St. Francis College, Brooklyn and its trustees approved a plan to eliminate its entire athletic program in March —but that didn’t prevent its leader to continue to lead.
Irma Garcia, who served as the assistant vice president and director of athletics for the Terriers’ 21 NCAA teams since 2007, including men’s and women’s basketball, has been appointed the interim director of athletics at Manhattan College (which, interestingly, is in the Bronx).
She is widely recognized as the first Latina to ever lead an NCAZA Division I athletics program. Garcia received the 2015-16 Division I-AAA Under Armour Athletic Director of the Year Award and was named NACWAA D1 (FCS) Administrator of the Year for the 2014-15 academic year.
She became the first former women’s player/coach to ever be inducted into the Basketball Old-Timers of America Hall of Fame and was also honored with the Metropolitan Basketball Writers Association Distinguished Service Award.
Garcia played basketball at St. Francis College and later served as head coach for 11 seasons. She was honored as the 1998 Northeast Conference Coach of the Year.
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Glenn Thomas, FDR High School’s basketball coach, chimes in with his take on major college football and conference realignment.
“Ridiculous,” was his social media post.
“They (NCAA) should let the football programs across the country form super-conferences. These schools will still make their big revenue. Then,” he added, “they can let all of the other sports such as men’s and women’s basketball, along with the other minor sports, remain in their regional conferences such as the ACC, SEC, Big 10, Big 12 PAC-12, etc.
“Rick Pitino spoke about this a couple of weeks ago. I agree with him. Football greed is destroying the college landscape,” Thomas said.
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For all of LIU standout Elyas Ayyoub’s accomplishments, he had never won a collegiate cross-country race — until Saturday.
At the Sharks-hosted LIU Fall Festival, Ayyoub won the…
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