ROECKER NAMED 2015 GNAC EXECUTIVE OF THE YEAR

WINTHROP, Mass. – Former Emmanuel College Director of Athletics and Recreation Pam Roecker has been voted the 2015 Great Northeast Athletic Conference (GNAC) Executive of the Year, the league office announced on Monday. The announcement was made following a vote among the GNAC’s 12 athletics directors.

“What a great surprise and honor,” said Roecker. “This is most unexpected and it is the nicest going away present that I could imagine from an amazing group of colleagues.”

GNAC Commissioner Joe Walsh also presented Roecker with the 2015 Commissioner’s Award back in May.

Roecker completed her 12th and final year with Emmanuel athletics this past spring, but will leave a lasting legacy on the department. With the Saints, the Sports Management professor and part-time broadcaster oversaw the addition of three new varsity sports programs (men’s golf, men’s lacrosse, women’s lacrosse), as well as the construction of the Jean Yawkey Center on campus in Boston and the addition of turf at Roberto Clemente Field, a city-owned facility.

During the 2014-15 academic year, Emmanuel finished second overall in both the GNAC men’s and women’s commissioner’s cup standings. It took home conference championships in men’s lacrosse, while advancing to the GNAC Women’s Basketball and Women’s Soccer title games. The Saints also saw a conference-leading 109 student-athletes named to the GNAC Academic All-Conference Team.

Roecker, who will now make the transition to the high school athletic ranks, has also served on the National Association of Collegiate Women Athletics Administrators (NACWAA) Membership Committee and Legislation & Governance Committee and served as the GNAC sport chair for women’s basketball.

Before joining Emmanuel in 2003, Roecker was Associate Athletic Director, Senior Woman Administrator (SWA) and Compliance Coordinator at Wagner College in New York. She also held Division I women’s basketball head coaching positions at Loyola University Chicago (1998-99) and Wagner (1990-98), and assistant coach positions at Seton Hall University, University of Massachusetts-Amherst and University of Wisconsin-Green Bay.

She received her bachelor’s degree in Communications and Business Administration from UWGB in 1983, where as a student-athlete she is still the all-time leader in assists, was a 1,000-point scorer, and was named the school’s first female Academic All-American in 1982-83. She earned her master’s in Business Administration and Management from Wagner in 2003.

Roecker’s resume also includes vast experience as a basketball color analyst on both the regional and national scales. Over the last dozen years, she has called games for a number of conferences on numerous networks, including the Atlantic-10, Big East, Colonial, Horizon, Northeast Conference and Patriot League on ESPNU, ESPN3, Fox Sports Net and NESN, among others.

Longtime Emmanuel Sports Information Director and SWA Alexis Mastronardi will succeed Roecker at the institution, as she was named the college’s new Director of Athletics and Recreation on June 18.

*Release courtesy of GNAC Communications Office