The Eagle Way Final Paper (1)

The Eagle Way:

The Path Taken through History for Ashland University Athletics

A CAPSTONE PROJECT SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF GRADUATING

FROM THE ACADEMIC HONORS PROGRAM AT ASHLAND UNIVERSITY

ZACHARY ANDREW READ

Ashland University

April 2020

Faculty Advisor: Dr. David McCoy, Associate Professor of Journalism and Digital Media

Second Reader: Dr. Dan O’Rourke, Associate Professor of Communication Studies

Table of Contents

Abstract ……………………………………………………………………………. i

Acknowledgements ………………………………………………………………... ii

I. Chapter I- Introduction ………………………………………………………….... 1

II. Chapter II- Research and Archival Process, Spring 2019 ……………………........ 3

III. Chapter III- Research Continues, Interview Process Begins, Fall 2019 ………….. 8

IV. Chapter IV- The Editing Process, Spring 2020 ………………………………….... 16

V. Chapter V- Conclusion and Findings ……………………………………………... 20

Final Thoughts …………………………………………………………….. 21

VI. Appendix ………………………………………………………………………....... 23

A. Video Documentary Script ………………………………………………… 23

B. A List of Ashland University Presidents and Athletic Directors ………….. 46

C. The Letter sent to Varsity Alumni …………………………………………. 48

D. Meeting Notes for each Interview Subject ……………………………….... 50

E. Interview Questions ………………………………………………………... 95

F. Summary of Work Process Notes ………………………………………….. 103

G. Capstone Project Hours …………………………………………………….. 105

ABSTRACT

Ashland University has a rich history of athletics which dates back to 1920 when

collegiate athletics officially started at what was then Ashland College. As the athletic program

now embarks on its 100

year, this documentary depicts a journey through the 100 years of

Ashland University athletics. Through deep historical research, the documentary uncovers stories

and memories that have been hidden for decades. It will explain how the mascot of the eagle

became the Eagles, coaches that have been hired, stellar athletes who have made their mark at

Ashland, and many other stories that impacted the athletic program for 100 years. This

documentary also displays the crafting of a creative piece by showcasing video and editing skills,

as well as audio, storytelling and other post production skills. A number of former coaches,

administrators and athletes will tell their story of their time at Ashland, and how they will always

remember what has made Ashland University athletics so successful.

iii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I want to give my sincerest thanks and appreciation to every individual who had a hand in

this documentary and who impacted me throughout this process. First and foremost, I want to

thank my family for their continual support and encouragement throughout this process. I want

to thank the Ashland University Honors Program for giving me the opportunity and support to

take on this endeavor. I also want to thank AU’s Journalism and Digital Media Department for

investing in me for four years and entrusting all sorts of equipment into my hands for long

periods of time in order for me to complete this project. I want to thank my advisor and mentor

Dr. Dave McCoy for his relentless work and advice on my documentary, as well as John Skrada

who has also helped to develop all of the skills necessary for this project to be successful. I want

to also thank Dr. Dan O’Rourke as my second reader of my capstone and Dr. Jeffrey

Weidenhamer as the Honors Program Director. This project would not have been possible

without the generous help of David Roepke, the university archivist, and the countless hours he

spent going through archives with me. Thank you also to Scott Vander Sloot who generously

lended portions of his work and advice to help make this documentary possible and also to Noah

Cloonan for the inspiration of this idea and the lending of his voice. I also wish to give my

thanks to Jeff Alix, James Hurguy, Dusty Sloan, Brendan Bittner and every individual whom I

talked with and who offered their time, talents and treasures in order to make this documentary

possible.

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

The Ashland University Honors Program capstone project for Zachary Read, class of

2020, consists of a creative piece in which an hour long video documentary was created. The

documentary is titled The Eagle Way: The Path Taken through History for Ashland University

Athletics. The documentary is the main piece of my capstone project while this paper portion

will explain the process I embarked on for a year and a half in order to make this documentary

possible. This paper also includes the explanation of different techniques used, as well as an

appendix of all interview notes, interview questions and the full documentary script. The

documentary is a visual piece that can be used for future reference at Ashland University, but

that only tells a little bit of what was discovered in the findings. This paper will denote the

origination of the idea, the documentary research process and the creative production process.

How has Ashland University athletics become so successful? The process for the answer

to this question first began in Fall 2018 when I was searching for a project topic for my senior

capstone project. The idea originated from Noah Cloonan, a former Ashland University Honors

Program student, who decided to drop the Honors Program in order to graduate early in

December of 2018. With Noah graduating and myself looking for a central idea for the capstone

project, Noah suggested that I follow up with his idea and implement it.

Noah had a vision for a documentary to try to discover how Ashland athletics have

become so successful. He asked questions as to how a small Division II school in North Central

Ohio, surrounded by cornfields, would be able to become a powerhouse in Division II athletics

as they are today. How was a school like Ashland able to recruit the type of student athletes in

order to compete with large state schools such as Grand Valley State, Ferris State, Saginaw

Valley State and Wayne State. Noah and I discussed and pondered this question together a

number of times. As I thought about what this question could turn into and how I could carry out

a project that could answer this question, I knew a video documentary would captivate it best.

This question became the thesis of the documentary, “Why and how has Ashland

University athletics become so successful?” Towards the end of the capstone process when the

editing of the documentary had begun, I realized that I had a hybrid of this thesis question as

well as a basic history of Ashland athletics. It was discovered that this project was more than just

answering the question of how athletics became so successful, but it became a story of the

history of the athletic program along with a partial history of the university. The reason for this

change was due to the interview subjects and where those interviews led the project. They

propelled me to a further understanding of the history of the university that involved stories that

had to be told.

In the beginning, the original goal discussed by my advisor Dr. David McCoy and I, was

to have a 30 minute documentary. However, as time went on and the documentary progressed, it

was discovered that an excessive amount of content was generated for a 30 minute documentary,

and so it was decided that a one hour documentary film would be the new goal.

CHAPTER II

RESEARCH AND ARCHIVAL PROCESS, SPRING 2019

The capstone project was kicked off in the Spring semester of 2019, 15 months before the

final product would have to be completed in late April of 2020. Independent study courses were

not taken until both semesters of my senior year, but I knew in January 2019 that if I wanted to

get ahead of this and have a successful documentary, that I needed to start then. In the beginning,

one of the harder tasks was discerning where to start, because at this time I did not obtain much

knowledge on the history of Ashland University or Ashland athletics for that matter. All I knew

is that currently in the year of 2019, our athletic programs were extremely successful and one of

the best in Division II in the country. I started in January by meeting with Dave McCoy on a

weekly basis and I continued with this throughout the semester in order to bounce ideas off of

him and get his advice. After having one of my first official meetings with him, his suggestion

was to start with finding resources of the deep history of the college and to start by going through

athletics, archives and even people.

Two of those three resources, athletics and university archives is where I decided to start

my research. I began to schedule a few meetings first with Dusty Sloan and Al King, director of

athletic communications and director of athletics, respectively, and then with David Roepke, the

university archivist. These meetings gave me a sense of where to start and the general people that

should be interviewed along the way. The first research idea I had was to go all the way back to

The Purple and Gold magazines, which was the school’s publication from 1900-1920 that

preceded The Collegian. They were made available online by Dave Roepke and so I started to

browse these sources in hopes of finding anything that related to the progression of athletics. As

hours were spent browsing for these stories, I realized later on that this would not be the most

effective research method and knew there needed to be a change.

When creating a video documentary at this length, enough footage, also called B-roll, is

necessary to provide differing visual aspects rather than just interviews. Having enough B-roll is

never enough for any video project, but rather the editor needs an excessive amount of B-roll so

there is always plenty during the editing process. This was a concept taught to us in our

Journalism and Digital Media classes from day one. With that in mind, from day one I knew I

needed to obtain as many visuals as I could, which took me to the university archives and Dave

Roepke. The archives for Ashland University are kept in a number of places: in the library on

campus, in a house off of campus, in a building on Main Street in Ashland and a warehouse in

Mansfield. In my case, when digging through the university archives, all of my time was spent

with Dave Roepke at the house off of campus, 827 College Boulevard, directly across the street

from the Center for the Arts building (CFA). During the 2019 spring semester, from February 1

to April 26, I spent every Friday morning from 10-12 in the archives house scanning photos and

going through years and years of history. As I searched for the right visuals, I looked for photos

and newspaper articles associated with athletics. I would not have been able to fulfill this project

without the help and generosity of Dave Roepke. Dave helped me to track down the right

materials while also granting me materials I thought I would not use, such as historical photos of

Ashland University buildings, but come editing time, they were used.

Since this was a video documentary, I was also on a mission to track down as many old,

athletic videos as I could, which I knew was going to be a difficult task. Luckily for me, Dave

already had an abundance of old videos converted to digital files, including an Ashland College

silent movie from 1930-1962 as well as old football and basketball games from the 1960s. When

conducting historical research, one of the obstacles is converting visual content, whether it be

VHS, DVD or film, into digital files or scanning photos and newspaper articles into digital files.

I was fortunate enough to have Dave’s assistance with all of this who had the equipment

necessary to complete these tasks.

As I began to gather visuals and form an idea as to where this process was headed, I sat

down with my first person of interest, Dr. Fred Martinelli. In order to go as far back in history as

I could, I knew I needed to find the people who had been at Ashland the longest and those who

made the most impact. Naturally, these people would be able to point me in the direction in

which I needed to go. Fred Martinelli was such a vital piece to the puzzle because he was

football coach at Ashland from 1959-1993 and was division director and athletic director from

1967-1991. Fred still lives in the Ashland area today and still had contact with the athletic

department, so he was an easy person to reach. Since people who have been involved with

Ashland athletics in the 21st century were easily accessible, I knew it was imperative to begin

with the older generation and people who were harder to locate. After two meetings with Fred in

February and April, I had a pretty good idea of who I wanted to talk to from the older eras: the

1960s, ’70s and ’80s. I also had an abundance of names I knew were still important in the story

of Ashland athletics, but it all depended on how deep and detail specific I wanted to go. I had to

remind myself many times throughout this process to stay on track and not go down a path that

would lead me into some more interesting information, but ultimately would not be necessary in

the big picture of Ashland athletics.

Another number of resources that proved to be very important to me early on was the use

of old thesis projects that had already been done by previous Ashland College students. One

thing worth noting at this time is throughout this paper and my documentary you will notice the

specifications of Ashland College versus Ashland University. The school changed its name from

a college to a university on May 1st, 1989, so anything before that year will be referred to as

Ashland College, and anything after will be Ashland University. The first thesis project I used

for a resource was The History and Development of Intercollegiate Athletics at Ashland College,

1878-1959 by Bill E. Wilgus. Bill wrote this thesis as a partial fulfillment for his masters degree

from The Ohio State University and was previously a student-athlete at Ashland College in the

1950s. His thesis focused on the beginning of the university and how athletics tied into that as

well as how athletics were formed in 1920 with the help of Dr. E.E. Jacobs. Since Bill wrote this

in 1959, his thesis only covers a partial history of what is Ashland University athletics today. The

second thesis that proved to be vital was The History of Women’s Athletics at Ashland College

published in 1988 by Deborah A. Gresens. Deborah earned her bachelors and master's degree

from Ashland College and wrote this thesis in partial fulfillment of her master’s degree. This

thesis only details women’s athletics, but was able to give me a nice history of how Ashland

athletics progressed throughout the years. I was able to find both of these theses in the Ashland

University library and I made copies of them for myself so that I could read them throughout the

spring semester of 2019 and use them as resources.

The next resource was an 18-minute video documentary created in 2003 by a third party

company on the history of Ashland University. Although this was a nice piece to reference, it

was essentially no help in what I was trying to accomplish. The final resource was Ralph

Tomassi’s book, Go Eagles! The History of Ashland University Football. This book details the

in-depth history of Ashland University football dating all the way back to 1920. All three of

these print resources held specific records, rosters and findings that although they were

insightful, I did not have a use for these specific records and rosters. However, there were some

insightful stories in all three of these resources that proved to be helpful within my research

process. Therefore, up until my documentary, there had not been an overall history of Ashland

athletics in its entirety since Bill Wilgus in 1959. That is when I knew my project was necessary

and much needed for the advancement of record keeping and preserving history for Ashland

University.

As the spring semester was coming to a close, I stayed very busy with my capstone in

April as I continued to obtain as many files from the university archives as I could. In this time I

sat down to meet with my second subject of interest, Mark McClintock. Mark was a student at

Ashland from 1965-1969 and had been an involved community member and a huge fan of

Ashland athletics for most of his life. Although he has never been directly involved with athletics

at the university, Mark has compiled complete record books of football, men’s basketball and

baseball for Ashland University’s athletic department. With his extensive knowledge and

research, I knew Mark would give a great perspective from the fan’s point of view. Secondly, I

continued to watch some of the film I had obtained from the university archives and took notes

as I watched Ashland football and basketball games from the 1960s as well as the video of the

dedication and groundbreaking of the Dauch College of Business building on campus. One last

task I completed before leaving school for the summer was holding a meeting with Jeff Alix,

AU’s senior director of alumni engagement. I touched base with Jeff to inform him of my project

and ask for his help come next school year in order to reach out to former varsity alumni in a

large capacity. I left Ashland for the summer of 2019 feeling accomplished that I had completed

a lot of the back-end legwork in order to put myself in a good position for when I arrived back to

school in the fall.

CHAPTER III

RESEARCH CONTINUES, INTERVIEW PROCESS BEGINS, FALL 2019

When I started this project, the plan was to work on it throughout the summer to stay

ahead and not get behind on the process. However, I had taken a summer job in New Mexico and

was not able to advance my capstone from May to September. This along with a few other times,

such as March 2019 is when I hit lags within my capstone and did not work on it at all for a long

period of time. Although that was precious time lost, once I did pick it back up, I was able to stay

consistent and persistent in order to keep the overall process of my project moving.

September of 2019 came and I knew it was time to really focus on what my goal was for

the next couple of months. I continued to meet with my advisor, Dave McCoy on a weekly basis

so that he knew where I was with my work process. As I had obtained a decent amount of photos

and newspaper clippings in the previous spring and I had an idea of all of the interview subjects I

wanted, I knew it was time to hone in specifically on trying to obtain more video B-roll and start

to interview my subjects which would become vital for my project. At this time, I was not

necessarily looking for photo submissions from anyone because I knew where I could get an

abundance of them, the archives. I made a list of roughly 30 people I wanted to interview, but as

the process went along I was not able to interview that sheer amount of people. However, in the

end it worked out well that I did not interview that many people.

The first step I took in the fall was through the alumni office and reconnecting with Jeff

Alix. I had given Jeff a form email in which he sent out to over 3,000 varsity alumni of Ashland

University requesting if anyone had old videos, whether these be coaches' films or videos their

parents would have filmed as home videos when they played at Ashland. This idea originated

from Dave McCoy because he told me you never know what you will find or who has something

stashed away at home. While I did request for photos, stories and pictures of other memorabilia

at that time, I later realized that although these were very informational and neat to hear all sorts

of stories from different alumni, that this was one of those moments where I had gone too in-

depth and I needed to stick to the broad aspect of my project. Nevertheless, on September 12,

through the alumni office Jeff Alix blasted the email to over 3,000 varsity alumni. In the first few

days, I received a large number of responses with around 20 on the same day the email was sent

out. I made a point of it to email each individual who responded back in a timely manner.

Overall, when everything was said and done I received over 50 responses from former athletes

interested in telling their story and sending information my way. Unfortunately, once it came

time for the editing process, no interviews had been carried out with any of those alumni and I

had not received many videos that I was looking for. Some may look at this method of

engagement as a failure because nothing much came from it, but I felt it was a necessary step to

take in the overall process in order to have the possibility of reaching out to a large amount of

alumni in the future if need be.

One piece of relevant information I did receive from all of this were two VHS wrestling

tapes from alumnus Steve Miller, a wrestler for Ashland College in the late 1980s. He went to

wrestling nationals in 1987 and 1988 and still had home VHS tapes that his parents filmed of

him and other teammates wrestling. It just so happened that Steve’s daughter, Rachel Miller, was

in my major and only a year behind me, which made it easy to retrieve the VHS tapes, get them

digitized through Dave Roepke and then return them back to Steve Miller. I was also able to give

the Millers digital copies of their film as well and they were very thankful for that. It was little

moments like this throughout my project that made it all worthwhile, where I gave former

athletes the opportunity to relive those special moments of their lives.

The next tasks I started to accomplish in early September was to recontact Fred Martinelli

and Mark McClintock, sit down for another meeting with each of these individuals, and then

plan an on-camera interview with them. I also made contact with Darla Plice, who was a three

sport athlete at the college from 1974-1978 in volleyball, women’s basketball and softball. In the

beginning, my plan was to contact and interview a number of former athletes, but in the end

Darla was the only former athlete I interviewed who did not have any other ties to the university.

For each interview subject, I first made sure to conduct a meeting with them in order to

pick their brain and ask them certain questions about their time at Ashland and what makes

Ashland athletics so successful. It also gave me an opportunity to hear their story and learn how

much information each individual knew. Each of these meetings typically lasted 1-2 hours. Once

I scheduled an on-camera interview with each subject, I revisited my meeting notes and formed

questions from those notes in a format that I thought would be useful for contribution to my

documentary. As I went along, I made sure to ask the same question to multiple different people

so that I could get different answers out of each person or get the same answer out of two or

three different people in order to emphasize the storytelling of my piece. Each interview subject

played an integral role in the creation of the documentary.

After holding on-camera interviews with my first three subjects: Mark McClintock, Fred

Martinelli and Darla Plice, I then shifted my focus to my next set of interview subjects, Sue

Ramsey and Ralph Tomassi. Sue Ramsey was the women’s basketball coach at Ashland from

1995-2015 and led the Eagles to winning the school’s first team national championship. She is

labeled as one of the most successful coaches in the modern era in Ashland University history.

Ralph Tomassi played baseball at Ashland College from 1974-1977 and later came back to work

in the development office from 1978-2015, working himself all the way up to a vice-president

position. These were both very successful interviews and Ralph was able to give me more of a

general history of the university by talking about specifics such as Dr. Glenn Clayton and the

name change from a college to a university. When October hit, I had a little lull in progress on

the project and did not complete any tasks for about three weeks.

This was a note I had written down in October, “October 18, 2019- I finally got out of my

slump and started contacting and reaching out to people, having a meeting around three times a

week or almost doing something for my capstone every day of the week. If I had open time in

my schedule, I filled it with work for my capstone.” This was necessary in my process to have a

period of rest, but then it was important that I was able to turn things around and continue my

work diligently.

The next two interview subjects I tracked down were individuals from the 1960s and ’70s

who were no longer associated with the university. I had the name of Dr. Carol Mertler but her

only contact information that was still on file with the alumni office or with athletics was her

address. In order to reach her, I sent her snail mail in which Carol responded by email. I was very

excited about this endeavor because she did indeed respond and I was able to contact her, just

through a different format than I was used to. I scheduled a meeting with Carol and drove up to

her nursing home in Westlake, Ohio where I spent three hours with her and was able to conduct a

meeting and on-camera interview in the same day. Carol was very instrumental in the

development of women’s athletics at Ashland College from 1966-1976 before moving onto

Purdue University to become their first women’s athletic director. The second individual I later

was able to get was Dr. Ella Shannon who lived in Perrysville, Ohio. I had also gone to Ella's

house twice to conduct the meeting and interview. Both of these were successful because not

only did I hold on-camera interviews with them, but they were also able to give me DVDs of

their personal lives in which I was able to digitalize. These videos proved vital when it came

time for editing because I was able to use old photos found on these DVDs as essential B-roll.

When it came time for editing, these two interviews were mainly used when talking about Title

IX and the development of women’s athletics.

The next two interview subjects I contacted were people who were a little bit obscure, but

individuals who were able to witness the old days of Ashland College from a child’s point of

view, who also became students of Ashland College in the ’60s. These individuals were Bob

Brownson Jr. and Nik Donges. They were the sons of Bob Brownson and George Donges,

respectively, who were two coaches that were instrumental in the success of Ashland athletics

from the 1950s all the way to the 1970s. Although their fathers were no longer alive, these two

sons gave me a very good perspective of what Ashland athletics were like back in the day. One

of the most rewarding interviews I had was with Nik Donges who currently resides in Cincinnati,

Ohio. After getting in contact with Nik through Facebook, I decided that this was an essential

interview, so on November 23, 2019, I drove three hours one-way to Cincinnati in order to

conduct this interview. I was very grateful for Nik and his wife to invite me into their home

where we spent hours reminiscing about their time at Ashland as well as the impact his father

had on Ashland College. They treated me to some lunch as well and then I was able to conduct

my interview with Nik in their home. To me, this was one of the more rewarding experiences of

the process because I was able to form a friendship with these two that is still kept to this day.

After having multiple discussions with Dave McCoy and wrestling with myself about

where the direction of my project was going, I decided I needed a change of pace. Ashland

athletics knows that it is very successful in this day and age, but Dave pushed me to find the

deeper meaning as to why athletics were started back in 1920 and then why certain things

happened to the athletic program throughout their history, such as the effect of the financial

troubles in the 1970s. To find the answers to these questions, administrators and coaches were

not the way to go, so Dave suggested I find historians of sport and America as well as

individuals who had a deeper understanding of the history of Ashland athletics. These interview

subjects turned out to be Professor of History Dr. Duncan Jamieson, Associate Professor of

Communication Studies Dr. Dan O’Rourke and Associate Professor of Philosophy Dr. Mark

Hamilton. After interviews with each of these three individuals, I found that they were very

distinct in their own ways. Duncan was key in discussing the name change to a university,

Ashland’s monumental move to Division II athletics in 1979 and the history of how Ashland

became the Ashland Eagles. Duncan was the top expert on the latter subject because he had done

extensive research on the history of the eagles and the eagle statues that are dispersed across

campus. Dan, who was also my second reader for this endeavor, was useful by providing

information of the beginning of the NCAA in 1906, how different events in America affected

Ashland athletics and what makes Ashland so different compared to other schools. Lastly, Mark

grew up watching Ashland athletics as a child, was a student at Ashland in the ’70s and has been

the NCAA faculty athletics representative at AU for the last 22 years. With an outsider’s

perspective, this has made Mark an expert on Ashland athletics over the last 20-30. In his

position, Mark has been able to assist in some of the coaching hires that has so greatly impacted

the success of the athletic program. After reviewing the effect of these three interview subjects, I

was extremely glad I was able to talk to these individuals and get their perspective on Ashland

athletics. This documentary would not have been nearly as successful without their input.

Time was winding down on the fall semester of 2019 and I was now under six months

until the deadline of my capstone. My goal was to have all of the research and interviews

completed before Christmas break so that I could focus on the script and editing process for the

spring semester. At this point, I knew it would not be obtainable to reach 30 interviews, so

instead I strove for around 15-16, and in the end that is about how many I ended up with, which

proved to be more than enough. Some of the final people I interviewed were Al King, current

athletic director of AU athletics, men’s basketball head coach John Ellenwood and women’s

basketball head coach Kari Pickens, who also played at Ashland from 2012-2013 and led the

Eagle’s teams to a national runner-up and AU’s first national championship in 2013. These three

individuals were able to talk a lot about what Ashland athletics currently looks like today with

the culture and coaches, and were some of the main people in answering my thesis of how AU

athletics have become so successful. Moreover, there were three other individuals I held

meetings with for my capstone, but never completed an on-camera interview with them. These

were Jud Logan, current track and field head coach, John Schaly, current baseball coach and

Sheilah Gulas, recent 20-year hall of fame softball coach. I was disappointed that I did not follow

through with these interviews because I felt like I could not leave out these three coaches due to

their impact on Ashland athletics in the 21

century.

As I headed into Christmas break to prepare for the 2020 spring semester, I received a

little boost of energy from an unsuspected place. As I was still on my search for old coaches film

and videos of AU athletics from the ’80s and' 90s, I sent out about twenty letters to former

coaches of AU asking if they had held onto any of their old coaches films. I received one

response back, from Karen Linder in Tallmadge, Ohio. Karen had been a softball and women’s

basketball coach at AU in the ’80s and' 90s along with her husband Tom Linder who was the

wrestling coach. Karen uncovered roughly 15 VHS tapes of softball, women’s basketball,

wrestling and a few men’s basketball games. This proved to be vital because up to this point the

only game films I had were of football and men’s basketball, due to their importance and the lack

of video technology to cover all sporting events at a small Division II college. During the editing

process, I was able to uncover an old men’s basketball game from this collection of the Keith

Dambrot era, which in my documentary you will find was a huge scandal that took place at AU

in 1992-93. On this film, I was able to find an old open that was played before the game where

the announcer talked about the scandal of that era, so it was really a neat piece to use that tied

this section of my documentary together nicely. Finally, one other piece of historical video I

uncovered was an interview with Dr. Glenn Clayton who was president at the university from

1948-1977 and continued to work in the development office until he passed away in 2006. This

hour long interview with Dr. Clayton was conducted in 1996 by Richard D. Leidy, a radio and

television professor of the college at the time. This was an evergreen piece I used in my

documentary essentially as a normal interview. I used some voice-over clips from this interview

and although Dr. Clayton only discussed athletics once, I was able to use other clips that

pertained to the fire of Founders Hall, the financial trouble of the 1970s, his retirement, and the

unique culture Ashland College/University possesses.

CHAPTER IV

THE EDITING PROCESS, SPRING 2020

Throughout winter break and into the 2020 spring semester, I did not get anything done

for all of January and most of February. This did indeed set me back for what I wanted to

accomplish, but in the end I was able to adapt and improvise my work process in order to

complete the essentials of what needed to be accomplished. At first, my goal for January and

February was to finish my research and recording of interviews as well as write my script. Due to

these circumstances, when the end of February rolled around, I had to ultimately decide to scrap

the rest of the interviews I was planning on shooting as well as writing the script. I decided that I

would jump into the editing process and piece together my documentary that way, then write the

script at the very end. Through my very detailed recording of the number of hours I worked on

my documentary, up until February 20, 2020, I had worked a total of 191 hours on my capstone

project. February 20 is when I began the long road of my editing process that would eventually

take me to the end of this project. I had a total of 16 interviews along with countless folders of

videos, photos and newspaper articles that I would use as my B-roll.

As the editing process began, I started to watch each interview in its entirety and clip off

sections of each interview I deemed were worthy of using in my overall documentary. Although

the majority of my interviews were 30-45 minutes, I knew I would only use about three minutes

of each interview, some a little more and others a little less. It all depended on the stories that

each interview subject told. As I placed the interviews onto my timeline, I tried to separate them

into different time periods and how the overall flow of the story would go, so it would be easier

once I began the storytelling process. After I completed this task which took around 10-12 hours,

I then began placing the interviews into a storyboard form. I broke down each story and piece of

information I wanted to tell and then broke them down into the order in which they would fall.

Ultimately, I ended up with eleven overall segments to my documentary which I would

eventually separate with narration clips. They were as follows:

1. Beginnings of NCAA and Ashland athletics

2. Redwood Stadium and Hungry Hounds

3. How athletics grew in the late 1950s and 1960s/ Musselman years

4. Athletic facilities built in the late 1960s

5. Women’s athletics and Title IX

6. College financial issues/name change to university/move to D-II

7. MBB scandal of Keith Dambrot era 1990-1993

8. Athletic Directors growing and advancing the program into 21st century

9. Women’s basketball winning first team national championship at Ashland

10. Stories of specific players

11. Why are Ashland athletics so successful today: two reasons

I edited the documentary into these different segments as I began to tell the story of

Ashland athletics. Piecing together interview by interview and intertwining each one so that it

develops into a well written story. As I began to create my official timeline, it all seemed like it

was coming together and the flow of the documentary was exactly what I was looking for. One

thing I may have overlooked throughout this process however, was how long the editing process

was going to take. As I began to wrap my head around this endeavor, COVID-19 struck the

nation and I was no longer able to stay at school. Luckily for the generosity of Dave McCoy and

the Journalism and Digital Media Department, we found a way in which I was able to work on

my documentary at home. This in turn was a true blessing in disguise because I was able to

devote so much more time at home then I would have ever been able to at school. Throughout

the month of March and into April of 2020, I worked day and night on the capstone project, often

editing for 8-10 hours a day, and even 12-15 hours a few days. This length of the documentary

and the detail on the production side would not have been possible if it were not for these

changes in advance.

Editing the documentary was a long process for a few different reasons. First, all of the

B-roll that I had obtained: videos, photos, etc., did not meet the correct frame size for the editing

of the documentary. Therefore, for every piece of B-roll I had, I had to scale it to the right frame

size and for photos I oftentimes had to crop each one individually because they were all scanned.

To keep things interesting throughout my documentary, almost all of my still photos have

movement as they appear on the screen, and so each photo has to be detailed separately in that

manner, which is a very tedious task. A second reason for the longevity of the editing process

was the correction I had to provide on a lot of my interviews. As a learning student, I knew

almost everything you need to know when shooting an interview such as this, but the list is so

extensive that oftentimes you forget to do things or the interviews did not turn out the way I

wanted them to. For that reason, for a few of my interview subjects, I had to alter their interview

clips individually as far as sound, lighting and framing went. The beautiful piece to this is that I

was able to alter most of the interviews in order for them to still look good and professional on

camera. Furthermore, as I shot more interviews, I was able to learn from my mistakes of the

previous interviews. Towards the last few interviews I shot I nailed them in terms of quality and

production details.

As I continued to move along in the editing process, I needed to also look for different

design elements I wanted to use such as my lower third graphics, motion backgrounds for during

B-roll clips and sound effects and music that would go underneath the entirety of my

documentary. I was able to design my own lower third graphics, one of my motion backgrounds

with the different Ashland logos and the title screen, but I retrieved the newspaper motion

background, music and sound effects from websites such as Digital Juice and APM music. At the

end of the documentary, right before the credits, I also decided to create a title sequence for each

interview subject that detailed who they were and the impact they had on Ashland. I felt this was

important to give a short background on each individual who has been so instrumental in the

storytelling of Ashland athletics. One of my final creative additions to the documentary was the

narration piece. Due to the unforeseen circumstances of not being at school, I had to improvise

and at the last minute was able to recruit the help of Noah Cloonan, the godfather of the idea of

this project. It turned out perfectly and there could not have been a better narrator for this project.

CHAPTER V

CONCLUSION AND FINDINGS

After 150 total hours of editing, I was left with just under an hour long documentary,

which came out to 57 minutes exactly. However, as I evaluated this documentary and the story it

tells of Ashland athletics, I needed to be sure that I accomplished the goal and answered the main

thesis question I had asked in the very beginning, what makes Ashland University athletics so

successful to this day? In my opinion, this piece not only answered that question but it exceeded

my expectations. It not only answered that question, but it also told the history of Ashland

athletics through the eyes of some of the most important and instrumental people to have

impacted this university. What the success boiled down to was not because of the recruiting,

what conference Ashland was in or even the athletes themselves. Rather, the answer of why and

how Ashland athletics has become so successful today lied within the people. The people who

dedicated much of their lives to Ashland athletics and who were committed to what Ashland

University stood for, the people who stuck around. These people were simply the coaches. Plain

and simple, that was the answer to this mystery. The coaches at Ashland who did things the right

way and were able to build up the different programs of Ashland athletics because of the

longevity of their time spent at the university. If there ever needed to be a second answer to this

question, it has also been the culture. The culture these coaches were able to breed and develop

within their own athletic teams by recruiting the student-athlete that best fit Ashland University.

As Dr. Mark Hamilton stated in the documentary, this boils down to coaches who have a high

view of academics, personal integrity, a love for Division II and the small college level and who

were a good fit to Ashland University. These coaches understood the concept of “Accent on the

Individual,” a slogan generated by Dr. Glenn Clayton in 1964 and one that is still used around

the university today, 56 years later. Once the college found the right coaches, they were able to

attract the right student athletes that best fit the vision of Ashland University athletics. In the

words of Kari Pickens, these student athletes who came to Ashland needed to be willing to put in

the amount of work that was expected of them, to perform in the classroom, serve in the

community and be champions in every avenue of their life. Finally, the vision for hiring the right

coaches and changing the culture of the athletic program could not have been accomplished

without the leadership and direction of the athletic directors. It took the working relationship of

all three of these factors to take Ashland University from a regionally successful athletic program

to a nationally successful athletic program. These were the changes that needed to be made in

order to keep AU relevant, and ultimately it was from these factors that Ashland athletics became

as successful as they are today. This ultimate change took place in the ’90s just before the turn of

the century, so as Ashland athletics prepared for the 21

century, they ultimately attacked the 21

century with full steam ahead and is now consistently one of the Division II powerhouses in

every sport, not just a few sports.

As the world continues to change and Ashland University continues to change with it, it

is essential that the new wave of pioneers remembers the mission of Ashland University and

what sets Ashland apart from all other Division II schools in the United States. Decisions need to

be made, so it is essential AU athletics has the right leaders who have a vision for the athletic

program and can lead it in the direction in which it needs to go. The future is bright for Ashland

University athletics, but it is always important to never lose sight of the past.

Final Thoughts

There have been a number of skills and important lessons I have taken from this

documentary and capstone project. The first of these is all of the skills I had learned in my major,

I was able to put to the test through the work in this project. I have been able to utilize all of my

skills I learned from being a double major in digital media journalism and digital media

production. I used journalism skills such as how to track down and contact different people

through research and how to form interview questions, and then how to carry out those

interviews. I was able to utilize my production skills from having a knowledge of conducting

interviews and how to use a video camera with the audio, light settings, framing of my subject

and many other integral details that go into conducting interviews. Once I began the editing

process, I was able to utilize extensive skills I have received in Adobe Premiere Pro, Photoshop

and After Effects. Another important lesson I kept in mind while working on a project of this

magnitude was to always back up all of the research and information gathered on two separate

hard drives. That way, if something happened and one of the hard drives crashed, I would still

have all of the resources I worked so hard to retrieve on the back-up hard drive. As mentioned

before, throughout the process I made sure to record all of the hours I spent working on this

project, including the total number of man hours when I was in meetings and interviews. Up to

the point of right before my capstone defense, in roughly 15 months I had spent a total of 370

hours on this project altogether. It was also important to remember that no matter the obstacles

that came along, how much time this project took or how hard it was at times, I never gave up

and continued to strive to the very end, and great was the reward. To be able to feel the

accomplishment of this documentary and keep this with me for the rest of my life is something I

will always cherish and remember.

APPENDIX A

VIDEO DOCUMENTARY SCRIPT

THE EAGLE WAY: The Path Taken through History for Ashland University Athletics

PRODUCER: ZACHARY READ

APRIL 2020

00:02- TITLE SCREEN

00:09- NOAH CLOONAN,

NARRATOR

FADE TO BLACK

The Eagle Way: The Path Taken through History for Ashland

University Athletics

Ohio. A land rich with history, with corn fields and blue collar

workers. In the heart of North Central Ohio, is a small town. A

town full of people with heart, with faith and with love for a

college that sits on a little 135-acre plot of land. Throughout

the years, Ashland University has survived the hardships and

financial difficulties, and when the country was in distress,

Ashland University has stood tall. But as times change and

people change, the one thing that remains the same is

athletics. Beginning in 1920: the people, the teams and the

stories of Ashland athletics was born.

00:56- SEGMENT #1

DR. DAN O’ROURKE

DR. FRED MARTINELLI

DR. DAN O’ROURKE,

Ph.D.,ASSOCIATE

PROFESSOR, 1994-PRESENT

DR. FRED MARTINELLI,

Ph.D., ATHLETIC

DIRECTOR/COACH, 1959-

1993

DR. DAN O’ROURKE

There was a crisis, there was, in early college football there

were people being killed.

Lot of injuries, Teddy Roosevelt called a meeting of the

college presidents in Washington D.C.

So he invited some of the great coaches in the White House to

try and get a summit because they were talking about banning

football and banning sports. And it was the summit at the

White House that became the outgrowth of what became the

NCAA.

Dr. Jacobs obviously felt, if we’re going to get control of this

we’e got to get it under our control and under our wing. We

have to have it under control of coaches and athletics directors

who will do the scheduling and oversee the program. That was

a period of growth at that time.

One of the pillars of Ashland was always health. They talked

about how this was a healthy community and those kinds of

02:10- DR. DUNCAN

JAMIESON, Ph.D.,

PROFESSOR, 1978-

PRESENT

DR. FRED MARTINELLI

VOICE OF RICHARD D.

LEIDY, PROFESSOR,

FOUNDER OF 88.9 WRDL

DR. GLENN CLAYTON,

Ph.D., PRESIDENT

EMERITUS, 1948-1977

DR. FRED MARTINELLI

NIK DONGES

DR. GLENN CLAYTON

NIK DONGES, CLASS OF

1965, SON OF GEORGE

DONGES

places, so it was a natural outgrowth I think to make that fit

into the idea of competition and other schools around Ohio are

rich in tradition. You think about the development of

professional football starting in Ohio and those kinds of things

where it later became the Hall of Fame. I think it was a natural

gravitation to say “okay, let’s have collegiate teams.

Ashland, as any college had nicknames, they began as the

brethren, they began as the purple. The nicknames are given to

them by sportswriters, newspapers, sportswriters. So

somewhere along the line we became the Titans. In the early

1930s, got together, and put together a contest, for we need a

new name for our athletic teams. This is the time of the

Depression, Roosevelt puts together among other plans the

National Recovery Administration which is going to help boost

the economy. And they came up with an identifier for the

organization, it attracted the attention of the students, the

students then had a competition and took a vote and we

became the Ashland Eagles.

We had no track when Gil Dodds came to Ashland. His father

was a Brethren minister. USC, Nebraska, Texas, all wanted

him to go to their school, but he was going to go to a Brethren

school. Even though we had no program or no coach. He was

the national champion in cross country and in the mile, the

collegiate champion. Then in 1943 he was awarded the

Sullivan Award, which is emblematic of the amateur athlete of

the year. Had the world record in the mile which at that time

was 4:07. Far and above, the best athlete we’ve ever had.

In 1948, Dr. Glenn L. Clayton, a 37 year-old history professor

became the new president of Ashland College.

What I’m saying is in all those first four years we had one

crisis right after another.

Founders Hall burned down, that was a terrible time.

In the middle of the night we were awakened, I was awakened.

I think by that time my Dad had already gone.

Mrs. Clayton and I were visiting with friends in Mansfield. We

immediately left and started up Route 42 towards Ashland.

But my mother, called us over to the living room window, my

older brother and I, next oldest brother. And you could see the

flames shooting up from Founders Hall and it was quite a site

DR. GLENN CLAYTON

05:08- DR. MARK

HAMILTON, Ph.D.,

FACULTY ATHLETIC REP.,

1981-PRESENT

NIK DONGES

DR. GLENN CLAYTON

FADE TO BLACK

to see.

Pretty soon I could begin to see the glare in the sky and I knew

it was more than just a little departemental fire. And when we

arrived here at about midnight, the whole roof was on fire and

the whole thing was going.

My parents actually lived catty-corner across the street from

Founders Hall. And at that time my mom was pregnant with

me. So there I was present at the fire but not really present.

When he did get home, I believe I remember him saying, he

caught somebody, he caught a typewriter that somebody tossed

to him out of one of the windows, when they could still get to,

before they had to leave the building.

It was very traumatic, most people thought that would be the

end of the college.

05:49- NARRATION

NOAH CLOONAN

FADE TO BLACK

The early 1950s brought many hardships on the college. But

in this decade, athletics started to make a difference at

Ashland College. The place it all started… a small football field

off of King Road.

06:04- SEGMENT #2

DR. GLENN CLAYTON

BOB BROWNSON JR.,

CLASS OF 1969, SON OF

BOB BROWNSON

DR. FRED MARTINELLI

BOB BROWNSON JR.

We ran into all kinds of problems, we had first of all, a very

serious financial problem.

But he walked into Ashland College and there wasn’t a lot of

hope there. Where Clark and Kilhefner are now, that was the

stands for the football field, it was Redwood Stadium.

Kilhefner was the home side and Clark was the was the visitors

side. It was kind of sunken down low, as it is now.

You were right down on the people and it had a tree that grew

up on the 50 yard line, a big tree that shaded you in the fall

when the sun was shining.

The one side where Clark Hall is that was already mud. And

there would be straw placed in there then they would paint

lines right over the straw. It was, it was very small college

atmosphere, very rudimentary in its approach.

DR. FRED MARTINELLI

07:06- BOB BROWNSON

JR.

DR. FRED MARTINELLI

MARK McCLINTOCK,

CLASS OF 1969, LIFELONG

FAN

BOB BROWNSON JR.

MARK McCLINTOCK

FADE TO BLACK

NIK DONGES

MARK McCLINTOCK

First game we played against College of Wooster, they got off

their bus, got straight across the line, walked up and down the

field throwing rocks off the field.

And the old gym set up a little bit higher on the field, or above

the field, and that’s where the locker rooms were. The grayness

and the dankness and the musty smells, dripping water. It

wasn’t a very nice facility, but for the times it wasn’t that bad.

Ashland was not a place where athletes or coaches wanted to

go. The biggest transition took place in that era from about

1955-56 where Ashland athletics really grew for a lot of

reasons there.

When Dr. Clayton assumed the presidency in 1948, that was

probably the beginning of it, because then in 1954 he was able

to hire Bob Brownson who definitely improved the football

program immediately. His first season was undefeated with the

Hungry Hounds.

Yeah my dad probably loved I would say maybe family first

but maybe it was his dogs. And he loved to hunt. Dad had a

way of nicknaming and a way of connecting that way so he

decided that they were the Hungry Hounds and I can’t tell you

how he came upon that and how he hit that. But then the team

adopted that and when they would tackle an opponent and get

them on the ground they would growl in their face. And back

in the early 50s there were no faceguards, then it was a single

bar and even at one point the growling was so well known that

before the game started the referees came into the Ashland

College locker room and said we want you to know if there is

any growling we’re going to penalize you. It would be, it

would be a personal misconduct foul, it’s going to be fifteen

yards. So the word was out that that was intimidation, really

we would call it intimidation now. That was the Hungry

Hounds.

And that kind of convinced the student population and the

community and the athletes themselves that Ashland wanted to

compete, we wanted to win.

I think as far as his commitment to Ashland and it’s athletic

program, he wanted to make sure that things were done up to

the best that they could possibly be done.

It was a summer commencement, I went to it and the speaker

10:10- DR. MARK

HAMILTON

DR. GLENN CLAYTON

MARK McCLINTOCK

BOB BROWNSON JR.

JOHN ELLENWOOD,

COACH, 2009-PRESENT

MARK McCLINTOCK

DARLA PLICE,

BASKETBALL, 1975-1978

12:04- MARK McCLINTOCK

was Bob Brownson, the first time I had any real contact with

him or heard him speak or anything like that. And one of the

things he spoke about was the Ashland difference, our

educational philosophy. A little different than most schools,

there was great emphasis on the individual. And I just felt that

that was a place where the college didn’t just accept you as a

student and leave you to your own devices, that they maybe

cared about how you did.

And about as early as I can remember my Dad began taking

me to Ashland College games. I think the first ones I

remember was when I was about age six going to Redwood

Stadium and watching coach Martinelli which happened to be

his first year, begin to coach the Eagles’ teams. I grew up then

on the 48-yard line of the football games with reserved seats

right in front of Dr. and Mrs. Clayton.

The school very early on in the early 50s began to become

more interested in athletics. I suppose I had something to do

with that, but so did George Donges and so did Bob Brownson

when he came, and so has Fred Martinelli.

Bob Stokes came along in 1958, that was the first time we had

separate coaches for football, men’s basketball and baseball.

That was sort of, open the modern era, and Stokes was able to

do the same thing that Bob Brownson did in football. We had a

team in 1961-62 that went to the national tournament, NAIA.

With Larry Auger and Ritzhout and Johnson. I watched all

those games from the balcony. And that put Ashland College

on the map.

He was the first real successful basketball coach in the early

60s, late 50s. And he kind of started the tradition of our

basketball program and got it off the ground. After him it was

obviously Bill Musselman who took the program to a different

level and had great success.

Bill Musselman was basketball coach but he definitely was

also a showman and promoter of the program.

Man that was so exciting to get to come to a packed gym and

see the ball handling routines that they did and their pregame

warm-up.

They would play Sweet Georgia Brown… And it was a whole

show, and it was a whole evening of glitz. There were even

RALPH TOMASSI

MARK McCLINTOCK

RALPH TOMASSI,

AUTHOR/ADMIN-

ISTRATOR, 1973-2015

DR. FRED MARTINELLI

NIK DONGES

FADE TO BLACK

examples of students that stayed for the pregame and then left.

We had five full pages in Sports Illustrated just on our men’s

basketball team, five full pages.

The Sports Information Director at the time Chuck Mistovich

probably had a very easy job because it wasn’t hard to promote

our basketball team. Our men’s basketball team got more

attention than any other athletic program on campus.

We really started to, for lack of a better term, roll in athletics

when we got all of those great coaches and they attracted, you

know great coaches attract great people.

There are three undefeated teams, three teams that have gone

undefeated from beginning to end. The ‘54 team, the ‘67 team,

the 1972 team. Now the 1972 was highly, the most highly rated

team we’ve had in our history.

You saw the growth and that was significant in what we were

doing and working towards.

13:32- NARRATION

NOAH CLOONAN

FADE TO BLACK

The first step towards success in the early years was acquiring

the right coaches necessary to be successful. In order for the

coaches to attract the right athletes, they needed the right

facilitates. On the other side of King Road is where

construction began.

13:48- SEGMENT #3

DR. DAN O’ROURKE

DR. FRED MARTINELLI

VOICE OF RICHARD D.

LEIDY

14:29- DR. FRED

Then you have the baby boom start right after that and you

realize that those kids born in 1946 became eighteen in 1964

and they caused much of the social change of the 60s.

Glenn Clayton was unbelievably the architect of our athletic

program.

During the 29 years that Dr. Clayton continued as president of

the college, 31 new buildings were added to the campus

complex. Student enrollment grew to nearly 5,000. Is it any

wonder that people refer to Ashland as the college that Clayton

built.

When we built the physical education center. We built the

MARTINELLI

MARK McCLINTOCK

DR. FRED MARTINELLI

FADE TO BLACK

physical education center from bonded indebtedness that was

tied in with Clark and Kilhefners hall. When you take a look at

the broad aspect of it, it was an unbelievable facility.

Once we got the new gym built up in 1967 and we started to

win and play some nationally acclaimed teams, that gym back

then held almost 3,000 people and there were times we filled it

up.

Sarver Field, we built a track, which we later hosted two

national, we hosted two national track meets, 1969 and 1971.

Also when we were building the physical education center we

built Conard Field House and that was sort of an afterthought

that we built for 20,000 dollars. Every Friday night we had

track meets, home track meets in the winter, just like we would

have home basketball games. There would be a lot of people

that would attend. So those were, at that time the facilities

really gave us a shot in the arm.

15:51- NARRATION

NOAH CLOONAN

FADE TO BLACK

In those early years, men’s athletics was the main focus. But in

the 1960s, even before Title IX was born, women at Ashland

College were making a difference and an impact for girls in

sports.

16:04- SEGMENT #4

DR. ELLA SHANNON

DR. CAROL MERTLER,

Ph.D., ADMINISTRATOR/

COACH, 1966-1976

16:40- DR. ELLA

SHANNON, Ph.D.,

ADMINISTRATOR/

COACH, 1965-1998

DR. CAROL MERTLER

We did have what I would call etra-mural competitions. And

so I can remember playing basketball against Oberlin or

Wooster.

We’d get our contract and it was for teaching, we would get a

full load of twelve hours to teach so we were really hired for

teachers. If we wanted to coach we would coach, if we didn’t

want to coach, we didn’t have to. That was not part of our

salary or part of our contract. So it was our desire to do that,

and if we wanted to that was fine, and we did, we wanted to.

All of us, women that coached, travelled, took our teams to all

the different places, we used our own money, our own

vehicles, we just did that, that was what we did.

The men were, they were all involved and organized and they

belonged to a conference and they were out recruiting, and we

DR. ELLA SHANNON

DR. ELLA SHANNON,

HISTORICAL FOOTAGE

DR. ELLA SHANNON

DR. DAN O’ROURKE

DARLA PLICE

DR. ELLA SHANNON

19:00- DR. CAROL

MERTLER

DARLA PLICE

didn’t have scholarships. So we just took whoever came on

campus and they became our teams, we would hold a tryout

and those that tried out and made it well that’s who we had.

We had, well they had intramurals allowed, but very little was

done with intramural money. He began to hire women, Fred

Martinelli did, because he did see, he had a vision too, not as

strong as all of ours probably. And then Carol Mertler came

from Muskingum College and it was her idea to use the

intramural money to develop beyond extramural program.

It was from this standard that I developed convictions early on,

that all human beings should have equal opportunities for the

good things of life, the things that life has to offer. Since all

wish for themselves the good things of life, sport is one of

those good things in life that ought not be denied another on

any basis of discrimination.

My motivation was to do something to open the doors to girls

and women towards scholarships in college universities for

sporting ability.

Title IX brought tens of thousands of young women into the

collegiate environment because there was a time when there

were gold medalists in swimming and some sports who

couldn’t get college scholarships cause there were not athletic

opportunities for them. 1972 with Title IX, that opened up a

huge avenue for the opportunity for young women. Leaders in

the business industry and so forth came out of that movement

and many of them got to go to college because of the

opportunity of sports scholarships.

In the era that I played in, yanno women’s athletics, it was

right at the beginning of Title IX.

We did fight for Title IX and Title IX helped a lot because

Title IX then opened the opportunity.

And it probably wasn’t until ‘78, almost ‘80, 1980, that the

government came out with what they meant by equal

opportunities. Because everybody was wondering, do they

have equal numbers to participate? Do they have to have equal

number of sports? Do they have to have equal salaries?

Everybody was wondering what did Title IX mean.

Dr. Carol Mertler and Dr. Ruth Jones, she, they both together

just really were at the cutting edge in that time and wanting to

SUE RAMSEY, COACH,

1995-2015

DR. ELLA SHANNON

DR. CAROL MERTLER

DARLA PLICE

DR. ELLA SHANNON

SUE RAMSEY

21:53- DARLA PLICE

DR. CAROL MERTLER

DR. ELLA SHANNON

promote women’s athletics.

A lot of respect for what the program here and what those

pioneers the Ella Shannons and the Carol Mertlers were doing

to promote women’s sports at Ashland University and then I

played against Darla Plice so I mean an All-American and well

deserved All-American, didn’t matter what level. But a heck of

an athlete and so it was, it was a lot of respect for what

Ashland brought.

Ashland really was a leader, there was no getting around it.

During the 70s, 80s, 90s, in the advancement of women’s

athletics.

I think we worked hard at it, I think we had a lot of kids from

the east that were good athletes. They had a big physical

education program which lended itself to having good sport

teams. So yes I do think we were way ahead.

It was yanno it was like at the beginning of women’s athletics

again in terms of the boom of the explosion of women’s sports

and so we were excited. Just the thrill to be able to have these

experiences, to travel places.

All the things that you put into it, the travel, expenses and the

idea you had that girls and women really wanted, that girls that

wanted opportunities were given opportunities. So those were

highlights for me, like hey, we did do something right.

There’s a constant need for attention to it, I think when it came

into law in 1972 that some tremendous things came from it and

women’s athletics was one of those things that benefited

greatly from it and probably because it had the biggest gap in

inequality with our male counterparts. The best part is it’s

evolved more from being a law to being do this because it’s the

right thing to do, not because it’s a law. Because male or

female deserve the opportunities to participate and then the

support to be successful.

We were all under the AIAW which was…

Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women. And that

was the organization that would be comparable to the NCAA.

In regards that they made up rules for competition and they ran

championships.

1976, the very first qualifying women’s college basketball

DARLA PLICE

DR. ELLA SHANNON

DARLA PLICE

FADE TO BLACK

championship.

So sixteen teams from around the country came, came here,

and it was a huge thing, a huge event. The gym was packed

with people from all over.

That was quite an event.

It was the pinnacle, yanno of what happened here during those

times. It was a real privilege for Ashland to be able to host it.

22:35- NARRATION

NOAH CLOONAN

FADE TO BLACK

During the 1970s, with the inclusion of women’s sports and

recent success of the Musselman and Martinelli years, athletics

as a whole reached a pinnacle for that era. The rejoicing of

those times was short lived due to the impact the 70s had on all

colleges and universities, which in turn affected athletics.

22:56- SEGMENT #5

DR. DAN O’ROURKE

RALPH TOMASSI

DR. FRED MARTINELLI

22:37- RALPH TOMASSI

DR. GLENN CLAYTON

VOICE OF RICHARD D.

LEIDY

DR. ELLA SHANNON

During the ‘60s, one of the ways that people could avoid the

draft was to go to college.

President Nixon went to a voluntary draft, and so by the time I

got to college in ‘73 it was a voluntary draft. We experienced a

tremendous decrease in enrollment and goes along with that

was a tremendous financial challenge because we’re tuition

driven and we probably always will be.

Our enrollment dropped from about twenty-four, twenty-five

hundred, down to under a thousand, down to under a thousand,

we dropped sports.

I would say 1973 until maybe 1984, that’s a long period of

time, ‘85, were the worst financial times in the history of this

school.

And we balanced a budget in the last two years. When I left

here, I felt it was under control, but there were some problems,

perhaps it was the new man coming in, I don’t know what it

was. But for a year and a half it was pretty chaotic after that.

Dr. Clayton retired from the presidency in June 1977.

He really supported all athletics.

RALPH TOMASSI

DR. DUNCAN JAMIESON

RALPH TOMASSI

DR. DUNCAN JAMIESON

RALPH TOMASSI

DR. DUNCAN JAMIESON

DR. MARK HAMILTON

26:11- DR. DUNCAN

JAMIESON

DR. MARK HAMILTON

FADE TO BLACK

That man had an impact here that perpetuates, and if you were

around him, you were a better person. You spoke better, you

acted better, you thought better. And he had that impact on this

entire campus. This university would be a far different place if

he hadn’t been here for all those years.

Joe Shultz becomes president in 1979.

He was instrumental in giving us hope, yanno he was a guy

that was an incurable optimist and had a lot of enthusiasm at a

time when things were at their lowest.

The other thing that Joe got involved with was expanding the

off campus sites.

At a time when there was tens of thousands of Ashland College

alumni to change the name of the school to Ashland

University. May first, 1989 we officially did that. He took a lot

of, a lot of heat for that. But he did it and then what happened,

everybody else followed us. He should get a lot of credit for if

not saving the institution, certainly digging it out of a very

deep hole.

So Joe and the athletic director which would have been Fred

Martinelli, football coach at the time, determined that to raise

visibility the best thing to do would be to go Division II.

Division II was only in existence a couple of years before that

and not many schools were Division II. In the 1980s nobody

knew what Division II was, part of the problem was Division II

itself didn’t know who they were. There had been only three

schools in Division II in Ohio, they were Central State and

Wright State and Ashland.

Division I, Division IA, Division II, all of those can give

scholarships, Division III can’t give scholarships so it’s kind of

tough to get quality athletes if you will.

Secondly, because Ashland had gotten very good in small

college sports and most of the schools that were in the Division

III realm did not want to play Ashland. So Ashland said we’ve

got to find a place where we can play, we’ve got to find a place

where we can market ourselves, and I believe that Joe Shultz

made that decision as president along with Fred Martinelli as

athletic director, and it was a very smart move and very

appropriate for Ashland to do at that time.

26:53- NARRATION

NOAH CLOONAN

FADE TO BLACK

During that time, Ashland athletics were built up and found

success in many ways. Once the monumental move to Division

II took place in 1979, athletics turned the page into the new

era. Before the success of that era could be reached, one

particular athletic program had a major crisis on its hands.

27:13- SEGMENT #6

DR. MARK HAMILTON

HISTORICAL FOOTAGE

28:11- AL KING,

SID/ATHLETIC DIRECTOR,

1993-PRESENT

DR. MARK HAMILTON

JOHN ELLENWOOD

DR. MARK HAMILTON

And I remember we hired Keith Dambrot and Keith Dambrot

had been brought in here as a young ambitious coach. And so

he came here in ‘91 and brought in a number of young athletes

with him. To my observation, athletes were being brought in

primarily as athletes. I know that there were some who were

failing many classes and not achieving academic success.

There’s been a lot of controversy surrounding the Ashland

University Eagles basketball program this season. Surprisingly,

the Eagle cagers still continue to shine, especially when they

play in a certain building on King Road. That building, Charles

Kates Gymnasium. The Eagles try to make it 41 in a row at

home as they gear up for their third straight NCAA tournament

berth. Eagle basketball action coming up next right here on

TV-2 Sports.

I was working at IUP at that time back in Indiana Pennsylvania

and Ashland was winning like crazy and one of the guys, one

of the assistant athletic directors I was working with had

worked here as a track coach and as an assistant football coach,

and I said “man Ashland is really winning” and he goes “I tell

you what, they better win it all this year cause he said the

NCAA’s coming.”

There were problems, there were discipline problems, there

were problems outside of campus, and to the best of my

understanding it was a team that though they were athletically

magnificent and most of us loved the style of balls that the

Dambrot teams played.

They won a lot of games, got up to number one in the country

and you can’t argue with his record…

But… at what cost. And I believe that much of it was done at

the cost of the integrity of the program. The program declined

quite rapidly as a result of coach Dambrot’s leaving.

AL KING

FADE TO BLACK

For the coaches that came in the aftermath of that it was hard,

the recruiting was hard to build the confidence back up. It’s

taken three or four coaches to get through that and build that

sense of trust with our fans, with our alumni. And actually the

high school coaches in the state. In those early years it was

hard, it just didn’t get turned around in a year or two, you’re

talking five, six, seven years.

29:32- NARRATION

NOAH CLOONAN

FADE TO BLACK

In today’s world of Ashland athletics, success is witnessed

everyday, but the vision for success was first born in the

1990s... with the athletic directors.

29:43- SEGMENT #7

AL KING

30:23- SUE RAMSEY

DR. MARK HAMILTON

AL KING

JOHN ELLENWOOD

Bill Weidner was here three years I think but he had a

background Ohio State, SMU, some places like that. He started

that, made some hires that were very very good during that

time. Really started to change the culture. Bill Goldring came

in here as the athletic director, was here 16 years, continued

that, made some great hires. But between those two guys they

hired a John Schaly in baseball, Sheilah Gulas in softball, Lee

Owens in football, so there’s just three examples, Jud Logan in

track and field. So that starts that. Bill did a lot too to upgrade

facilities, upgrade programming so we’d have more support,

better coaches. More staffs with more full-time people so that

way student athletes are taken care of better.

With Bill Goldring as our athletic director, his vision was he

wanted success and to provide opportunities for success across

the board.

And to do that, not just with one or two sports, but to do that

across the board. And so Bill wanted to see success in every

sport.

When I first came here, it was just that feeling of ehh two or

three sports that’s good enough. We changed that, and once a

couple started, everybody else in the department said I don’t

want to be left behind, I want to win like they are.

Yanno there’s a level of expectation based upon the success of

all the athletic programs. An expectation to keep up with all

the other teams here, there’s just such a great athletic tradition

DR. MARK HAMILTON

MARK McCLINTOCK

AL KING

DR. MARK HAMILTON

32:14- SUE RAMSEY

DR. MARK HAMILTON

here.

Bill had an idea of how to achieve success and part of that was

to drive success on the conference and national level, to put

Ashland on the map.

Once you win on the national level like that, that helps get the

word out, it makes recruiting a little easier. People associate

winning with Ashland or they know about Ashland.

I think the belief really changed, the culture changed, and it’s

hard to change a culture, it really is. But it changed I think with

people who came in here and said, okay we’re going to raise

the bar, we’re going to find a way to do things, we’re gonna

use what Ashland’s always said that accent on the individual

and we’re gonna coach them as hard as we can but we’re

gonna get good individuals in here and we’re gonna coach

them as hard as we can and we’re gonna get better. Bill was a

big believer in that we are good enough to go out there and

play against anybody. That’s the one thing I think he really

brought.

Over a sixteen year period Bill was one of the most if not the

most successful Division II athletic director in the nation,

taking Ashland from a regionally successful athletic program

to a nationally successful program.

It was one of those pivotal points in establishing the women’s

basketball program here, overall women’s program, that

needed to take place. And I really had one of those ah-ha

moments about core values and about vision for a program and

being able to not only articulate that but to make sure the

things that I did fell in line with what those core values were.

So my recruiting, my hiring, all that needed to mesh together

with what we stood for. None of that would have worked

unless I had the support of Bill Goldring, my athletic director,

and that was the beautiful piece. He and I sat down after the

season and I’ll never forget he looked at me and said what are

we going to do to turn this ship around, what are we going to

do to right the path and get this back on track.

The vision has been the same, we’ve wanted people who have

an Ohio history, we’ve wanted people who had a high view of

academics. We wanted people who had personal integrity,

people who had a love for Division II. And also, maybe most

of all, were a good fit to Ashland University, understood what

Ashland wanted to be all about. And lo and behold many of us

FADE TO BLACK

began to realize this is what we needed, that Al King was the

perfect successor to Bill Goldring. He had seen where it had

come from, he had worked closely with Bill, but Al also had an

eye on details. And what Al did was develop the internal

structure around himself particularly, a structure that has given

support to all of our coaches, to build the program in the areas

that it needed.

34:08- NARRATION

NOAH CLOONAN

FADE TO BLACK

Over the years, Ashland has bred hundreds of All Americans

and individual athletes who have raised a national

championship trophy, but those athletes had never won a team

national championship. Ninety-three years after the birth of

Ashland athletics, the wait was over.

34:24- SEGMENT #8

DR. ELLA SHANNON

34:27- DR. MARK

HAMILTON

SUE RAMSEY

KARI PICKENS,

PLAYER/COACH, 2012-

PRESENT

DR. MARK HAMILTON

Ashland women’s basketball team.

In 2013, I was in San Antonio, I had been down there the year

before when we lost the national championship in overtime.

That we had fallen short the year before in overtime in a hard

fought, hard fought battle. We’re able to focus and come back

and stay on task with the unfinished business that we had and

to be able to bring Ashland University it’s first national

championship.

After going back the second time, we were on a business trip.

Yano the first time around it was more like wow what an

experience, there were all of these different things that we can

do, they took us on a river boat tour, all of these things. And

the second year we were all like we don’t even care, about the

river boat tour, we are here to win a national championship and

I think that mindset shift definitely helped us stay focused and

really locked in the whole time. Our goal was to come home

with a national championship and I’m thankful we were able

to.

There had never been a moment like that, to see an Eagle team

win a national championship, a team championship. I know

that we’ve won many individual championships in track and

field and wrestling, in swimming. But there was something

special and new to see a team sport win a national

championship.

DR. ELLA SHANNON

DR. MARK HAMILTON

FADE TO BLACK

Everything that we had done all those years, all women that

really believed strong to get from AIW, to NCAA and to

finances and to support, I felt like okay, all those things we did,

it was worth it.

And certainly it was also wonderful to celebrate the second

national championship a few years later with Robin Fralick and

her team.

36:22- NARRATION

NOAH CLOONAN

FADE TO BLACK

Throughout the 100 years of Ashland Athletics, there have

been a number of reasons as to why the athletic program has

become so successful. But first you have to understand that it

wasn’t always that way. There have been hardships, times of

trouble and great distraught. But the people and the community

of Ashland have always been there to carry each other through

those difficult times. After the people who have played those

games, wrestled those matches, swam those meets and

dominated those tournaments... you will find two outlying

reasons that can be credited to the success of Ashland

University athletics… the culture and the coaches.

37:03- SEGMENT #9

KARI PICKENS

AL KING

DR. MARK HAMILTON

We’ve had exceptional athletes in every sport, and that’s really

really special. It’s not just one program that is successful, our

entire athletic program has had All Americans, national

champions in every single category.

Don’t overlook the athletes, because you can talk about the

coaching you have and everything like that, you still need

student athletes who can play. So you have a Billy Cundiff in

football, Shaun Robbins in track and field, Jamie Minnich

McDaniel in swimming. Those are players and student athletes

who can compete on a national level. Adam Shaheen now in

football. Those players came here and had belief in our system

and as they started coming here, more student-athletes who

were a higher level came.

In my personal opinion the best player to have ever played here

was a guy who in Ashland College history is a little bit

obscure. But it was a guy who was actually my age from

DR. FRED MARTINELLI

39:25- AL KING

Dayton Dunbar who played here at Ashland from ‘71 and I

think through ‘74, but a guy by the name Billy Higgins was an

unbelievable six-two, six-three guard. He went on and played

in the old ABA for the Virginia Squires. Higgins was an

unbelievable player, now there had been many many good

ones, including Lebron Gladden who in the 1980s established

the point scoring record here at the university who was a

tremendous player.

The GLIAC is the best conference in the country. There’s no

school in the GLIAC that has a college football Hall of Fame

player, now there are several coaches, but no players. Bill is

the first one. Bill played from 1990 to 94. Bill had 368 tackles.

Now if you count the sacks, 71 sacks as a part of that. I mean

that’s a stat that’s way out of, way out of sight. Had great

strength, agility, the guys on the sideline used to watch, look at

him look at him because he was just all over, all over the field.

And the defenses, the offenses, the opponents, had to try to run

away from him.

Jamie Minnich McDaniel in swimming. She was a native of

Ashland, went to the Division I level and was actually an All-

American in Division I at Tennessee, so that tells you how

good she was in swimming. But she came back to Ashland for

her last two years and we knew when we got her there’s some

things she could do that nobody else could do. And Jamie was

tall and lean and when she would go up on the blocks to swim

she would whistle, and you’d see the kids around her say

“wow what about this,” this is really… she would wear the

goggles. There’s kids that would say “I don’t want to swim

against her” there’s other kids even on her relay said to me,

“I’m scared to mess up cause I’m on the same relay with

Jamie.” But she was so good and in those years we had a

couple of years where we hosted swimming and diving

nationals over in Canton which was really neat so our fans

could come to that and I’ll always remember this. The year that

she won and set national records in the 50 and the 100

freestyle, she’s going through and she’s, I think I can’t

remember which one, it might have been the 100. But she

made the turn to come back for the last lap coming back and

you could, the guy who was doing the PA had done swimming

PA for a longtime and he had kept saying she's ahead of record

pace, say for a while she’s on pace, she’s ahead of the NCAA

record pace. And she made the turn coming back, I could

always remember him saying okay bring her home for a

national championship and for a record. And it was unreal to

KARI PICKENS

DR. MARK HAMILTON

42:33- KARI PICKENS

SUE RAMSEY

DR. FRED MARTINELLI

DR. GLENN CLAYTON

see that and see people stand. This is swimming, you know

people talk about football and basketball all the time, but this

was swimming, and it was just such a neat thing to see. She

held that record for more than ten years. But to see that

excitement, the president of the university came over to watch

that, parents, people would just say wow that’s how good

Ashland is now that they can host this event and you have

somebody that can win a national championship and be a

national title contender and we’re in the top ten in the country

as a team.

One young woman in particular, Julie Widdman, she graduated

with me. She was a senior, a senior swimmer, she was like a

four-time All American and I’m pretty sure she won a national

championship.

But I went out there particularly to watch Myles run the 400

meter GLIAC championship race, I wasn’t disappointed. I’m

sitting there on the last curve and here comes Myles around the

track, and he’s got a two second lead on the next, second-place

person. I’m sitting there with coach Martinelli, who had been

at Ashland for years and years and we watched Myles run and

we watch him finish that race. And we watch him complete the

400 meters in forty-five five, more than two seconds ahead of

the second place runner in the GLIAC, and I think both of our

jaws dropped. We turned to each other in awe, I was awed by

it, I was shocked by it, but most of all I was just really really

impressed. And I thought, I had never seen anything like this, I

had never seen a world class runner run like that live and in

person and to think it was happening here at Ashland

University.

We’ve had so many exceptional athletes in every single sport,

that’s really cool, that’s an athletic department that I want to be

a part of because it’s not just one sport, it’s everyone’s so

invested.

Yanno when you look at what makes athletic programs

successful, and it does go back to the people it goes back to

tradition.

Ashland has a tradition of excellence. We pursued excellence

when we didn’t have anything, but we pursued it.

What the strongpoints of Ashland College were, and to me

they seem to add up to a relatively small but very friendly

campus, a place where most people knew everybody else and

DR. DAN O’ROURKE

DR. MARK HAMILTON

44:08- RALPH TOMASSI

AL KING

JOHN ELLENWOOD

KARI PICKENS

SUE RAMSEY

AL KING

where the professors would go out of their way to help a

student and if necessary stay right with them. And to me this

was very important.

In any given class you know that you have half a dozen

athletes. Because there are so many students on this campus

but there are so many different kinds of and the fact is they

blend in. Yanno until you find it you don’t see the six foot

eight athlete who weighs 300 pounds but you see the lacrosse

player and the swimmer and the tennis player and the fact of

the matter is that these students blend in, they’re like everyone

else.

We have been very intentional in the last twenty years of hiring

coaches who understand the importance of academics. They

serve greatly in the capacity of supporting the academic

mission of the university.

Accent on the individual has to be something we live.

I think what our coaches have done a really nice job of is

identifying what kind of student athlete can succeed here.

We want to find guys that have a future, that want a future, and

academically they have to be driven.

It is a special type of student-athlete who needs to be willing to

come here, to be willing to put in the amount of work that’s

expected, to be able to perform well in the classroom, to be

able to serve in the community. All of those different things

that Ashland has expectations for, we want to have champions

on the court but it’s champions in every avenue of their life

and I think that’s what sets Ashland apart.

I am most grateful I would say first and foremost for what

Ashland University stands for. And for the core values of faith

and of belief in people and putting a high price tag on that

relationship piece and providing an environment where I could

actually help my young ladies grow in all areas of their life.

And that’s what people outside say to me, they say you’ve

done a very good job of building your culture. You know what

the expectations are, your kids know what they are, the

coaches and staff know what it is. So I guess it’s that

expectation, but everybody can say that, you’ve gotta try to

raise that bar and do it and we’ve been able to do it and not

only do it but keep it going.

SUE RAMSEY

KARI PICKENS

JOHN ELLENWOOD

46:28- SUE RAMSEY

KARI PICKENS

JOHN ELLENWOOD

RALPH TOMASSI

BOB BROWNSON JR.

DR. CAROL MERTLER

KARI PICKENS

SUE RAMSEY

I think the biggest compliment I ever got really was from fans

that said yanno when we watch your team play we’d be proud

to have any one of those young ladies be our daughter.

Ashland University and Ashland, the city of Ashland, like they

go hand in hand, and I think that’s also part of what makes it so

special, is that we have a true community and people want to

be a part of that.

I think it’s just different, there’s a tighter knit, more intimate

relationship with people on this campus then there is anywhere

else. You see people in grocery stores, yanno what I mean, it’s

like something you’d see in a Hallmark show. Yanno so it’s

neat to be around people that are authentic and I think that’s

something that Ashland has more than anywhere else.

There’s a lot of people across campus that are supportive, and

then also the alumni that are out there and then those that fill

the seats, that love love their sports and love what they see

portrayed for us on the court.

I say it before every home game in my head. I can’t imagine a

person who wouldn’t want to play at this university and play in

front of the crowd and the support that we have.

I’ve been in some other athletic departments that are really

really good, but this is elite here. And that’s something that I

think you can see at Ashland just from walking around here.

It's just people, people want to be a part of this.

How did we get from being mediocre to really good, I think we

hired great coaches, and we continue to hire great coaches.

That was, I think maybe his major contribution to Ashland

athletics was Fred Martinelli.

Fred was good at hiring good people, and we continued with

that, Ella and I continued with that.

I think that our athletic directors have done a really good job of

hiring exceptional coaches.

And then when you look at the longevity of some of the

coaches that are here and had opportunities to go other places

perhaps but those people having bought into what Ashland

stands for.

JOHN ELLENWOOD

RALPH TOMASSI

DR. MARK HAMILTON

48:29- KARI PICKENS

RALPH TOMASSI

MARK McCLINTOCK

JOHN ELLENWOOD

RALPH TOMASSI

MARK McCLINTOCK

JOHN ELLENWOOD

MARK McCLINTOCK

SUE RAMSEY

I mean there’s been some stable coaches, yanno when you look

at different programs here and you look at the stability with the

coaching staffs and the success of those coaching staffs, there’s

not many Division I programs that have the coaching staffs

that we have, there’s very few that have the level of coaching

staff that we have here.

Look at our coaching staffs, I mean these people are nationally

known, at Ashland, Ashland Ohio.

I think the success of the hires over the last 20 some years has

been the working relationship and the vision that Bill Goldring

and Al King have had for the institution.

Coaching opportunities don’t open up all the time, and

especially at Ashland, the best coaches, like they’re here for a

while. I mean look at Jud Logan, John Schaly, Sheilah Gulas

was here, Sue Ramsey, twenty plus years.

This group we have in here today reminds me a lot of the

group we brought in in the 1960s. Tremendous coaches that

started here in many cases, went onto national prominence at

larger universities and who were people of integrity, worked

hard, were commited, were loyal and had great success at this

level.

Looking back, we’ve had three football coaches in a sixty year

period, that says something.

Football has been stable, tradition.

Dr. Fred Martinelli, who was here for 40 years, 35 as a Hall of

Fame football coach.

Coach Owens fifteen years, five of the years we’ve had NCAA

playoff attempts.

Track and field with Jud and just what they’ve accomplished,

well he’s been here a long time. He’s a great coach, maybe the

best coach that we’ve ever had here.

We have national championships in track, very recently we

have a great track program here.

Both in the indoor and the outdoor, two national

championships. And knowing how many times he was so close

to it goes back to because he’s one of those many coaches here

MARK McCLINTOCK

JOHN ELLENWOOD

50:18- MARK McCLINTOCK

JOHN ELLENWOOD

KARI PICKENS

JOHN ELLENWOOD

RALPH TOMASSI

KARI PICKENS

51:24- RALPH TOMASSI

that does it the right way.

In baseball, coach Donges was able to put together some great

teams in the ‘50s, Lou Markle in the 1970s and of course John

Schaly has enabled us to go to post NCAA postseason play 16

of the last 22 years.

Baseball with John Schaly it's just you go down the list and

there’s tremendous coaches.

We’ve just been the dominant team in Division II baseball in

Ohio, there’s no question about it. In basketball after Stokes

got the ball rolling Bill Musselman came in and we rose to

national prominence there. With coach Ellenwood we’ve been

to the NCAA postseason twice now.

With women’s basketball with Sue. And I think that’s, you

have to look at the stability that has been created with great

coaches and you end up having a lot of success as a result.

And then I think our coaching staffs across the board have

done a great job of getting the Ashland fit.

To be a great coach here you have to bring in the right student

athlete, the right assistant coaches, you have to know how to

work with other people on campus. And that’s something that I

think we have here better than anywhere else.

People of integrity, that work hard, that are loyal, that are

committed to the mission of the school, that are committed to

the individual student athletes.

I think that’s why we’ve been able to be so successful is

because one we’ve got great coaches and two they go and get

the Ashland fit kids that we need.

So it will always be, in my opinion, attracting and retaining

great coaches and then they’ll attract great student athletes and

then you’re gonna have great programs. We’ve been able to do

that, it’s not easily done. I think Ashland is a-typical in that for

a small college in the midwest to be able to attract the kind of

national figures. Fred Martinelli, John Schaly, these are

nationally known people. Jud Logan, Sue Ramsey, you can go

on and on. Robin Fralick, Bowling Green. Joe Gottfried was at

Southern Indiana. I’m throwing names out, Bill Musselman.

These are nationally known figures that coached here, that had

an impact here. That’s how you do it and from my perspective

FADE TO BLACK

the guy we have now, Lee Owens, the coaching staff we have

across the board, I didn’t mention a lot of them, John

Ellenwood, there’s so many good ones. This is one of the

greatest coaching staffs maybe in the country small college and

we had that in the ‘60s and much of the ‘70s. That’s how you

do it. We must be pretty good, we must be a pretty good place

to live and learn because these kids will come in and they’re

able to have that total experience beyond athletics. But you

know athletics, we don’t need to apologize for athletics, many

times that’s the reason they’re coming here, but they sit in

those chemistry classes, the business classes, the art classes

and oftentimes they don’t tool, they’re involved in athletics

isn’t four years, but they become an Ashland alum. And if they

had a good experience, if people cared, if they were given a

good chance, if we were fair to them, they’ll be great alumni.

53:24-56:44- TITLE

SEQUENCE

56:45- 57:04- CREDITS

FADE ALL THE WAY OUT

APPENDIX B

A LIST OF ASHLAND UNIVERSITY PRESIDENTS AND ATHLETIC DIRECTORS

List of Ashland College/University Presidents

Dr. Samuel S. Garst (1894)

Dr. J. Allen Miller (1894-1896, 1899-1906)

Dr. John L. Gillin (1907-1911)

Dr. William D. Furry (1911-1919)

Dr. Edwin E. Jacobs (1919-1935)

Dr. Charles L. Anspach (1935-1939)

Dr. E. Glenn Mason (1939-1945)

Dr. Raymond W. Bixler (1945-1948)

Dr. Glenn L. Clayton (1948-1977)

Dr. Arthur Schultz (1977-1979)

Dr. Joseph R. Shultz (1979-1992)

Dr. G. William Benz (1993-2006)

Dr. Frederick J. Finks (2006-2014)

Dr. Carlos Campo (2015-Present)

List of Ashland College/University Athletic Directors

George Donges (1949)

Robert Brownson (1959-1971)

Bob Stokes (1971-1975)

Fred Martinelli (1975-1991)- He was a Division Director beginning in 1967 who the AD

reported to.

Al Platt (1991-1995)

William Weidner (1995-1998)

Bill Goldring (1998-2014)

Al King (2014-present)

APPENDIX C

THE LETTER SENT TO VARSITY ALUMNI

Telling the Story of Ashland Athletics

Hello,

You are receiving this email because of your involvement in varsity athletics at Ashland

College/University and I NEED YOUR HELP. My name is Zachary Read and I am a senior at

Ashland University. I am a double major in Digital Media Production and Digital Media

Journalism as well as a member of the Honors Program.

I am currently working on my senior capstone project for the Honors Program in which I am

creating a documentary on the history of Ashland College/University athletics. The main

question I am trying to answer is "Why has Ashland University been so successful over the

years?" My goal is to shoot for at least a 30 minute film that will consist of a historical piece

and will try to model ESPN's "30 for 30" type format.

I am looking for your help to retrieve film and videos that you or somebody you know may

have from your days at Ashland. If it is old 8mm film or in any other format, I can try to work

with you to get that digitalized if you are willing. If you also have any other information,

photographs, stories or memorabilia that you think would be beneficial to my project it would be

greatly appreciated! I truly think there is a lot of history and old media out there about Ashland

College/University that I do not yet know about, which is why I need your help in retrieving that.

If you have any media, stories or other memorabilia that I could borrow and possibly use for my

project you can contact me in a couple of different ways. I can be reached by email at

[email protected] or by phone at 330-807-2348. I would like to have everything in by

November 30th, 2019.

Thank you for your help and I hope to be hearing back from some of you!

Thank you again and GO EAGLES,

Zachary Read

APPENDIX D

MEETING NOTES FOR EACH INTERVIEW SUBJECT

Meetings with Dr. Fred Martinelli 2/22/19 and 4/10/19

Gill Dodds- could have been Olympic Champion in mile run; dad was brethren minister in

Nebraska. Dad said he was going to AC

Winner of Sullivan award- amateur athlete of the year

Other award winners: Glenn … and Doc ….

1939- When Fred was 10 years old

At one time, Ashland was a place where no one wanted to go to school here or even coach here

Clayton turned it into a place where people wanted to go

Economics and support for athletic program was one of poorest in Ohio

“Maximum Effort”- Our players have given their best effort throughout the years

In 70s we played a schedule of mainly scholarship schools against good teams

Bob Brownson- AD and football coach before Martinelli; Great coach, was undefeated

his first year at AC

Got the job on July 4th, 1959 (4:20 in afternoon), job had been open since November

Nobody wanted to coach at Ashland

Questioned why Bob Stokes came to coach at AC

Fred said his wife said no and no to interview- Wife liked Dr. Clayton

“A man of action, a man of vision, a man of his word”

He knew that it would take good staff, better students and better facility

“Accent on the individual” and “do your best”

Fred was at Bryant high school before he came to AC

He did not think that they could offer him more than Bryant was offering

Bryant- $5,600; AC- $7,000

He didn’t realize when he took the job that he would be teaching 28 hours, as well as

head football coach, ass. Basketball and ass. Golf coach

First game (1959): Was not sure what kind of reception he would get

Fralick’s frantic 40, the marching band at the time

He realized that these people care when he took the field

Only GVSU has achieved what we have

How do you go from a school where no one wants to go to, to where we are at now as one of the

best in all of Division II

Other schools don’t compare with us as far as facilities, support of fans, financial aid

Fans draw a lot of the kids in because of the amount of support that AU gets from the community

At one time we were unable to compete this way as far as facilities go

Combination of things:

1. The staff that were here at AC

To get students here you need good staff

2. PE center was the first one designed to include women

Mrs. Clayton said absolutely not when people wanted to use our old gym for

women’s athletics- instead they use the same one as the men

This was the initial impact on Title IX

1978- Sue Ramsey was first scholarship recipient in BIG Ten

AC beat Indiana at that time by 20-so points when Ramsey played there

We were so great because we were growing as far as women go before any other school

Field House was one of the first of its type in the state

At this time there was an increase in enrollment and increase in student women

65% men and 35% women

We were able to capture this at that type which impacted the growth of the college

Two of the best in the country: Fred at the time told Clayton that they needed these positions

18 people that went from AC on to power house D-I schools to make lasting national

impacts

Skip Vossler was first trainer- went to OU- founded the American Trainers Association

Bill Jarvis- First equipment coordinator- went from here to Northwestern in which he was there

for 37 years- founded American equipment association

Ron Blackledge- Research him- Martinelli’s O-line coach for two years- coached in the NFL

Not very good as HC at higher level

Dr. Clayton- At this time it was only football, basketball and baseball

Doc wanted to grow

We were rejected when we applied for the Ohio Conference

We wanted to outgrow schools like Defiance, Wilmington, and Bluffton

1978, 79, 80- Could not schedule anyone because we were independent and no one wanted to

schedule us

“We were faced with a major issue”

Found Indiana schools were having same difficulty so we joined the Heartland

conference

We had less scholarships in all sports

Great coaches in the separate football conference

GLIAC has been an unbelievable conference for us

Without our conference affiliation these fine teams we have would not have been able to

showcase our great teams

Only school in the GLIAC to have a person in the College Football Hall of Fame

National Football Foundation Scholar Athlete:

Jerry Spatny and Bill Royce both played on the defensive line at the same time

We have unbelievable visibility and credibility

These other schools do not meet the criteria

Fred had been offered a job at a MAC school. He was also interviewed by a couple of major

universities

Ella Shannon, Carol Mertler (first women’s bball coach), Judy Schneider (athlete)- 1967, started

to phase in women coaches

Darla Plice

D-III did not want athletics like the men by giving scholarships

We hosted second AIWA national tournament in Kate Gym around 1976- finished 4th

At Community Stadium Fred felt more like a custodian than a football coach

When Fred retired in 1993, he called a meeting with current President (Bill Etling) and

Dr. Clayton and said it was time to start building own football facility on campus

Never complained about it because he didn’t want his kids to have an excuse

“We outlived Community Stadium in 1974”

$58 million dollar fundraiser and got academic facilities done

Martinelli field- Spent $25 million and broke ground in 2008

Today, that would cost $40-45 million

Dwight Schar played on 1964 team- key gifts ($7-12 million)

Bill Etley- Development Director (VP)- phone number: 419-651-3917

Raised the $58 million to be able to develop the new education buildings- 1994-2000

Meeting on 4/10/19

In that time a lot of coaches left the Ashland job to take high school jobs, even high

school assistant jobs. Why was that? Not a very glorious job was it?

During your time. Who were those one in a lifetime athletes?

1920- An error when faculty disdained sports, did not approve of them

Football, basketball and baseball basically until 1958

Track and field was added in 1958

Gil Dodds would only run in places if they had arranged a revival

1965- Clayton wanted to broaden sports to include wrestling, swimming and full time

track

Clayton wanted a broad-based program- “Accent on the individual”

Soccer was added in 1972- Joe Gottfried, first soccer coach

When we added PE center women came here for the sports program

Needed to hire women’s coaches and administrators

LOOK UP TITLE IX AND HOW CLAYTON AND AC WAS INVOLVED

Martinelli was only limited to $1.2 million for everything at the time

Clayton made women equal pay to men and hired women as department heads

READ DR. CLAYTON’S BOOK

Bob Brownson and men coaches were very supportive of this

Supportive environment

Soccer came around in 1972

Ran into financial difficulty in 70s and faculty unionized and thought they were spending

too much money in athletics

Urged Clayton to drop track, lacrosse, field hockey and swimming- these were

intercollegiate sports

“An era of self-destruction”

Resurrection Two things:

1. We joined a conference

2. We brought swimming and track and field back

Joe Shultz made the major turnaround as president

When he brought these sports back it started the gradual resurgence of growth

Al Platt, Bill Goldring, Al King

Talked about how buses were broken down all the time- big diesel buses

We had a bonafide D-II program relying on the shoulder of just athletes and coaches

They were willing to put in the work and win despite the circumstances they were in

1990- Resigned from athletic director due to sanctions

Joe Shultz was president at time of these sanctions- became president in early 1980s

Bill Musselman- From AC to Minnesota

Chris Ford- AC to OSU as head wrestling coach

Skip Vosler- AC to OU as athletic trained

Bill Jones- AC to BGSU as athletic trainer

Carol Mertler- AC to Purdue Athletic Director

Ruth Jones- Ac to Purdue

Gary Prost- AC to Toledo

Bill Jarvis- AC to Northwestern for 36 years (Equipment coordinator)- Lives in Ashland now

Mead Bernett- AC to OU as head track coach

George Donges- College Baseball Hall of Fame

John Schally- Will be Hall of Fame- College Baseball Hall of Fame

Sheila Guilas- Will be Hall of Fame person

“Success breeds success”

Only GVSU has a better legacy in their national championships and sports

Northwest Missouri St.

Martinelli would rate our legacy as top 5 in the country

This was favorable for us, very advantageous

Bill Conley at ODU said once that “you have no idea of the impact of your tradition” (about AC)

Brought up first game again 1959

He said that these people care, talking about the community of Ashland itself

Malone doesn’t give a damn about their football program

While Martinelli was at Otterbein they used to kick the crap out of AC

Individual Athletes:

Kari Pickens

Schneider

Clayton realized that staffing was important

1958- Enrollment was around 400

Purpose of adding money into sports

GMAC is unsustainable for AU- it’s a tough mentality

GPA and grades was important to Martinelli

Accountability and keeping them to their grades

Success of baseball into the 50s moved right into basketball in the 60s

Kentucky Wesleyan and Cheyney

“You can’t buy tradition, you can’t cheat or buy your way into it”

Tradition and success is what stood strong when you didn’t have anything

There is no question that athletics has impacted enrollment

LOOK UP ENROLLMENT INCREASE AND HOW ATHLETICS HAVE

INFLUENCED THAT

GET REPORTS ON ENROLLMENT FOR FACTS

GET FACTS ON WHEN SPORTS WERE ADDED

TALK TO AL KING

Where do you see Ashland is going in the future

Ask Fred if he has contact for Carol Mertler

Meetings with Mark McClintock 4/12/19 and 9/16/19

Knows so much knowledge

1 Flaw- Only knows three sports: football, basketball, baseball

Baseball has highest winning percentage over basketball and football

10 DIVISION II SCHOOLS IN OHIO

Mark is on the Hall of Fame committee

Mark has done a tone of research on all sorts of sports

Masters Degree from Eastern Michigan in 1973

Why have you invested so much time into all of this?

Uncle played basketball here

Jim Richcreek

Went to library and looked up TG on microfilm- football, MBB, baseball

Recorded opponents, score, date, location

Did it primarily in the summers of 1976-77

All he has had to do since then has just updated

Gave Dusty and the SID’s all of his information about 5 years ago

Before that, they didn’t have records compiled into one place

What is your history with AC and it’s athletics?

Played in high school but not at AC

When you were a student, what was it like going to athletic events?

Fall of 1965-June 1969

Grew up in Wooster

Had Uncle and cousin that went here- came here for cousin’s grad

Heard Bob Brownson speak- Showed him that this is a place if you didn’t have

money or GPA but was willing to work, you could be successful

He felt comfortable here- he was a history major

Started teaching career at Ashland High School but then jumped all over the place

1972-mid-80s- didn’t see any baseball being played during this period

Retired about 10 years ago

1958- first time we hired separate coaches for all major sports

Bob Stokes for MBB- changed the culture

1965- Left for Muskingum and replaced by Bill Musselman (24 yrs. Old at time)

Went to Wooster and graduated from Wittenberg

No divisions back then: A university and a college division

Recruited on a national level

Went to national junior college tournament to recruit top players

First Ashland coach that could do that- prominence of his team; and his personality

Bill Musselman- Intense guy, not real comfortable with people in general

Physical fitness freak

Told embarrassing story from Bill falling from the floor while on the gymnastics horse

Intensity was definitely a strong point- “Nobody he said he didn’t ever play”

Stokes changed culture, Musselman rose us to national height and national championship

caliber

He loved to bring in teams with reputation

Typically always had great crowds and it was packed

Played possession basketball, excellent rebounding team- control rebounding, control tempo of

the game

Wanted to take a scoring team and stop them

People complained that schedule was too weak

So he went and scheduled the two-time defending Big Ten Champs Iowa Hawkeyes at

their place- Lost 82-56

He was a pussycat on the bench- did not believe in technicals

Very structured basketball

Greatest game ever Between Wooster and AC- WHAT YEAR?? 1970-71- Mussleman’s last

year, AC’s best team

Invitational tourney played in Marion, OH

Wooster had Tom Dinger “Mansfield Meteor”

Old Time rivals- classic battle that went overtime

Wooster won 73-70 in OT Musselman was sick

25-3 season and left for University of Minnesota, Wooster was 23-2

Joe Joe McCray

Kevin Wilson

Wayne sokolowsky

Gary Ferguson

Bubba Jones

David Jones

Rob Spivery- played and coached here for one year but had the opportunity to coach at D-I level

Joe Gottfried established us in prominence at D-III level

Squaked at officials all the time but very few technicals

Roger Lyons- Last player that Bill Musselman recruited

Played in minor league basketball after coaching at AC for 3 years

Longtime assistant at Youngstown and Kent

Did well but the league we were in were so tough

He was pretty intense as well

Technical magnet

Lyons was here for two different stints

20 years of AC and AU basketball experience

John Ellenwood

Gets few technicals compared to others

Most animated out of the five coaches

3 great baseball coaches:

George Donges

“Coach Donges was like playing for your grandfather”

“A real gentleman”

Baseball guys stole tv’s on a trip they went to once

Motel owner was ticked- called DC police

They confronted coach Donges

Walked around campus with two huge dogs

Lou Markel- served in the military

Seniors went to strip club and coach went with them

Schally said his players would never ask him that

Schally would work them

Markel was like a big brother

John Schally

ASK ABOUT WOMEN’S ATHLETICS AND HIS VIEW COMPARED TO WOMEN’S

ATHLETICS

President Clayton and Fred M. were both leaders in that area

Expanded enrollment

Women have come a long way and a lot of that has been recently

We have mostly had women coach women sports

Most private colleges used to be all denominational and it was a small base of students

After WWII is when all sorts of people would go to AC

Diversity

AC cannot survive as a 500 student brethren school

GI Bill created tension on campus- were veterans, married, smoke and drank

Even in the 50s we were small NAIA school

His answers of why we are so successful:

1. Because of the competition and the conference affiliation

2. Resources- able to spend more

3. Good long-term coaches

4. Support from alumni and community and athletic department

Success comes from the unrelentless recruiting

Personal sacrifice of time

LOOK UP OTHER SCHOOLS COACHES AND THEIR LONG-TERM COACHES

10 other D-II schools in Ohio

Hall of Fame- Recognition of past is growing

Judy Schneider- “One of the best female athletes that have through here”

She was before her time

One of favorite articles was written by Doug Hadet in TG

Lee Owens 2012 undefeated playoff team vs. Martinelli’s 1972 undefeated team

Meeting for 9/16/19

Hard to compete with these other state schools

Every school is doing it now and going out and recruiting aggressively

Kids these days that we recruit are really good quality kids

Two reasons we have a successful baseball program:

Coaches that emphasize and stress the fundamentals- the little things

Unrelenting recruiting- full time 24/7. They really work at it

By far the top D-II baseball team in Ohio

Some of the key moments you remember?

Bob Brownson was the first football coach to turn us from a perennial loser

Martinelli turned us into a perennial winner that did it the right way

It’s always been on an upward trend for football

Women’s basketball was always good, but in her last four years she made it great.

Expectations have gone from 60% of games to the Bill Musselman-type era/expectations

Wrestling is longest history of AU other than 3 main sports

Wrestling is a great sport here at Ashland

Baseball has the highest winning percentage other than women’s basketball

Started in 1922

George Donges, Lou Markle, John Schaly

Sports Illustrated 1969- article about men’s basketball team- page 34- Eric Musselman-show biz

Have videos of this

Nations #1 defense- has good pictures to use

In his 3rd and 4th season he reached NCAA playoffs and hosted the regionals- Mark was there

Ask Mark about the atmosphere and show-biz of that time

Basketball was the #1 sport when he was here

1969 and 1972 track and field national championship was hosted by AU at Sarver Field

Used from 1968 to late 70s- wasn’t used much after this time

The non-athletic student body does not support to this day as much as they did back in Mark’s

day

True in most cases at most universities

“Billy Cundiff was greatest QB in AC history”- said by others

Anthony Taylor

Keith Weaver

JR McCoy- 3rd leading rusher in history, never made All-American

Ron Slater- QB on 1972 team

Greg Berkshire- kicker

Martinelli and Owens get the majority of the credit because of their tenure

1958 mentioned again- separate coach for football, basketball and baseball

Basketball- First men’s game we beat Walsh 53-17, 1968. Musselman fed the fire that fans were

looking for a shut out for that game

How are we still able to recruit when funding is down as a private institution?

All these state schools have more scholarships and more resources

The answer is outstanding coaches who have a system and are relentless in their

recruiting

That is how we outworked our competition

It’s also the winning tradition here that brings kids in

Ask about Bill Goldring?

Check his tenure and how he did in the Learfield cup

Reflects the overall state of the athletic department of the time

Good assistants are also the answer

Athletic leadership may be better overall then the academic leadership at this university- over

long term

Clayton was a professor at Ohio State and sold insurance- those skills led to being very vital for

Bob Brownson Jr.- Still around town- Hungry hounds

Gary Keller lives in town

Meeting with Darla Plice 9/20/19

Ashland native

Went to Purdue for her Masters

Ruth Jones coached at Purdue

1974-1978

Shannon and Mertler were opposed to going under NCAA originally

The year before Ruth Jones had a good team- two divisions, large and small colleges

We played a lot of the bigger schools

Most women were two or three sport athletes

Freshman year was first year we had a small college national tournament in Pueblo, CO

Hosted National Tournament in 1976

Played volleyball, basketball and softball

Core group stayed the same between all three sports

Student athletes was really stressed here- prided ourselves on team GPA

She really promoted her program- taught concepts about reading defense

Fundamentals and technicality of the game

Played for CREW

“God’s providential hand”

Mom worked as the secretary in the athletics, here for 9-10 years

Remembers coming to Musselman games and seeing the intimidation of that team and

the glamour and shine of it

Had no desire to leave Ashland or go away- was a homebody

Didn’t have scholarships then- got 40% discount

Women’s games had packed gyms as well back in her day

They were the glory years until about 10 years ago

Substitute taught for a year and then taught at Ashland Christian and then moved to Ashland HS

What has this community meant to you?

Financial issues when I went here- money was tight

Positive thoughts all the time about AC

Why so successful?

Looking back, they were blessed to get quality leaders

Standards and integrity have been a big part of it- Bob Brownson and Fred Martinelli

A lot of coaches fed into the Big Ten

Recruiting of the types of individuals

Loyalty of coaches, community as a whole has supported the university

Major highlight was when we hosted the national tournament in 1976

Lost by a point in the semis to who won the national championship

Went to 3 national tournaments in a row- freshman, sophomore and junior

What were the facilities like?

Loved the floor of Kates Gym- had a great experience

Ask question about how it feels to walk into Kates Gym now

How much do you support the team now?- Tries to keep distance but has season tickets past few

years

It’s the only thing that you know

It’s a unique small town

Need to ask story of how she was decided to come to Ashland

Lived in Ashland her whole life

Ask about how student support was

Ask about Sue Ramsey

Played Indiana here and beat them by 20

Ramsey transferred the next year to Miami (OH) and she beat AC the next year

She has old cassette tapes of radio calls of back in her day

Meeting with Sue Ramsey 9/30/19

Grew up in Bexley, Ohio

Recruiting process was so simple

She was an assistant coach at Illinois State(1 year), Miami(1 year) and Cincinnati(2 years) before

becoming head coach at the University of Dayton where she had a 95-128 record in eight

seasons. Took a year off and then went to Ashland

Hired on Oct. 10 her first season at Ashland

Went and watched Bobby Knight coach and that’s when she thought she wanted to coach

First female to receive a scholarship at IU (1976); 3rd one to receive in the Big Ten

3 college coaches, all different, but learned from every one of them

What was the state of WBB when you got here in 1995?

At that time WBB only had a grad assistant and no full-time assistant

A student was getting the team through conditioning in the fall

How different and challenging was that for you to make that transition?

Biggest challenge was the lack of staff- this was the first year we were in the GLIAC

Were you timid coming to AU as far as Title IX goes?- No

When do you think Title IX has been 100% settled?

Does not think it has been completely settled. Things are equitably better

Ask about playing against Darla Plice?

Remember how good she was and how she did it in such a quiet manner

All the respect in the world

What did you think of AC when you played against them?

Small farm town.

Biggest thing was those yellow benches

Back then it wasn’t as big of a deal as it is now. Not a ton of money poured into WBB

teams at that time

Ashland was further ahead then a lot of other programs- it was a little more even

Talk about 2000 and Bill Goldring

How has that recruiting process changed over time from when you were an athlete to when you

were a coach?

The opportunity to play at a younger age is higher now; skills and talents are developed

Big thing for women is to try and learn from our big brothers mistakes

A lot of early commitments now and she asks a lot of questions on that

So crucial on women side to build relationships

As far as success goes, you have to know who you are

They have to figure out whether they are a match when they go through the recruiting

process

Very view rules but a lot of standards- just know it’s just an Ashland kid

As I look back the two roads were separate but finally merged

How grateful I am to Ashland University because they let me stay long enough to build a

program

It takes time to transform and build the program

The cause of that is because of the people- it wasn’t the condition of the facilities because

they were so bad- it was the people that pulled in recruits and other people

What do you see as the most successful thing?

This Athletic department has been prayed for for a long time by a lot of people

How has the community been apart of your ride here?

This community was down and they needed something to cheer about

When they started connecting to us they looked at those ladies on the floor and

saw something they could relate to. Joy, unselfishness, do it so others get the credit, selfless

My girls did the same thing by embracing the community

Do you still see your work in the program today?

Yes but it wasn’t all me

How supportive was AU when building that culture?

Never felt any criticism

How have you seen AU athletic progress throughout the years

Best we can be in whatever we do

Look around and you go ‘that’s true support’

How much of a family is Ashland University?

Do you see this same family at other schools?

That makes this place so special

You have a platform where you can reach out and touch people so use it- people

at AU are very aware and purposeful about doing that

Meeting with Ralph Tomassi 10/2/19

Came to Ashland in 1973 and was a 4-year captain for the baseball team- Second basemen

Baseball seasons were 1974-77

Went to playoffs in 1976

Graduated in 1977

In 1978, he returned to Ashland College as director of transfer admissions and has been with the

institution ever since working as:

Director of the Annual Fund Alumni Relations

Executive Director for Development Associate Vice President for Development

Interim Vice President for Development Senior Associate Vice President for

Development(Athletic Development)

What are your observations of the change and growth throughout all these years?

The college and athletics coincide

Athletics bring spirit to the campus

Who becomes the largest donors to the institutions- it’s the ra-ra kid who sits in the

stands and has the spirit of the university

You never see a player cross the finish line without their coach

Some schools athletics are considered a necessary evil

At Ashland it has always been the necessary thing to have for the development of the

whole person

Ashland had the facilities when I was looking at schools and we played at a top level of

competition

We win with integrity and sportsmanship is a big emphasis here

Had some financial trouble in the 1970s, how bad was the state of the university and enrollment

at that time?

Look at Collegian for these stats- we bottomed out when I came back in 1978, Kem and

Amstutz was empty and had no one to live in those dorms

Joe Shultz, President, helped to save the school from maybe even bankruptcy

We had a series of successful campaigns

“A Time of Opportunity”

1976- centennial campaign but had to end it because we didn’t have the money to continue

Burned mortgages in the 1990s because the building cost was all gone

A lot of these colleges experienced a downturn in men from the Vietnam War when it ended

because kids weren’t trying to avoid the draft anymore.

This was just a trend in colleges at the time- we had no endowment either which hurt us

financially

Stole model of Gridiron Club from Iowa State

Traditions, board of directors, Gridiron club room

1995- came up with victory bell idea while golding at Ashland country club

Great story

Ashland- where traditions don’t have an offseason

Embrace them, tell kids about them and they have to embrace them

Huge emphasis on interest in kids, being personable and living the motto of “Accent on the

Individual”

Talks about the type of person Glenn Clayton was- president until 77 but came back to work in

development for 24-some years until 2006; had a 6 year hiatus- 73 years old until he was almost

Could talk hours about Clayton

Clayton had a huge part in bringing alumni back and having an interaction with the college

Tried to get people to elevate their giving and increase the base and more people to give money

Clayton Interview that they send to alumni

Gave these VHS tapes to people who donated $500 to the college

His impact was greater than any person that walked this campus

Dr. Clayton understand the importance of developing Greek Life to develop leaders

Coached at Heidelberg for one year after he graduated

It took loyalty to a fault

Lucille Ford?

Glenn Clayton

Fred Martinelli- all three brough integrity and national recognition to Ashland

Athletics touches lives that is hard to compare

Joined Heartland Collegiate Conference for football, started to experience degrees of success at

that level

Speak on your time as an athlete here? What was it like back in that time?

First generation college

Orphanage as a child

Spent 5 years in high school, flunked freshman year

Pledged Phi Delt

Friends for life, lettered four years but there were better baseball players here than him

He was always proud to be an Eagle

Didn’t get to go on spring break trip to Florida due to financial trouble

Needs to tell story of wearing Ashland stuff as Heidelberg College

Even how he got his job at Ashland

Spent 34 years paying back people who impacted his life, and paying it forward

George Donges died at age of 64

Nick (Nik) Donges on Facebook

Jeff Alix

Thought long and hard about his retirement press releases- The Ashland Way

He has picture of him and Clayton on his graduation day

He was a pallbearer at Clayton’s funeral

May 1st, 1979- Changed Ashland College to Ashland University and added graduate programs

Dr. Shultz wife is still alive

Martinelli’s move to D-II was monumental

Richard R. Lighty- Alumist and founder of WRDL and radio/tv program

Meeting with Bob Brownson Jr. 10/25/19

Football and basketball coach from 1954-1957

Athletic Director 1959-1971

Passed away at age of 52, in 1975- he would be 96 today

3 of us had Hepatitis in the early 50s- it is a liver disease

Surgeries may have been in 1958

When were you born?

Martinelli and Brownson families were pretty close

Founders burned down in 1954

Claytons would come out and have a meal with us

Dad walked into losing tradition when he came to AC

Jr. was second born- Girl, boy, girl, boy, girl

Your dad was undefeated in football his first year at Ashland, how does that speak to his

coaching ability?

I remember the locker rooms in the old gym, dripping water, grey paint

Showers were pretty gross as well, had a wet smell to it, mildew

Dad told him he couldn’t sit down because he was taking a paying customers team- whenJr. Was

a kid in the 50s

Jr. played freshman football at AC under Musselman

His dad would call the low guys Rag Pickers

When Jr. was a kid he was always at the games

The smell of Zippo lighters reminds him of the smell of the stands

Thursday nights, especially at Portsmouth all of the coaches would be at the house and mom

would make coffee and brownies

These were the best times for Jr.- the coaches and the smell and the talk of the coaches

Dad would work with me quarterbacking and throwing the football at the park

What do you remember most growing up as a child?

Going to games with your dad, etc.

What has Ashland meant to your family all these years?

1965, if you don’t go to college you are going to Vietnam

Jr. always knew he was going to go to AC

Talks about the intensity of Vietnam in the 60s

Did your father serve in WWII?- He was not in the military because he had a dislocated

shoulder- his dad always regretted that he did not serve in the military

Hungry Hounds- Dad was a coon hunter and dogs would assist in coon hunters

Jr. would always go coon hunting with his dog

His Dad nicknamed them the Hungry Hounds

When they tackled a guy they would growl in his face-part of the mystique

It was an intimidation type thing

Referees started to notice and penalize this type of thing

What was the Hungry Hounds era like?

Martinelli has talked about Fralick’s Frantic 40, do you have any memory of them?

Dad sometimes called them Fralick’s Furious 40

They had purple blazers at the time

Born in 1947

Went to Nasheville to try to pursue a music job singing but it did not work out- with Moose

Taught for 2 years in Ashland area

Went to school in 1965

Started coaching high school football in the late 40s- Hayesville and Jeromesville

Went to New London from there

Jr. was 7 yrs old in 54 with the hungry hounds days

Mythical state championship at New London

Went to Portsmouth after New London days

Leo Brown- played for Brownson at Portsmouth- went to Ohio State

Massillon had approached Brownson about coaching there- would have been after Paul Brown

Same thing as Martinelli, he was questioned why the heck he went there

He was an alumnus of Ashland, graduated in 1948 or so

He really liked Fred when they played against each other in high school coaching

Jr. would control the yards and downs when he was a junior high kid at RedWood stadium

Albert Debinion

Bruce Smitt lasted one season (1958)- he eventually became HC at Dayton

What was that relationship between your Dad and Fred?

It was like a father-son relationship

AC couldn’t beat Wooster for 29 years or something

Fred beat him his first year and beat them the second year

Time when he was older and Dad was AD:

Dad wasn’t always at all of his games in high school

Jr. was the quarterback

Dad would climb up in the crows nest and called down late to call plays

Dad was a great teacher here in psychology and kids loved him

Dad would go around speaking and Jr. would go with him

He did this partially when coaching but when he was AD

He would do speaking engagements

Dad wasn’t a raw-raw-raw guy

Dad had an ability to work with kids- in the summers down in Portsmouth, 98 degrees

The kids would do anything for a coke

He understood when to speak and when not to speak

Jr. would never stand on the sideline- they had cameras on top of the stadium and radio

people would be in the box

Still have the Brownson scholarship for football players who still don’t have great GPAs

What do you think has made Ashland athletics so successful?

When you begin to win you attract kids to the program

Until Fred came, Fred was able to recruit at a wider area

Meeting with Dr. Dan O’Rourke 10/29/19

Why did NCAA athletics start at Ashland University in 1920?

1 in 3 students come here because of athletics

They pair one of 5 Pillars of health to athletics

Model of healthy mind healthy body

1910 they were having a crisis of people being killed by playing football

Meeting at White House

NCAA sprang from this meeting

This was a big safety issue

Sports were oftentimes received as less helpful

How has collegiate athletics driven universities?

It’s visibility, reputation, recruitment

Spend millions of dollars to support athletics

Most people don’t know about chemistry department but they know about football team

Sports is a huge recruiting tool

What was the impact women’s athletics has had on the transformation of collegiate athletics?

Title IX had a huge impact on women

This had a tremendous impact on small liberal arts colleges

Ashland attracts a certain kind of student- connection with the community

We get so many small town athletes

6 athletes in an average class

Connectedness

In the 90s, 85% of students lived within an hour of campus

Why do you think Ashland is so successful historically?

It’s the culture that supports sports

We have academically a culture that supports and encourages athletic programs

Good coaches

Think that this is specific to Ashland

Big Ten schools don’t have coaches for 20-30 years

This is an extremely small town, surrounded by cornfields and Amish country, why on

Earth would people want to come here to Ashland?

Kids who know they won’t compete at big D-I schools

Coaching that knows where their base is at

They come here to play

What do you think sets Ashland apart from other schools like this in Ohio?

The culture is one, values and supports sports

Being like a college coach recruiting is getting the mom

Recruit the family

When did college athletics find its surge?

Television had a huge impact on it

Media coverage

How badly did the Vietnam War affect other universities across the country?

It definitely affected Ashland College

In the 60s we were getting people from all over the country

University saved itself by prison program as well in the 90s

They celebrate championships, women champs

Interview Duncan Jameison and Mark Hamilton

Interview with Carol Mertler 10/30/19

Went to Purdue in 1975 as a field hockey coach and assistant athletic director

Supervised development of women’s athletics at Purdue

Came back to Mansfield in 1988 to work at Richland Hospital

Then came back to Ashland as a professor

At Ashland, she coached volleyball, basketball and softball

Why was it important for Glen Clayton and Fred Martinelli to bring in women to coach women’s

athletics instead of men?

Had to hire people and fill some beds. Filled with men first and then women

Fred thought it was in their contract to coach, but it wasn’t

He wasn’t willing to put money towards tournaments

He allowed us to do what we wanted to do, but he didn’t pay for us

Do you think Ashland was ahead of their time? Especially speaking of the size and type of

school Ashland is?

Power volleyball in the Olympics in the 60s, US was killed by Japan. DGWS said we

need to do something about it, so Carol went to a seminar to learn about the rules of volleyball,

new skills and rules. Went to 30 HS to teach local teachers- she was employed by Ashland at this

time

Ella was prominent in the state association

People were beginning to notice that we had a good program

She taught physical education in her stint at AC

Most coaches brought in at Purdue was far ahead of her

Why come back to Ashland as a professor?

She thought she was going to retire

She wanted to go back to Ashland because she grew up in Ashland

What have you learned about this place and why is it so special to you?

They kinda let me do my own thing

Who were some of those athletes that stood out to you as extraordinary when you were here? If

they were so good why were they here and how did we get them here?

Maurine Fredrick

Gale Wasmus

Ruth Jones

They were able to play everything

What has made Ashland athletics so successful?

Has to be the personnel, someone to push the program to get the funds for it, willing to try new

things

Fred was really good for the program, Ella was good because she was well respected in the state

They were early on the facilities compared to who we were competing with

How would you compare Ashland’s success to other D-II schools

Ohio we are ahead of everyone else

We got a lot of good athletes to come in mostly from the east- doesn’t know why they

came

Even in second stint they didn’t get many out of state

Started in 1991 and retired in 2001

They were all good guys- he was extremely obsessive with coaching

What does 1972 mean to you?

It opened all kinds of worlds. Just finished her doctorate in higher education and

administration

All kinds of openings because people not need women administrators

Interviewed at Iowa St., Northwestern, Ohio State and Purdue

Went to Purdue in Fall of 1976

Role still stayed the same for those 4 years at Ashland

She may have been called a coordinator

Ella may have taken over

Purdue AD didn’t really want her there

Iowa and Minnesota was given state money

Purdue and Michigan were the worst, didn’t want us there

It took a while for everyone because everyone was not sure what it meant

They were waiting for guidelines before they would move on it

All kinds of questions

Guidelines took 5 years or so to set stuff in stone

All sorts of lawsuits

Everyone was bewildered at what Equal Opportunity meant

She wasn’t bitter about not having everything the men had

The purpose of Title IX, do you think it is fully achieved today?

Yes.

Look at the Olympics, we are so way ahead in our women’s programs as opposed to

Europe

We could not justify not having scholarships

Women taught a full load and coaching was not in their contracts

First coached basketball and softball, and then volleyball was added

She had to buy everything out of her own pocket

She liked working with skilled athletes- a lot from the east, NJ, Conn., Penn.

Ran the teams out of the phys education program

Men were allowed to give scholarship

Women had to pick from what they had

They were pretty competitive

No women’s scholarships

Ella Shannon was coaching field hockey

Softball played slow pitch and fast pitch

Schedules were not very big, they would just call up the schools

She was very active in DGWS- Division of Girls and Women in Sports

AIWA- AC did not pay their way. People had to chip in money

Men only taught 6 credits

Play date- schools would take 5-6 kids and you would be joined with girls from other teams. No

set university teams

In the 1920s a lot of women played competitively basketball

1941- OHSAA, no girl should play another school in basketball

Didn’t have much of a relationship w/ Glenn Clayton

He came to games but she really didn’t sit down and talk with him

Gym class was mandatory

Jean Hostetter coached basketball

Meeting with Al King 10/31/19

You first got here in the 90s, what were the athletic programs like?

Not nearly as success based or vision not like it was

Feeling of shame when I got here in 1993 with MBB

Football, baseball, softball never got toNCAA playoffs

Never had expectations of success

Didn’t have all the resources we did now

Tells story of WBB Kentucky Wesleyan basketball game

Have to put MBB scandal in documentary

Al will be able to talk about it

Put a feeling of fear and cautiousness on the program

Ask Ellenwood about this

How have you seen the athletic department grow into the 21st century?

Professionalism has grown, more coaches and more staff

People had a bigger vision in order to be successful

Poured more resources into it

Who were these people that had a bigger vision?

Weidner, Al Platt, and Goldring

Were all previously at the D-I level

Had different ideas about recruiting coaches and hiring

Weidner hired Schaly, Guilas and Ramsey

Goldring elevated Jud Logan, Paul Graham for swimming

You don’t have to be successful in one or two sports, you can do it across the board

Al Platt hired Dorencaut for swimming who then went to Penn State and Ohio State

Get players that we could compete at a national level

“We will go head to head to GV”- Women’s soccer- kristy richie

How could you describe the rich history that we have in athletics around here?

I think athletics always mattered here at Ashland

Ken Kravec

It wasn’t like those years we didn’t have any success

The question was whether you could take it nationally

Culture

Over the years we have had good MBB

MBB did compete

Why does conference affiliation play so much into the program’s success?

Huge move on Fred’s part when he moved to D-II

GLVC was tremendous basketball league, best league in country

GLIAC would transfer sports across the board

Thought travel would be a little bit better

Puts you up against a lot of very very good state schools

It was hard for MBB to leave

I think it matters to a point with what kinds of schools you want to be associated with

I’ve heard Ashland could go to any conference and be a leader

We couldn’t do what WVU is doing now

Being in the GLIAC helped us when we were growing into the 21st century success

Schools that went to G-MAC argue that they can win conference championships and still

compete nationally

It matters to fanbase and the alumni

Trying to gaze into the future and figure out where we need to be

Missed classes, families, training, publicity

Talk about recruiting, how most kids come from within an hour or two of campus?

West PA has become hard because so many D-II schools are there now- the PSAC

It was just easier to get into these areas and have an influence

Those schools have raised their programs

Recruiting became better and refined when Owens came here

Didn’t have spring game when Owens was here

Have become heavily based in Ohio

BUT you still need to be able to extend your brand

Athletics is doing it more than the academics side of thing

How we are simply not a school that recruits out of state kids

Bill was the one that hired all of these outstanding coaches that we have today, but you were here

and saw them grow and transform?

Asked myself if I realized what was going on

Baseball, Schaly was so intense and changed the whole different style of business

Signing day became the biggest day of the year in football

We are going to the playoffs in softball every year

Can’t take a vacation in mid-May every year

Schaly had all sorts of good ideas

I was watching it but learning as well

As an SID, you follow every athlete, who were some of those athletes that were once in a decade

athletes?

Sean Robbins, Jamie McDaniel in swimming

Jean ste… pitched for Cardinals

Blewitt and Jeschling

Bill Royce

Kristy Ritchie

Kari Pickens

Ella Shannon

Talk to Myles Pringle

We hosted swimming nationals in Canton and McDaniel intimidated people

McDaniel set D-II national record in Canton- NCAA may have it

Jamie McDaniel is in town- NCAA Elite Eight- 8 best scholar student athletes in the

country in all divisions- she started her career in Tenn.

Beacon did a graphic for Robbins

How has Ashland placed themselves as one of the best D-II schools in the country?

Comes down to coaching, guidance and vision. Starts with the president

Benz supported athletics and helped hire the right people

Facilities and scholarships

Both good recruiting but it is about the process here in Ashland

What does the future for Ashland athletics look like?

It can get away from you fast, I hope it doesn’t, I hope we can keep it going

I think there is still a commitment to athletics, still have good coaches

Adding sports

I would say future is bright, how can’t you say that with last year’s success

Financially can you keep up

Dr. Campo- he cares and understands about college athletics but doesn’t micromanage

What does the faculty view of athletics overtime?

You had pretty good faculty support over time

As faculty you lived here in Ashland and supported everyone

Late 90s and 2000s professors lived out of town and that feeling left

There is a microscope on athletics- natural tension at times between faculty and athletics

Meeting with John Schaly 11/4/19

What are some of the fondest memories as a head coach here at Ashland?

Explain some of those memories to me?

Biggest one is the trips we have made to World Series

Made it 5 times- won a game in four of the five

2008, 2002

18 inning game over at Malone one year

2008 team was probably the year that surprised him the most

This past year: it had been 11 years- so many come from behind wins- super regional win here

with great crowds

What is it like to be put in the same category as men like George Donges and Lou Markle?

Two legendary coaches here, to be put in the same sentence with those two guys

Especially Donges- coaches stay here for a long time because of how good the school is

and the people are here

This area is home

What do you reference your postseason success to? What do you owe it to?

15 out of your 21 years you have seen postseason play

A lot of things play into it

Fundamentally sound, mental mistake, if we can eliminate mental mistakes

After a while, it’s almost like the programs ran itself, now I see that

What can you say about the athletic program as a whole and willingness to win?

We feed off of each other, support each other. One of the biggest thing at Ashland is the

great coaches- pick each other’s brain- winning is contagious, but losing is contagious as well

For you, who were some of those standout, once-in-a-decade type athletes?

Art Warren- only pitched one year for us and went 5-4

Had a lot of very good athletes- got stronger and faster

Not great athletes but good ones that are willing to work and grow

When the 21st century hit, how were you able to change the program around?

Changed our weight lifting program- conditioning has changed- fast twitch exercises

Do a lot more with the mental game and nutrition and recovery

The 90s saw some success for baseball, but only had 4 out of 8 winning seasons before you got

here, what was the state of the team at that time?

Al said you came in here with a whole different style of business than what they were used to,

what do you think he was referring to?

We have a system that we believe in and that works

Want to be organized

Constatnlty teaching the game

With the rich history, what do you tell recruits when they come in here?

Talk about successes that we have and the people here that can help them develop as a

baseball player and a person

Donges field was horrible when I got here

Right corner had a 4 foot drop off, backstop had 4 telephone poles

What does this community mean to you?

Previously at Barry and St. Leo, did very little with the community

Similar to Marietta where my Dad coached- where I’m used to

Ask about recruiting and what Coach Hilt has been able to provide in that aspect?

Recruiting is the lifeblood of a college team

Get good players but also guys who are willing to work hard

We believe in fundamentals and teaching finer points of the game

He has had some great assistant coaches

Psych professor and nutrition, even a theatre professor helped with breathing

Why do you think Ashland athletics has been so successful?

Type of student athlete we can recruit here

What differentiates ourselves from other schools?

Small atmosphere, support of our administration here

They believe in athletics here

Great place to raise a family

Hall of Fame

Truly humbled and to be in there with my Dad

Meeting with Dr. Mark Hamilton 11/4/19

Grew up in Ashland, started here in 1981

He did not grow up here but his parents did- mom was the 1946 valedictorian

He was born in 1953 and he grew up going to games and events

First game was saw Martinelli coach and saw Musselman coach but Mark went to Wittenberg to

play baseball

Attended 1972 track and field outdoor nationals

Hired as Lou Markle's assistant coach in 1981 and was that for 8 eight years

Continued to teach but no longer coaches

1998- Between the NCAA faculty rep

Served on search committee that hired Shacly, Gulas, Lyons, Ramsey

Played summer league basketball with Lyons

Guilas previously coached at Wittenberg

He has deep roots with some of these people

A lot of connections between Ashland, Wittenberg and Wooster

Of all the events I have seen there is nothing more moving than first WBB national

championship

Most amazing single event was Myles winning 400m when AU hosted GLIAC two years ago

Wonderful coaches and administration

Bob Rowland- He was just a big fan

Don’t underestimate the impact of Gil Dodds

Talk to Kevin Wilson if you want more on Musselman

Gary Urcheck

Surrounded himself with thugs and paid his players

He’s an aboration in Ashland history

Keith Damrot is a flatterer and will tell you everything you want to hear

He left here first and then everything came out about his teams

Possibly talk to Ken Kravec- lives in Florida- Scouts for the Marlins possibly- he was a pitcher

Went 10-1 his freshman year, Wittenberg was only team that beat him

Rocky Alt- Great pitcher and football player at Wittenberg and was Kravec’s only loss his

freshman year

25-24 game with Wooster, Ashland lost with basketball

Game in regulation was 20-20

Tom Dinger was playing at this time

Pretty amazing to come back here this many years- all good memories with my father

Parents slept through the burning of Founders in 1952- his mom was pregnant with him at the

time

Grew up in first Christian church here in Ashland and that is where the Donges went

Len Pettigrew- may be as good of an athlete as anyone that came through here- linebacker and

wrestler

Player for football who played here 12 years ago- was not a QB- Devin Conwell

Billy Higgins- best basketball player that ever played here- 1971-1975

Went on to play in the ABA (Virginia Squires)

Didn’t graduate so he is not in Hall of Fame

Mark has his criteria for hiring coaches- people who understand academics in the role of athletics

and highly competitive

To win at Ashland you have to have great coaches who recruit great people- you can’t be

successful any other way here at Ashland

Goldring and King have let their coaches run their program and given them the resources to run

their program

Bill wanted to build a program that is broad based

Bill Gallagher is still living- he was head track coach 10-15 years

Frank- was AD at IUP

Jay Fabian is active around here but is in Madison on Lake Erie

Bill Goldring made decisions and fought for his program- he had the big picture

Mark can explain the difference between Bill and Al- big structure and details of Al

Mark and Bill were behind getting all the Ohio schools into the GLIAC

What has it been like being the faculty representative?

It’s all about enjoying sports, it’s fun and pleasurable

Teaches and writes and publishes in sports ethics

It’s important for Ashland to do things the right away- do things with integrity

Higher coaches who do things the right way

Rumors the school in the 70s was going to be a branch of Bowling Green

Joe Schultz came in and decided some things- you can get students through athletics

Joe started shooting for other campuses in the early 80s

The stories are the kids themselves and the athletes themselves

Combine athletics, academic and personal success

Bill Seder Sr.

Best fight in college basketball history is Ohio State-Minnesota in 1971

OSU is best team in big team

Musselman just got to Minnesota- he brings in all these players in first year

With 1:30 left in game a fight breaks out on court

Fight when Musselman was here

Typical of Musselman teams to be bullies

Meeting with Dr. Duncan Jamieson 11/6/19

In the 80s/90s the game ball for football was brought in by a parachute

Ask Ralph about story of man with his wife who ran up from Florida for a game- same guy who

came back with one year of eligibility

Band would lead fans down to community stadium before the opening game

What were athletics across universities like during WWII?

Not very men on campus so it would have been very difficult

First eagle arrives in spring 1941

The same was at other colleges

Talk about the Eagles, the mascots, and what you have learned from researching and writing on

that subject?

Late 19th, early 20th century, schools used colors and not mascots

Ashland was the Purples

Sometime in the 1920s we became the Titans

Rumor was we went to Duquesne in football and they crushed us, this was while we were

the Eagles

Early 1930s, the students got together and had a naming contest

The battling Brethren

The Eagles- Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal

Briefly we were the purple Eagles but only lasted one season

Mid 70s the college had overbuilt- ran out of students- expecting to hit 2,500 students

Bottom fell out of market

Massive firings of faculty in 1971 and 1974

He said Clayton was forced out by bond holders

He knows the companies we were in debt to

He also said that Joe Schultz save the university

To make payroll they gathered up all assets that the college had and borrowed money

necessary make to payroll

The way forward is to develop a better athletic identity

When did the country see an overall rise of college athletics?

Television is what really pushes football

Football overtakes baseball as the national pastime in the early-mid 60s

Television exploded in 1960s

GI after WWII came onto campus- student population began to grow

Extended reach of college out from East- changes the nature of the campus and of the

student body

Clayton assumed that it was going to continue

High school classes began to dwindle slowly overtime- happened in the 60s and it is happening

now

Pride of community

Possibly in 60s, Ohio Northern came over and stole an eagle in middle of the night

The team noticed they had one of our eagles and had painted it and we went to steal it

back

A lot of eagles were stolen by our sports teams

Eagles were owned by Case Implement Company that manufactured farm equipment

This company cast small iron eagles

They would lend you one of the 4-foot eagles to use as an advertising tool with other

stores

They only loaned them to these places

In the 1940s, Case recalled these so they could be used as scrap metal

These companies would write back and say they didn’t know where they were-but

they were lying and actually had them

Mid 60s- An Eagle was stolen from a man and at that point Case

Number of companies are rebranding themselves- Case was one of those

companies

Case contacted Dr. Clayton- decided to make a big media thing out of this

Case had big Eagle at their warehouse down in Columbus ad they gave it to us

They get publicity, we get rights to Eagles

There were a few that we made because we had the rights to them

They are made with cast iron

Eagle in front of Kates student center disappeared in the 80s

Early part of 80s the interest of them had fallen

This eagle shows up at Avon high school

Principal didn’t mind their excuse and found out it was AU’s eagles

Where did you find the inspiration to write the book- Wrote it in early to mid 80s and brought it

out in 90s

Very few people knew little about them

Peaked his interest

Pranks were typical back then, happened all the time

Case hardware store

How does this experience make Ashland unique?

“We’re the only university in US that has done this”

Meeting with Dr. Ella Shannon 11/13/19

2:30-4:30

Next time you come down bring her memorabilia from Dusty

Also bring a copy of the history of women’s athletics

She is 86 years old

Graduated undergrad from Ashland in 1963

Was pregnant with eldest son as a senior

Retired in 1998

Went into phys ed and athletics because she had a desire to increase athletic opportunities for

girls

Ella was a really good athlete, high academics

Guys back then needed to have good GPAs in order to play

Joked around because she kept the football team in HS eligible

Asked herself “why don’t girls get scholarships?”

Her husband Don was drafted into the Korean War

Got married at the age of 17, followed him to Fort Knox and other different military

bases starting in 1951

Should have gone to college in 1951

He gets out of service and before the service he promised her that she will go to college

1959 is when she went back to school- born in 1933

When onto Ohio State and got Masters in 1965

Talk about your time as a student/athlete?

“Extramural”- can’t say that they were varsity

Harret (Hariet) Geisenger

Kent State was probably ahead for opportunities for girls in athletics

Remembers playing hoops in the old gym against Oberlin

Hired another lady after Hariet who was worried more about the fitness of girls

Hired by Loudonville HS first to develop athletic teams for girls for first two years of

teaching. Was able to get a lot of natural talent and decent teams

Superintendent made sure they had transportation, officials and that sort of thing

George Donges came down to observe Ella to talk to her

AC offered Ella to come and teach

Both Clayton and Donges wanted her badly

The superintendent was hired for the AC admissions department and vouched for Ella to

take that position as well- GREAT STORY

She traveled to so many places to speak on women’s athletics

So you started off teaching phys ed?

Mistovich called them the golden age of sports- what year was this?

Fred and Ella butted heads a lot because he always didn’t give necessary resources that Ella

fought for

Money for women’s sports came from intramural money

The building of our women’s programs was because of our own expenses

You have to understand that you have to pay your dues because even the men have to pay their

dues

One year all the teams really supported each other

What were women’s athletics like when you were here as a student?

They did it apart of their work and because they wanted to do it

Legitimate female coaches came after they started to get scholarships

Highlight of her entire life was when Sue Ramsey took the WBB team to national championships

in 2013 and 2017

She kind of said to herself that everything they did has paid off

Over the years, our female athletes came and went and our female coaches came and went, Bob

Wendling was the guy who was always there to be the scorer

He was a fine man and a math professor- very supportive

How were you able to see women’s athletics grow and change?

It’s really been positive and I think it will continue

Athletics is a wonderful way for young people to learn and work together and have the

enjoyment of taking yourself to your limits

None of them have been aggressive against getting rid of men’s sports

When did your role transform from educator to administrator?

After Mertler left and Martinelli signed her

She became department chair because she was elected by the faculty but she was not able

to coach

Department Chair for Physical education and women’s athletics

At that time, everyone who coached had a degree in phys ed

Did what we had to do to get our girls to different places

After Title IX, Carol had left before anything could really be put into place here at AC.

When did a lot of the effects of Title IX take hold? What were they?

We were really ahead of it in a way- Why were you ahead of it?

Many of the men across the country were not supporting us at all

So many things that happened in her career that come back to her

She had an undefeated field hockey team in 1972

Sent news articles out to the East and that was a form of recruiting

Girls had an opportunity to be on a team at Ashland

She was bringing women’s field hockey coaches from around the world

How did the community of Ashland as a whole feel about making women’s athletics equal to

that of men?

What was the reception across the country like when it was passed?

It was exciting for women who were working so hard to get an opportunity in sports

It opened men’s eyes as well

Martinelli was a good guy to work for and I learned a lot from him

Why did you choose to stay at Ashland after Title IX? Could you have gone to a bigger school?

She had an opportunity to go to Hawaii and there was nothing for her husband there

Explain your involvement with women’s athletics on the state level?

DGWS kept a lot of schools going- the sale of these rulebooks

1980-81 was the president of OHS…

Might be the oldest past president alive of this group- Dec. 5 she is going up

She is currently the president of the Ashland retired faculty

What has made Ashland athletics so successful to this day?

We believe people should have an opportunity but you don’t force them

She was a member of the international physical education and health education

organization

Meeting with John Ellenwood 11/15/19

What can you say about the history and the coaches of the MBB program?

History starts with Bob Stokes

First two great players were right before him with Jack Purtell and Ron Pieratt

First two players- 1,000 point scorers

It kind of flowed from Stokes

Stokes, Musselman, Gottfried, Lyons, Ellenwood

How about the guys who were here before you, Roger Lyons?

Only a few guys who were players in the program became coaches in the program

Dambrot took over for Roger in his first stint

Roger started that era and then he was

With the rich history of this program and athletic department as a whole, do you think there is a

certain expectation to live up to?

How much pressure you want to put on yourself

300-320 schools and we are historically in the top 20 because it’s not news here because

everyone is so good

We are not a one program type athletic department

It was evident when I got here with Goldring

Everyone had gone to NCAA tournament in last 3 years except for MBB

“We have to get this straightened around and get to the level of these other programs”

How were you able to turn around this program, how do you keep it moving in the direction that

you want it to go?

Recruiting the right type of person- talent and right basketball player but you need to

recruit culture as well

Try to get people who will buy into a role

Making sure we get guys in here that

You can’t hide here- you need people who want to have intimate relationships

We don’t always have the nicest stuff, but what we do have, you can’t buy

Tell me some stories of during your time here so far, what do you remember the most?

First game was interesting- playing ODU- everybody is really anticipating this game

We go down 14-0, ended up winning the game

Said to my assistant “this is my nightmare”

First time we beat Findlay, first time we beat Grand Valley

Nick Bapst situation- extremely difficult to deal with

When we won the league on the last home game and waiting for the scores to come in

Favorite all-time memory is when we went to Ferris State as a 6 seed. Gave Findlay worst lost in

school history, going into shoot around in 2017 for GLIAC Championship

Coming off the bus, this is what basketball is about

Who are some of the more memorable players that stick out to you?

Tough question

Evan Yates, Will Evans, David Harris got us started

Fun to coach certain players when they have their moments when they just go and are great

players

What do you think has contributed the most to the success of Ashland athletics?

I think it’s the vision of each individual coach and what they’re allowed to do

There is an AD or leader on campus that helps that- President, faculty, AD

Need a vision and to be able to farm that vision

Thing that is strange is that coaches and professors have always been able to overcome the

obstacles between them

How do you think the Keith Dambrot era still affects the men’s basketball program today?

Don’t think it’s like that anymore- 20 years after Wood got here

Why do you think it is so important to run this program the right way with the right kids?

If you don’t then it is in the paper and everyone knows about it

People respect real values

Need guys who will be valuable members of the community

This community has been good about support if you do it the right way

What do you think it is that makes Ashland stand out against all other GLIAC schools?

Most our state schools; private schools are schools that are not tied into the community

like we are

State schools have a different mentality than private schools

Ashland is different in the sense that AU is really apart of the community

There is more to life than winning basketball games

Coaching move from D3 to D2

Recruit every position every single year because we did not have scholarships

Every year I’m going to have at least five guys

D2 is what I call you only have so many bullets in the gun

If you don’t hit the target with the kid it may hurt your culture or your team and your set

back a year

The veteran teams are the ones who win- you have to develop your team to beat and be

the veterans

Need patient fanbase and patient AD

Getting kid from freshman to senior year is not as easy as people think

Ashland has always kind of rolled with the punches- people always find a way to be successful

with the resources they have in front of them

It’s that blue collared attitude throughout the years- farm, rustbelt toughness that allows

us to be successful

Meeting with Nik Donges 11/23/19

George Sr. graduated from AC in 1930, held a teaching position as Polk HS, then became

superintendent of Butler Township School

Received his Masters from Columbia University on Sept. 1, 1935

Coached baseball from 1936-1971

Passed away in 1976

Wife, Kathy was a famous radio personnel in Ashland

He had a pet deer

George was born in 1906

Had cats/dogs/goats, had pet ducks and even a pet deer

Moss Hill is where they lived- it was originally a 25 acre plot

First drive on the left

“Cathy once said “George only wanted his boys to become fine young men”

George started little league program in Ashland in mid 50s

Start by telling me your story:

When and where were you born? Where did you grow up?

Grew up in Ashland and went to AC- didn’t really want to go to Ashland

But they were still offering faculty grants

You went to Ashland yourself? What years were that?

Went to AC in 1961

When growing up, what was it like to always be around the college?

In some respects my father was an absent father

He was at home but maybe not as much as I would have liked

Coached baseball, basketball, football

Did he oftentimes tag along with your father?

Nik would go to the old gym and would go along with to football practices

I wasn’t around that much with basketball

With baseball, as he got into late elementary school he would often go on their spring

trips with the baseball team

He got put to work with the bat boy

Nik was not involved in athletics because of his eye condition

Nik kind of grew up around Fralick’s Frantic 40 but remembers it roughly

Nik did his own thing so wasn’t around his fathers sports as much as he would think

Now your father was an athlete here in 1926-1930 is that correct?

Not a whole lot, by the time I was growing up he was so involved in the college

Nik would occasionally see pictures of when he played football

What kind of athlete?

He was a great athlete but wasn’t necessarily one of the stars

“He left his imprint on me”

When my Dad quite coaching football in 1953 and Brownson came on in 1954 who had

successful years but Nik said that George had said that he was reaping the benefits of the teams

that he had brought up through the ranks

Bob B. and George D. would have a grading paper time around a big table with 5-6 people

Instead of grading papers they would play cards

They probably also went hunting together most definitely

Knew they worked together and hunted together

How was the interaction with the Ashland community?

Try to have him elaborate on that

When I was in college one time the student body was in an uproar

Students were running out of Clayton to go over to the administration building to have a

sit-in

Had to deal with dress at meals or something like that

Nik left, he just went home

Another time there were students waiting for the basketball team to return out in front of the

chapel area

If George was there he could have put an end to it because he had that kind of authority

Although you got the short end of a stick, what does that show of his commitment towards

Ashland athletics?

He always seen things through, and that is one thing I learned from him

Most parents in those days taught, if you start something you finish it

Phys Ed administrator and teacher, he taught health education

Nik had two older brothers and they were all five years apart

Nik was a band member so he went to football and basketball games

George had to deal with a lot of injuries for the athletes with football particularly

Nik never heard much about Gil Dodds

George was always a marshall at graduation when Nik and Eunice were there at least

1953 is when George Donges did not have a field and so they had to find a place to have a field

George Donges as the “Father of the Mid-Ohio League”

Meeting with Jud Logan 12/10/19

What can you say about the history of the track and field program here?

Year 25 for him, 15 as head coach

Knew nothing about AU growing up and going to Kent State- they kept to themselves

Gallagher came and talk to Jud because he needed a new throwers coach

` He told him he would only help him out for one year

Immediately fell in love with the program and the school and the type of kids that were

here

Tough, lunch-pail type kid

How much do you know about the first runner here at Ashland, Gil Dodds?

Bill Gallagher is the historian of this program

He is aware of the history but not as much as we should all know

Talked about national championships at Sarver Field and how he held them

It’s incredible for a D2 program the amount of talent that has come through here

Describe to me how you are able to recruit great athletes that come here and win national title

after national title?

Nick Zak is a perfect example of how it feels to him to progress these guys and how it

feels to win a natty

After one year he went 176 to 210 to 240 pounds, multiple all americans

He was willing to take a chance on Nik

D1 coaches are upset that it takes that long to develop them

When they’re good and develop then it’s a cycle and you replenish

Trevor Bassitt was recruited but not by Akron/Kent and the big D1 schools

Trevor and Ernie match their passion

Come in everyday and meet my intensity and passion

Tells recruits that it matters that you maximize your abilities

Athletes stay here when schools are crawling for them

Is it more so the athlete that you recruit or their potential that you see, and you are able to

develop them into great athletes when they are here?

We do about 80% development

1 or 2 out of every 10 kids were recruited by D1 schools and we win those kids out- the

school sold them or my relationships sold the kids

Bret Fairbanks was #3 in HS in the country in the weight throw

Majority of the kids are kids we redshirt, develop and build

We look and recruit passionate kids that we think can help move our program forward

Obviously you cannot name them all, but who have been some of those once in a lifetime

athletes that have come through Ashland?

Katie Nageotte- transferred from Dayton

Jackie and Adrinanne came to AU the same years- did years 3, 4 and 5 together

Success level through a 5 year period

Adrianne competed in Olympic trials as a cancer survivor

He thinks Trevor Bassitt is the next name

The list of people

Have him talk all day about these different athletes?

Describe some of the relationships you have been able to form with your athletes?

He married Kelly Ash and Rob Klank

Walked Adrianne Blewitt down the aisle

Coaching tree has extended to 14 all over the US and NCAA

42 of former throwers came back to watch him compete at 55 years old

He stays in touch with quite a few of them

The years for him blend together

His first All American just put two kids through college

Two kids in his program named their kids Logan

Stuff he will never forget

Picture w/ Kurt Roberts

Billy Graham once said a coach can affect more people in a year than a normal person

can affect in a lifetime

Be a light giver for kids

Are you able to compare Drew Windle and Myles Pringle?

Both are very cocky- as a coach he loves

Walk the walk and talk the talk as long as you can support that

They were both very local about going to win the natty

Drew- Was better collegiate competitor

Myles- Has greatest ceiling for potential development

What was your relationship with Bill Gallagher like?

Jud never wanted to be head coach, he wanted to work for him the rest of his life

In by 5:30, paperwork done by 8

Type of person who does everything, Type A personality

When he retired Jud tried to be the way Bill was but wife says run the entire program the

way he has one the throws program

Ran the program like everyone was a thrower- turned the program around and getting up

on the podium and those NCAA trophies

All of a sudden we just started a run to put years together

There are so many degrees that happened over those three days

HAVE HIM EXPLAIN HOW CRAZY IT WAS TO WIN BY ONE POINT

Down by 24 points going into the last day in Kingsville

Just that moment where things lined up for us- those things manifested themselves to give

us a chance to win

Before the year started him and Ernie sat here and said if we screw around we can win this thing

Rival with GV?

He had never heard of GV growing up

When we first went into GLIAC AU was the dominant program and we smashed

everyone

GV was on this plan to slowly implement and build and grow the campus and athletics

Scholarship level funding higher than anyone in the conference

Has rosters of 170 kids on the team when we had 80

Conference game or national game?

It was either get smashed by GV at conference but we go and beat them at

Nationals

25-5 against each other- That’s just how it works here

Years ago we stole the conference title from GV

That’s why I’ve stayed here and am interested

How much of an expectation did it become year after year?

That’s where tradition never graduates became evident

Challenge to our staff to be ready- recruit kids that can help us stay where we are at

Expectation of the coaching staff and kids- matter of belief and trust

How has the athletic department as a whole grown into the 21st century?

Started when Goldring started to focus in on the Sears cup

Remember when we first got the final four balls of one of the top programs in the country

Student athletes are 600- over a quarter of the population

Nothing wrong with being known for having great athletics

Athletic provides great value to the school and to the pride

Majority of kids came here just for track and field but also for good education

Overall athletics is making a large amount of money for university- but not by ticket sales

What has your relationship with Bill Goldring and Al been like?

Fantastic with both- sits in AD office at least 3 times a week just hanging out

Bill was first wo wake up the university to show that we can have athletic excellence and

not a drain of money for the university

Had I not had a good relationship with them, Jud would have neer taken the offers he had

received

About putting his imprint on the program as the head coach

What has Ashland meant to you in your 26 years here?

Moved to Ashland about 10 years ago

Worked with a lot of different places around town by volunteering and donating

He and his wife love Ashland

Stay local and that sense of community here

He would love to have more of a following, but the university needs the community and

the community needs the university- interwoven into the fabric

Certain things about the Ashland community

Why do you believe Ashland athletics has been so successful?

It’s the coaches

John Schaly, Sheilah Gulas, Lee Owens, Tim Rose, Sue Ramsey

We are not a school where people come to get a better job

This is the reason we have been able to have the level of success

These guys turn down so many opportunities to stay here

Meeting with Sheilah Gulas 1/2/20

Did not have a losing record in 21 years

12 NCAA Regional Tournament Appearances

5 GLIAC titles

1 Super Region Appearance- 2010

Went to Clarion to play softball- 1980-1984

Head coach at Allegheny from 1987-1990- top 6 team in the country every year

National runner-up in 1988

D-III Coach of the Year in 1988 and 1989

Head coach at Wittenberg from 1991-1996

She learned how to coach and have patience and get something out of not much talent at

Wittenberg

Ashland was the best of both worlds because she was putting everything together

Almost got out of coaching before she got the Ashland job

Had opportunities to go to Akron or Kent state but she didn’t get those jobs

Had an opportunity to apply to Cleveland State but didn’t get it- went in demanding a lot

of things

Good to look and have that opportunity- enjoyed Ashland and where things were with her

husband

Before coming to Ashland, what was your journey like, where were you before AU?

Actual degree was in elementary education- taught 5th grade one year, came home, then

became an assistant at Allegheny

In the 80s and 90s, women coaches still had to coach multiple sports

Taught a lot of easy physical education classes in college such as badmitten and

stuff

Never thought she would have the opportunity to coach

Facilities: Biggest thing in my career that was a tough obstacle is she never coached at a college

that had a great softball field- part of the reason she left Allegheny, same thing at Wittenberg

Biggest joke when she was leaving Ashland because they still haven’t got a great field

Something she really sees as a hardship

Although retired, are you still involved with softball?- NFCA board of directors

Representative on NFCA

VP for a number of years

Serves as a maritime board member

Having the opportunity to sit in the room with amazing idols of D-I coaches that you

would see on TV

Played a huge part in her whole experience as a young coach- being involved in the

growth of the sport

Karen Linder coached 12 and under USA softball team- Sheilah has helped her as an assistant

Kids from Ohio and West Virginia

She finds it funny that two coaches with 800+ wins and 900+ wins is coaching 12 years

olds

Before coming to AU, what was the program like under Karen Linder? -still pretty successful

She was doing a great time building it

The Ashland blaze was a good travel team in the area- Karen pulled a number of kids

from the team

When Karen left, they were a top team in the conference and starting to get national

recognition

Right as you stepped into Ashland in 1997, you had some phenomenal players that were able to

get you going. Explain those teams you had in your first few years?

Sunny Litteral and Ally Prye- Sunny was player of the year and was drafted by Akron

Racers- pitcher-catcher duo

Kim Herman- Adam Bracken’s wife- pitcher, first baseman

Mandy Becker- big time transfer

Julie Weir (Gott)- first recruiting class she brought in, first full-time assistant

Alisha Lingstreth- (Gaffney)

Josie Nelson (Henry)- pitcher, current coach at Case Western

Ask about two catchers that were all-american in the same year

Trying to take that team and build those athletes to make them stronger every year

You came in at about the same time as all of the other great coaches: John Schaly, Jud Logan,

Sue Ramsey- what was it like to be in the same athletic department as those people?

None of us really superstars at that time when we first came to Ashland

Blue-collared, put your nose to the grindstone and go

Exciting being apart of that growth

Bill Weidner was the one that hired most of us, wasn’t the one who micromanaged

Records before we were hired, the programs were on the verge of something and we had

that growth of living in the moment and living that dream

We came in and took it and ran with it- all 30-40 year olds

Kids in my generation come in and say this what we have now, we reap the benefits of

their success

We did not have the best stuff, driving vans and the poor uniforms and the poor meals

Excited about the little things that everyone takes for granted now

Nowadays that kind of stuff is expected

Who were those once in a decade- if you will- athletes for you?

Terra Ringler- epitome of student athlete- first in graduating class

What kind of support did you receive from the athletic department, what was it like working with

Bill and Al?

You knew Bill always had your back

He wouldn’t let a parent or anyone else criticize the person who was running the program

Always felt the support but always knew they would help them

Not always get what they wanted

Was always there but were not so demanding

Recruiting: Softball is pretty popular in the state of Ohio- kept recruiting within a couple of

hours of Ashland- real hotbeds in the sport of softball

Stayed in the state

Tried to find the players that everyone else missed

Couldn’t compete with teams like Kent State, Akron and Miami- lost number

How much do you know about the history of the university’s athletics or just the softball

program’s athletics?

Does not know that much- Karen would be the one to talk to in regards to that

What was going through your head when you were inducted into the NFCA Hall of Fame?

She started tearing up like crazy

They made the announcement at the convention the year before

Have a year of appreciation and support and compliments and praise

Just an amazing year to see and feel all of the love and support

Very humbling

Why do you think Ashland athletics has been so successful?

Talk about the coaches being blue-collared hard-working, that’s what she has found the

athletes to be as well

We didn’t have the same things as all of these other teams, but they looked at

what we did have and wanted to compete

We don’t care who they are, only care about who we are and compete

Winning national championships and running around that little track in the field house

All of these AU teams are overcoming facilities problems and making the program the

best that they could

We all had those kind of kids- we were never giving amazing athletic scholarships

They came to Ashland for the right reason

APPENDIX E

INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

Mark McClintock Interview 9/22/19

1. What was the fan atmosphere around AU athletics when you were a student here?

2. How has that changed and developed throughout the years?

3. Through your historical analysis, what have you learned most about the athletics here at

Ashland?

4. In your opinion, why has the athletic program been so successful?

5. Talked about a moment hearing Bob Brownson speak, what was that like?

6. Greatest game you ever saw in Ashland history?

Dr. Fred Martinelli Interview 9/28/19

1. Who was E.E. Jacobs and what did he do to help start intercollegiate athletics at AC?

2. Gil Dodds, who was he? Best athlete to ever come through Ashland?

3. What was the state of the university like when you came on in 1959?

4. All of our athletic buildings you saw get constructed, how does that play into the

recruiting and overall state of athletics?

5. Just talk about Redwood Stadium, describe it, and then talk about Fralick’s Frantic 40?

6. Describe the 1972 team.

7. What does it mean to you to be in the Hall of Fame with Bill Royce?

8. In your mind, why is Ashland athletics so successful today?

9. What kind of man was Dr. Clayton and what did he do to impact this college so greatly?

10. What were the financial difficulties of the 1970s like?

Darla Plice Interview 9/28/19

1. When you were here at small school AC, you played a lot of bigger schools, what was

that like?

2. Why did our athletics schedule better/bigger competition for all sports?

3. When you were here, was a 2-3 sport athlete a common thing?

4. You grew up in Ashland your whole life, what was it like growing up around AC

athletics?

5. When you chose schools, you probably could have played somewhere better than

Ashland, but why Ashland?

6. What was the community support like back in that time?

7. What has Ashland meant to you?

8. In your mind, why were we and have been so successful?

9. What was the highlight of your athletic career at AC?

Ralph Tomassi Interview 10/27/19

1. Throughout all of your years at the university, what are your observations about the

change and growth?

2. Can you explain to me why the university was in such financial trouble in the 1970s?

3. What did Joe Shultz do to help save the university?

4. In your mind, what was the turning point for AU athletics, taking themselves from good

to great?

5. How important was Dr. Clayton to this university?

6. Why has Ashland athletics been so successful?

7. Talk about Martinelli’s move to D-II.

8. Tell me the story of how you got your first job at Ashland?

Dr. Carol Mertler Interview 10/30/19

1. Do you think Ashland was ahead of their time? Especially speaking of the size and type

of school Ashland is?

2. The purpose of Title IX, do you think it is fully achieved today?

3. What does 1972 mean to you?

4. Explain to mean how long it took for things to become equal and how they didn’t start

right away. No one knew what the rules were?

5. She was very active in DGWS- Division of Girls and Women in Sports

6. Explain some of the top athletes when you were there?

7. What was your relationship with Ella Shannon and how did the both of you progress

women’s athletics?

8. What has made Ashland athletics so successful?

Al King Interview 11/8/19

1. When you arrived here in the ’90s, what were the athletic programs like?

2. Explain the scandal of the MBB program, and how that has affected the program decades

after.

3. How have you seen the athletic department grow in the 21

century?

4. Talk about recruiting, how now most of our kids are within 1-2 hours of campus.

5. Bill hired the coaches, but you have seen them grow and transform?

6. Tell the story of Jamie Minnic McDanial.

7. Who were some other great athletes that come to mind and why?

8. How has Ashland placed themselves as one of the best D-II schools in the country?

9. What has the faculty’s views of athletics been like overtime?

10. What does the future of Ashland athletics look like?

11. How much does conference affiliation play into the success of an athletic department?

Dr. Dan O’Rourke Interview 11/8/19

1. Why did athletics begin at Ashland in 1920?

2. How has collegiate athletics driven universities?

3. What was the impact women’s athletics has had on the transformation of collegiate

athletics?

4. Why would kids want to come to Ashland?

5. When did college athletics find its surge?

6. How badly did the Vietnam War affect other universities across the country?

7. Why do you think Ashland is so successful historically?

Bob Brownson Jr. Interview 11/8/19

1. Tell me again about how your dad walked into a losing tradition when he came to AC?

2. What were the conditions of the facilities like?

3. Tell me about coming to watch your dad’s games.

4. What has Ashland meant to your family all these years?

5. Explain how the Hungry Hounds got their name?

6. Tell me about Fralick’s Frantic 40.

7. People questioned why your Dad came to AC. Why?

8. Your Dad was also a speaker?

9. What do you think has made Ashland athletics so successful?

Dr. Mark Hamilton Interview 11/11/19

1. Start by telling me any of the stories you have on your mind right now about Ashland

athletics.

2. Tell me your story, about how your mom was pregnant with you when Founders Hall

burned down.

3. What was it like serving on the search committees for coaches that were so successful

here?

4. What was the most moving sporting event and the single most amazing event?

5. Explain for me what happened with the MBB scandal?

6. Explain the difference between Al King and Bill Goldring.

7. Explain the vision of the GLIAC that Bill and Al had.

8. What has it been like being a faculty representative?

9. Why do you think Ashland athletics has become so successful?

Nik Donges Interview 11/23/19

1. How would you describe your father?

2. Have him tell the story of Founders Hall burning down- he was 10 and could see the

flames and smoke easily

3. Tell me about going to football and basketball games as a member of the band.

4. Although you got the short end of a stick when it came to your Father’s time, what does

that show of his commitment towards Ashland athletics?

5. Tell me about your dad’s and Bob Brownson’s “grading paper parties?”

6. What type of athlete was your father?

7. Tell me about being a bat boy and the opportunity to hang around your Dad’s teams?

Dr. Ella Shannon Interview 11/25/19

100

1. Why did you enter into the career field of Phys Ed. and athletics?

2. Talk about your time as a student and athlete while at AC?

3. Explain how you were hired back to Ashland after being at Loudonville.

4. Talk about the funding of women’s sports and how you had to use your own expenses.

5. What was the highlight of your entire life?

6. How were you able to see women’s athletics grow and change?

7. When did you see a lot of the efforts of Title IX begin to take hold?

8. What has made Ashland athletics so successful to this day?

Kari Pickens Interview 12/9/19

1. What was it like making the transition from Dayton to Ashland?

2. 2012 season, losing in the National Championship, what was going through your head

that summer before your senior season?

3. What emotions did you have after winning the National Championship?

4. What has the community support meant to you in your eight year span so far?

5. What was it like to have the opportunity to learn from Sue and Robyn?

6. Was it a life changing experience transferring to Ashland?

7. As you yourself are one, talk about other exceptional athletes that have come to Ashland.

8. How has Ashland athletics become so successful?

9. Anything else you would like to add?

Dr. Duncan Jamieson Interview 12/10/19

1. Tell me the story of how Ashland got the name of the Eagles back in 1933?

2. Talk about the mascots and what they mean to the students, especially in the earlier

1900s?

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3. Financial troubles in the ’70s, what did Joe Shultz do?

4. When did the country see an overall rise of college athletics?

5. Describe the story of the Case Eagles and what students began to do in 1941?

6. What was the final solution of the theft of the Eagles?

7. How has Ashland athletics become so successful?

Sue Ramsey Interview 12/11/19

1. What was different from your time at Dayton to your time at Ashland?

2. What was the state of the WBB program when you arrived in 1995?

3. Do you believe Title IX has been completely settled?

4. What did you think about Ashland when you played against them?

5. You told me a story from around 2000 when you and Bill had talked in the middle of a

bad season. Explain that to me.

6. How has the recruiting process changed from when you were an athlete to when you

were a coach?

7. Why are you so grateful to Ashland University?

8. How has the community been a part of your ride here?

9. How have you seen AU athletics progress throughout the years?

10. Why are we so successful?

John Ellenwood Interview 12/11/19

1. What can you say about the history and coaches of the MBB program?

2. Is there a certain expectation to live up to here at Ashland?

3. How were you able to turn around this program and keep it moving in the direction you

want it to go?

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4. Tell me some of your favorite stories of your time here?

5. Why is it so important to run your program the right way with the right kids?

6. What makes AU stand out against all the other GLIAC schools?

7. What is the coaching difference like from D3 to D2?

8. How has Ashland rolled with the punches through the years?

9. Why have athletics been so successful?

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APPENDIX F

SUMMARY OF WORK PROCESS

Started process in January of 2019 after taking class

Started to meet with Dave Roepke, University archivist in January

Met with him the entire semester, every Friday from 10-12

Read two thesis’ from January-March and made copies of them

- History of Women’s Athletics at AC

- History of Athletics at AC up to 1960

Made great progress on obtaining archives, lots of videos and pictures

It was hard for me to keep things central

I would often spend time on photocopying things or reading things that mattered but had

very specific stories

As time went on, I realized I did not have to spend time on those small things and needed

to look on a broader scale

Was starting to make decent progress

Met with Dr. Fred Martinelli once in February and a second time in early April

Met with Dusty Sloan and Al King in February just to touch base and let them know what I’m

trying to accomplish

March of 2019 was a very slow month for me

Spring break threw me off, only scanned photos and such

Hoping for a different outcome when it comes to summer break!!

Met with Jeff Alix- Going to send out an email soon to all varsity alumni looking for videos

Went to Philmont for the summer so was not able to make much progress on this project.

It took me a few weeks after getting back to school to get back into the swing of things.

On Sept. 12, 2019, Jeff Alix emailed over 2,800 varsity alumni in which I sent out a content

request. I received huge results back from 20 people responding in the first day. My goal

was to email back each person every time in a reasonable amount of time. Looking

forward to what is down the road in the near future and cannot wait to see what is to

become. Need to give huge praise and thanks to the work and assistance that Jeff Alix has

done for me!

As time went on, not as many people responded as much as I would have liked, but now it is

January 2nd of 2020 and I believe that I will begin to email those people back and have

them send me audio files of certain stories

End of Sept- I was able to get rolling on a lot of meetings with people and was able to knock out

three interviews

Beginning of Oct- I had 2-3 weeks where I did nothing for my capstone and while it didn’t set

me back, I just became lazy and did not get anything done for this project

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October 18, 2019- I finally got out of my slump and started contacting and reaching out to

people, having a meeting around three times a week or almost doing something for my

capstone every day of the week. If I had open time in my schedule, I filled it with my

work for my capstone

October 21, 2019- Scott Vander Sloot, the athletic department GA for the SIDs was able to help

me out a great deal with giving me a lot of great videos from the more recent years

A few big interviews that I was able to get that made me really happy was Carol Mertler and Ella

Shannon, two women who had key roles in women’s athletics in the 60s and 70s

Although, this would still be a great piece if I focused just on Ashland athletics, I felt the need to

expand my reach a little more into the overall history of the university and college

athletics. People such as Ralph Tomassi, Mark Hamilton, Dan O’Rourke and Duncan

Jamieson were able to help me out there.

I have also found that the majority of people I am using in my pieces are coaches/administrators

because I only have a few athletes I will be talking to. Besides, they only spent four years

here, if that, while these coaches have spent most of their lives at Ashland

Make sure to mention the process of backing up hard drives. With all of this information I

certainly did not want to lose it so it is backed up to two different hard drives, a personal

one and school one

November 11, 2019- There was even one night, the first snow of the year that I was so motivated

to go shoot some snow scenics; not sure if I will use them, but they were some decently

nice shots

November 18, 2019- I met with Jim Hurguy, a graphics professor here at AU, and he was able to

help me develop my graphics for this project. Although the graphics I went with are more

on the newsy side, I wanted to stick with them because I loved the design portion of it.

Most graphics in documentaries are simple with no shape or form, but rather two simple

lines of text. I wanted something more defining.

November 23, 2019- I drove all the way down to Cincinnati to meet with Nik Donges, son of

former baseball coach George Donges. I spent the whole day with him and was able to

get a decent amount of information from him, but more importantly form a nice bond

because of this project with someone I would have never met otherwise

Right before I left for winter break, I was able to knock out a few more meetings and do a few

interviews in the span of a few days which was really nice, so I felt accomplished like the

work process and research process was just about done for me. I took a rest over winter

break until I began working again on Jan. 2. I was able to receive about 10-15 VHS tapes

from Karen Linder that will be able to be used in my project, this felt like I struck a gold

mine.

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APPENDIX G

CAPSTONE PROJECT HOURS

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