Keith Hack and the Medaille University men’s basketball team met for its annual team dinner at the start of May, and discussed plans for the 2023-24 season.
As they chatted over the meal, they knew Medaille was in the process of a merger with Trocaire College, part of a plan announced in August with the collaborative goals of combining and improving student enrollment, strengthening academic offerings and keeping the schools financially viable.
The future looked bright for Medaille, an institution adjacent to Delaware Park with an enrollment of about 1,600 students, including 262 who participated in Medaille’s Division III athletic programs this school year.
No one, though, expected news of the merger’s disintegration May 11. Then, four days later, Medaille’s administration announced the school would close Aug. 31, after nearly 150 years as either a teacher’s preparatory school or as a coeducational college. It’s a far cry from April 4, when Medaille President Lori Quigley called the merger “a win-win for both institutions.”
“Everything seemed to be going smoothly, in the merger process,” said Hack, a 2010 Medaille graduate who had just completed his fifth season as the Mavericks’ men’s basketball coach. “This was the last thing we all expected, to be honest. There was a lot of shock.
“We were excited about what would happen next year. Now, I might not get the proper goodbye with my team, and I might not even be able to talk to them, face-to-face.”
Medaille’s seniors graduated May 5, but its undergraduate students will have to enroll in new schools for the 2023-24 school year. Athletes at Medaille also face the process of finding a new team, which comes with its own set of questions.
“There’s a lot of uncertainty for athletes,” said Xáneya Thomas, a junior who was on Medaille’s women’s basketball team. “You can get accepted academically into an institution, but if the team or the sport you’re…
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