The Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference is a collegiate athletic conference affiliated with NCAA Division I. Its current 11 full members are located in four Northeastern states: Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, and Maryland. It was announced on October 23, 2023 that Sacred Heart University and Merrimack College will join the conference beginning in the 2024-25 season.
The University of Hartford (UHart) is a private university in West Hartford, Connecticut. Its 350-acre (1.4 km2) main campus extends into neighboring Hartford and Bloomfield. The university is accredited by the New England Commission of Higher Education.
The West Coast Conference (WCC) — known as the California Basketball Association from 1952 to 1956 and then as the West Coast Athletic Conference until 1989 — is a collegiate athletic conference affiliated with NCAA Division I consisting of nine member schools across the states of California, Oregon, and Washington.
Jennifer Marie Rizzotti is a retired American collegiate and professional basketball player, and former Division I coach at George Washington University. She is the president of the Connecticut Sun. Rizzotti was inducted into the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame in 2013.
Scott David Burrell is an American basketball coach and former player who is currently the men's basketball head coach at Southern Connecticut State University. He has played internationally and was also a professional baseball player. In 1990, Burrell was drafted by the Toronto Blue Jays of MLB. He played in Minor League Baseball during the 1990 and 1991 seasons. After ending his baseball career, he was drafted in 1993 by the Charlotte Hornets of the NBA. He was later traded to the Golden State Warriors and then the Chicago Bulls, where he won a championship ring. He next played with the New Jersey Nets and then finished his NBA career with the Hornets in 2000–01. He played in other professional basketball leagues through the 2005–06 season.
Pat Meiser is a college women's basketball coach. She is best known for her 6-year run as head coach of Penn State, in which she compiled a 92–52 record. Following that, she became the athletics director at the University of Hartford. She was named one of the nation's top 50 women's sports executives by Street and Smith's Sports Business Journal. She has also worked as the associate athletic director at the University of Connecticut.
Evansville, Indiana is the home to two minor league professional sports teams and one amateur sports team. The city is also the home to two NCAA collegiate teams, and nine high schools that participate in the Indiana High School Athletic Association. Evansville is also the host to the annual Hoosier Nationals and Demolition City Roller Derby.
Fiondella Field is a baseball venue located on the campus of the University of Hartford in West Hartford, Connecticut, United States. It is home to the Hartford Hawks baseball team, a member of the NCAA Division III Commonwealth Coast Conference. The stadium hosted its first game on March 29, 2006. It holds a capacity of 1,000 spectators and includes dugouts, batting cages, and a modern scoreboard over the left field fence.
Huskies of Honor is a recognition program sponsored by the University of Connecticut (UConn). Similar to a hall of fame, it honors the most significant figures in the history of the UConn Huskies—the university's athletic teams—especially the men's and women's basketball teams. The inaugural honorees, inducted in two separate ceremonies during the 2006–07 season, included thirteen men's basketball players, ten women's basketball players, and four head coaches, of whom two coaches—Jim Calhoun and Geno Auriemma—and two players—Ray Allen and Rebecca Lobo—are also enshrined in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. Since that time, an additional nine women's basketball players, seven men's basketball players, five national championship teams, one women's basketball assistant coach, and one athletic director have been honored.
The Hartford Hawks baseball team is the varsity intercollegiate baseball program of the University of Hartford, located in West Hartford, Connecticut. The program is a member of the NCAA Division III Commonwealth Coast Conference. The program had been a member of the NCAA Division I America East Conference from 1985 to 2022. It has played home games at Fiondella Field since the venue opened at the start of the 2006 season.
The Northeast Conference Men's Basketball Player of the Year is an annual award given to the Northeast Conference's (NEC) most outstanding player. The award was first given following the 1982–83 season, when the league was known as the ECAC Metro Conference.
John Michael Gallagher is the head men's basketball coach at Manhattan College. He previously served as the head coach at the University of Hartford from 2010 until 2022.
The Hartford Hawks men's basketball team is the basketball team that represents University of Hartford in West Hartford, Connecticut. The school's team currently competes as a member of the NCAA Division III Commonwealth Coast Conference.
The Bryant Bulldogs baseball team is the NCAA division 1 varsity intercollegiate baseball team of Bryant University, located in Smithfield, Rhode Island. The program participates a member of the America East Conference. The Bulldogs previously participated as members of the Northeast Conference. It plays at Conaty Park on the northern edge of Bryant's campus. Ryan Klosterman has been the program's head coach since the 2020 season.
The Hartford Hawks women's basketball team is the basketball team that represents the University of Hartford in West Hartford, Connecticut, United States. The school's team currently competes as in the NCAA Division III Commonwealth Coast Conference. The school began the women's basketball team in 1975 as a Division III school. The program moved to Division II and was a member of the Northeast-10 Conference between 1980 and 1984. The school transitioned to Division I in 1984, playing as an independent school in 1984–85, and then becoming part of the Seaboard Conference in 1985–86. The Seaboard Conference became the North Atlantic Conference in 1989, and changed their name to America East in 1996.
Justin Blood is an American baseball coach and former player, who is the current head baseball coach of the Keene State Owls. He played college baseball at Frankin Pierce from 1999 to 2001. He then served as the head coach of the Hartford Hawks (2012–2021).
Jim Bretz is an American baseball scout and former college baseball coach. He is the Northeast Scouting Director for the Detroit Tigers and was previously the head coach of UNC Asheville (1991–1994) and Hartford (1995–1997).
At the end of each regular season, the America East Conference names major award winners in baseball. Currently, it names a Coach, Pitcher, Player, and Rookie of the Year. With the exception of Rookie of the Year, which was added in 1996, the awards date to the 1990 season, the conference's first season of baseball. Through the 1996 season, the awards were known as the major awards of the North Atlantic Conference, the America East's former name.
Mary Ellen Gillespie is a former American college athletics administrator. She previously served as athletic director for the University of Hartford from 2017 to 2019, the University of Wisconsin–Green Bay from 2013 to 2017, and as an associate athletic director at Bowling Green State University from 2006 to 2013. Gillespie graduated from the State University of New York at Plattsburgh with both bachelor's and master's degrees. Gillespie was named athletic director at the University of Hartford on May 23, 2017. On January 16, 2020, it was announced that Gillespie would join the Women's Basketball Coaches Association as a Deputy Director beginning March 2nd, following her resignation as Athletic Director at the University of Hartford in October 2019.
Gregory Woodward was the sixth and president of the University of Hartford. He was also the twenty-second president of Carthage College.
