Good Afternoon. It is a pleasure being here with all of you.

I would like to thank NYSWCAA, the selection committee, the Hunter College Athletic staff, and Joan and Vicky for their continued leadership.

I was not aware of the nomination by Lauren Caiaccia, Hunter Colleges Associate Athletic Director, better known as the enthusiastic one, until I received an email from Joan, which asked me to fill out a form that included:

List of research completed, articles published, speaking engagements given, teams coached and athletic programs administered;

List of anything else to identify your support of NYSWCAA and Womens Athletics.

Initially I was overwhelmed. Then I become reflective and finished the exercise.  I asked myself,What have I done? Has it been enough?


Like many of you, I did not have a real handle on what I had accomplished.  It was humbling and staggering at the same time.  I then, as the memories kept flooding out asked myself, How did I do all of that?  We all just tend to do what we have to do in support of our passion.


I was recruited to NYSWCAA by Barbara Chessler, formerly of Manhattanville, now at Yale.  She needed someone to replace her as the Sports Chair.  She asked. I accepted. She said, bring your van, there are some boxes.  Without much thought, I did what I was told.  After carrying boxes and boxes of files and t-shirts, I asked myself, What have I gotten myself into?  Naïve and willing to take on this challenge, what I got was a great opportunity. 


An opportunity to share ideas, debate issues, and observe the expertsin operation.  The ones before me, my mentors, some former Service Award Recipients, as well, clearly paved the way and welcomed me. Some of them were:

Sandy Weeden, (focused/no-nonsense)

Jeanne Mathias, (flexible)

Charlie Roberts, (a broad viewpoint and brilliant)

Betsy Bruce, (organized/detail oriented)

Dee Bogard, (experienced in everything)

And coaches, Frank Short, Joan Sitterly, and Teri Tiso, who I tried to beat every season, mostly failing.  Oh, but I loved the opportunity.

Sitting beside these people benefited me, and hopefully I had a positive effect on them, too.  They and many others gave me a strong foundation to build on.  The most apparent was the concept: Agree to Disagree.This was introduced and played out in many heated debates during annual meetings.  Each one of you in this room has experienced differences.

As a young professional, I thought there were two ways:

      ONE the right way; which was always my way, or at least I thought                            they were. And,           

       TWO the wrong way, which was everyone elses point of view- or at                        least I thought they were.

This was the typical young professionals inexperience showing. And just like in the TV Show, Survivorthere were alliances.  Strong Alliances! Half of the room was for the right way, and the other side of the room was for theirright way.  Conflict, what we all thrive on, right?

After many years of problem solving, the Concept of: We can agree to disagree, evolved to what I use today.

The evolved concept is Rational good intended people WILL/MUST disagree to get to the best solution for all.

We are all different, varied, basically a unique bunch.  For example:

The association is made up of professionals: from Public and Private Institutions, that clearly is different; urban/suburban/rural, different even still; and some of our programs are nationally driven, while others are trying to be competitive locally.  We have different missions.

Personally, we are white, black, brown, and many more.

We are gay, straight, and bisexual, whether you want to accept that or not.  We are Jewish, Christian, Protestant, and many more.  And we are male and female; young and experienced. We should celebrate; even welcome our differences, whatever they are.  Be receptive of open dialogand differences of opinion, which aids in getting to a cooperative solution.  This in turn will improve our mission, which is to strengthen womens athletics in NYSWCAA and the NCAA.

This has been my observation and lessons from you, the family of NYSWCAA, whether from former members or the current ones in this room.  We must continue to work together to move womens athletics forward.

In closing, I would like to publicly thank two people who gave me additional values that benefited me in serving NYSWCAA and Womens Athletics. These values are: Constant work ethic, attention to detail, and self discipline. I get these from my father.  He supported me as a high school and collegiate athlete, a collegiate coach, athletic administrator and a recreational athlete. He always had something positive to say about my jobwith constructive feedback to make me better and never settling for mediocre.

Other values are: patience, humor, and perspective. I get these from my mother.  For example, one of my teams had just lost in a crucial game. I was upset. The team waited in the van, as I paced outside with my father.  When I went to the van to talk to the team about the loss, I opened the door to find my mother sitting in the van, telling the team not to worry about what I say, You played Great,she said (which they had) handing out brownies. I looked at her, the team looked at me, I looked at the team and after an uncomfortable pause, we all started laughing. Life lessons through sport and brownies. My mom gave me perspective that day and continues to give me perspective daily.

Thanks Mom and Dad, and to all of your families and friends, who sacrifice for you, which allows you to do what you love to do!

Hopefully, your meetings were productive and full of resolutions. Keep working hard servicing the NYSWCAA.  I am honored to have been recognized as the Service Award recipient to this association, especially representing those mentors who were named before me. I am truly honored.

Have a great afternoon.

Thank you.

Terry Wansart,

Hunter College

Director of Athletics, Recreation and Intramurals