practice field but played all their home games off of campus. (The same was true for the baseball and softball teams but new on campus fields for those programs were in the works.) During this season, four of the football games were to be played at Wellsville High School and the fifth was played across the street at Alfred University. The soccer teams played on a grass field in the same location where Pioneer Stadium sits today. The field had wooden bleachers, a scoreboard, and a table at midfield to record stats and run the scoreboard. The Orvis Gymnasium had recently gotten renovated and a new gym floor and bleachers were debuted during the Spring 2001 semester. 

Reporting to local and hometown media was completely different. After games I would call sport departments of newspapers in Rochester, Hornell, Wellsville, Olean, and various other papers depending on where student-athletes on the team were from. There were many afternoon and evenings that I would be on the phone with sports reporters detailing the game so they could write a recap in their paper. There were times that I would write the recap and fax them to the papers as well. There wasn't an athletic department website and the information about athletics on the college website was more static and changed closer to weekly than hourly like it does now. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram didn't exist and live stats or video was very rare if at all.

One final difference was that Alfred State was a member of the NJCAA (National Junior College Athletic Association) and student-athletes had two-years of eligibility and many of them had aspirations to continue playing at the NCAA level and earning athletic scholarships. The Pioneers battled in Region III of the NJCAA and was a member of the Western New York Athletic Conference and the Northeast Football Conference. 

Two of my colleagues still remain in their positions from when I began covering the Pioneers in 2001. Both basketball coaches Gina Boyd and Jerry Jusianiec were on the sidelines prior to my arrival and both served on the search committee that hired me.

Memorable Games/Events of my First Fall

As I stated before covering football was one of the biggest adjustments to my new position at Alfred State. Prior to opening the regular season, the Pioneers traveled to Oneonta for a scrimmage with Hartwick. I went with the team to do a test run of inputting the stats as they happened. The test went well and I felt confident going into the season opener but the memorable part of the contest was running up the huge hill at Hartwick (much steeper than the hills in Alfred) with my laptop and printer worried the team would forget me. Luckily I learned on my first football road trip that it takes a long time for a football team to leave after a game.

A few week's later, 9/11 took place. I recall spending most of my day in the Orvis Lounge watching the news. Our staff checked in with our students from New York City and comforted those that had family/friends effected. I also recall moments of remembrance in contests following the event.

The lone win of the 2001 football season is probably still one of the most memorable football games I have ever covered. On September 17th, Alfred State traveled to Brockport for a Monday afternoon game vs. the JV Eagles. The game was an offensive slugfest that featured 100 points. Alfred State held a six point lead, 47-41, after scoring with just 58 seconds left in the game. The Eagles connected on a 77 yard pass play on the final play of the game to tie the game. An unsportsmanlike conduct penalty after the score forced the extra point attempt to be moved back 15 yards and it was blocked to send the game into overtime. Neither team scored in the 1st OT but Mike Pozzi connected with Mookie Murray on a 15-yard pass play for the game-winning score. Pozzi finished with 451 yards passing and seven touchdown passes while Murray caught ten passes for 227 yards and five scores.

Both the men's and women's cross country team were ranked #1 in NJCAA Division III during the season and both team's raced to 2nd place finish at the Nationals. Three men, Arthur Joswiak, Dustin Thomas, and Adrian Stone, and two women, Hillary Geiger and Ashleigh Barnhart, ran to NJCAA All-American honors.

The baseball team claimed the WNYAC Championship with a 7-6 victory over Erie CC in early October and finished the fall season with 14-4 record.

The men's soccer team was 10-8-2 and earned the 6th seed in the Region III Tournament while the women were 7-9-1 and made their first appearance since 1997 in the Regional Tournament.

The Alfred State athletic department has and continues to evolve over the years. Affiliations have changed, technology has vastly improved, and facilities have been upgraded but amazing efforts on and off the field by Pioneer student-athletes have been consistent.

Interesting Facts about 2001:

• Professor and chair of the Computer and Information Technology Chair Evan Enke was the football team's defensive coordinator.
• Sport Management professor Keary Rouff was the Alfred State fitness center manager.
• Gas was $1.46 and minimum wage was $5.15 an hour.
• The Arizona Diamondbacks won the World Series and Eric Crouch from Nebraska won the Heisman Trophy.

The 20 for 20 series will continue throughout the school year - stories on events, student-athletes, and coaches will be featured throughout the 2020-21 school year.