Dow was a standout on the basketball court for the Royals from 1983 to 1986. In 1985, he was named the ODAC Player of the Year. He was a four-time All-ODAC First Team and etched his name in the record books as the all-time career leader in points (2,192), rebounds (1,102), and scoring average (20.4 points per game). He also set the record for most points in a season by a first-year when he scored 534 points in his first season. His jersey was retired in 1986 and he was inducted into the in 1987.

A giant on the basketball court, Dow has been an even bigger force when it comes to his faith during the 40 years since his graduation from EMU. He was a founder of the Oxford Circle Christian Community Development Association in Philadelphia, and for nearly 20 years was a pastor at Oxford Circle Mennonite Church. In 2017, he left the church to become the vice president of community and church development for Everence, leading the effort to serve emerging diverse communities and churches that historically have been underserved.

He also serves on the board of directors for The City School, Missio Seminary, The Brooklyn Peace Center, and The Common Place.

Dow, along with EMU’s three other ODAC Hall of Fame inductees, will be celebrated on Saturday, Feb. 7, at the men’s basketball game against Roanoke inside Yoder Arena. Tipoff is set for 2 p.m.��

David Falk ’15, a general studies major with a concentration in business, grew up in Madison, Virginia, where he had an impressive high school basketball career. He spent a postgraduate year playing at Hargrave Military Academy in Chatham, Virginia, before head men’s basketball coach Kirby Dean recruited him to EMU. 

As a 6-foot, 6-inch center, Falk played in 105 games with 56 starts, tallying 1,058 career points in four seasons with the Runnin’ Royals. He was a two-time ODAC First Team honoree, earning the distinction in 2014 and 2015; he received VaSID All-State First Team honors those same two years. Falk also made the D3hoops.com All-South Region Third Team in 2014 and the D3hoops.com All-South Region Second Team in 2015.

At the time of his graduation, Falk held an EMU career record for blocks (214) and ranked third all-time in career rebounds with 952. Today, he still holds EMU records for most rebounds in a game (28 vs. Lynchburg on Feb. 28, 2014), most rebounds in a season (375 in 2013-2014), and most blocked shots in a season (82 in 2013-2014).

After learning life lessons from Coach Dean—including “having perspective” and “to always have faith in God”—Falk returned to Madison where he and his wife, Katelynn, live with their two children, Preslee (4) and McCoy (2), on a 2,000-acre farm focused on cattle, corn, and soybeans.��

Falk will be honored at a ceremony on Saturday, Oct. 11, at 10 a.m. in the MainStage Theater (University Commons 170) during Homecoming 2025. For a full schedule of Homecoming events and activities, visit��emu.edu/homecoming.

As head men’s cross-country coach, Landes oversaw teams that won four National Christian Colleges Athletic Association (NCCAA) championships and two ODAC championships, including the inaugural ODAC championship in 1976. Another coaching highlight came when Landes stepped in as head men’s basketball coach for the 1972-1973 season: “It was the first year Lou Campanelli was at James Madison. They had scholarship players, and we hadn’t recruited at all. We beat them 72-71.”

Landes finished his 16-year EMU coaching career in 1983 with a 223-141 record. He also served as assistant professor of physical education from 1968-1982 and as supervisor of auxiliary services from 1984 until his retirement in 1998. He has fond memories of his time working with students in the classroom and on the playing fields. “The kids were just a joy to teach and to coach, and they didn’t hold anything back. They always gave 100 percent, and I really appreciated that and EMU’s spiritual emphasis that I thought was important for the whole person.

Give to EMU’s new track & field complex in honor of Landes here:

EMU Athletics is honoring two individuals and one team during the . Former athletic trainer Mike Downey will receive the Distinguished Service Award. Hall of Honor inductees are the 2010 basketball team and Lisa Lee Senger ‘12.

Mike Downey

Downey retired in December 2020 after 30 years of working with student-athletes. Beginning in 1989, Downey developed the expansion of EMU’s athletic training services from one person to a team of three full-time trainers, a team physician, and work-study students. 

As preceptor for the JMU Athletic Training Education Department, Downey worked with more than 100 athletic training students and counts that among one of his career accomplishments. 

“Thirty years of providing support, often behind-the-scenes, for student-athletes, coaches and teams is a significant achievement and I am deeply grateful for all that Mike has done for the athletic department,” said Director of Athletics Dave King. “I often hear appreciation for Mike from former athletes as they reflect on and recognize the value of his care during their athletic pursuits.” 

Downey was with the Royals teams to many of the biggest athletic moments in school history, including the field hockey team’s trip to the NCAA Final Four in 1995, a tournament trip with the men’s soccer team in 1998, NCAA-qualifying seasons for men’s and women’s basketball, men’s volleyball hosting the Final Four in 2004, and Erik Kratz earning back-to-back ODAC Player of the Year awards in 2001 and 2002.

Lisa Lee Senger ’12

In 19 years with EMU softball, head coach J.D. McCurdy names Lisa Lee Senger ‘12 as the program’s all-time outstanding athlete – “a huge part of our team winning the ODAC Championship that year.” He calls her competitive\, tenacious, resilient, focused and tough. Senger will be inducted into the Hall of Honor in recognition of the mark she made on the EMU softball team.

Lee holds three career records – runs scored (141), total bases (302) and wins (42), as well as multiple single-season records. She led the team to a conference championship and an NCAA berth during her junior year, when she was also ODAC Pitcher of the Year, All-ODAC First Team, VaSID First Team, and the EMU Female Athlete of the Year. She was a two-time All-ODAC Tournament Team selection and earned multiple second-team conference and region honors at the conference level, as well as recognition from Virginia Association of Sports Information Directors and the National Fastpitch Coaches Association.

After working for several years in early childhood and special education, Senger owns a wedding and event planning business. She and husband Christopher have two children ages 2 and 6.

“I encountered many wonderful people both on and off the softball field which made my college experience unforgettable,” she reflected. “In my spare time, I still pick up a softball from time to time and play travel women’s and co-ed slow-pitch. Every time I touch a softball, I’m reminded of how EMU prepared me for the many challenges and joys of life.” 

2010 Men’s Basketball Team

This fall, the first basketball team will be inducted into the university’s Hall of Honor. The 2010 team  that qualified for the Elite Eight and set multiple records along the way was honored in February 2022 at a men’s basketball game. Twelve of the 13 players attended that reunion.

Darrell “D.J.” Hinson Jr. came from Colorado where he works as a government IT contractor; George Johnson, now a mental health care provider and entrepreneur from Houston, Texas; Luke Holloran, a musician and educator, from New Orleans. A few of the others were a bit closer: Orie Pancione from Ridgely, West Virginia, where he is principal at Frankfort High School; Austin Twine, a mortgage lender from Christiansburg, and Owen Longacre, a teacher at Spotswood High School. 

And Dean was surprised by their loyal attendance, but then he wasn’t. “How many programs can honor a group of guys and have this many show up?” Dean said in front of a packed crowd. “That says something about family. When we got in a huddle every game while they were here and put their hands in the middle, we said ‘family’ and that’s why they showed up today.”

“The 2010 season still stands as the greatest single season in the history of EMU men’s basketball,” said former sports information director James DeBoer, who also came to the reunion. “What that group of men accomplished literally put EMU basketball onto the national landscape.”

The D3 Hoops poll reflected that: EMU entered at #24 on Jan. 3 and appeared for 25 consecutive weeks, through the end of the 2010-11 season. During that time, the Royals rose as high as #3 on multiple occasions and never fell below #18. 

“We were also nationally in the top 10 in attendance,” Dean said. “I don’t think many people knew that. In 2009, we were 13 and 0 at home and won games by an average of 19.9 points and that was with me calling off the dogs halfway through the games.”  

After losing in the ODAC tournament, EMU earned an at-large bid to the NCAA National Tournament and hosted their next two games. They beat Centre College, Wilmington and Whitworth, but lost against Guilford, the team they had beaten in the regular season by 27 points. To this day, Dean believes that if his full team had been available (lone senior Austin Twine suffered a season-ending ACL injury in February), the team would have gone to the Final Four. As it was, they were 25-5 and ended the season ranked fourth in the D3 Hoops national poll.

Dean understands the importance of that single season, but he also notes the success of teams before and after. “From 2008 to 2018, only three teams in the ODAC won more games than us. As great as they were for two years, they put our program on the map, they created a culture and that’s why we continued to win after they walked out the door, why we win now and why we will continue to win in the future because they showed it can be done at Eastern Mennonite.”

When head coach Kirby Dean heard that ��ݮ���� wanted to honor and celebrate his 2010 Royals basketball team – the one that qualified for the Elite Eight and set multiple records along the way – he wasn’t sure how many would come. His 13 guys were spread around the country, with jobs and families and other commitments. And you know, the pandemic.

On Saturday, though, there they were, 12 of them, lined up on the main court at Yoder Arena. 

Darrell “D.J.” Hinson Jr. came from Colorado where he works as a government IT contractor; George Johnson, now a mental health care provider and entrepreneur from Houston, Texas; Luke Holloran, a musician and educator, from New Orleans. A few of the others were a bit closer:��

Orie Pancione from Ridgely, West Virginia, where he is principal at Frankfort High School; Austin Twine, a mortgage lender from Christiansburg, and Owen Longacre, a teacher at Spotswood High School. [For the full roster, see the team photo.]

And Dean was surprised, but then he wasn’t.

“How many programs can honor a group of guys and have this many show up?” Dean said in front of a packed crowd. “That says something about family. When we got in a huddle every game while they were here and put their hands in the middle, we said ‘family’ and that’s why they showed up today.”

Return brings ‘nostalgia’

The team recognition took place at halftime of EMU’s match-up with University of Lynchburg. Ahead 41-19 at the half, the Royals opened a lead and held on for the 65-60 win. The Royals notched their first win over Lynchburg since 2015 and improved their ODAC record to 6-5. starting at 55 minutes. .

The scene in Yoder Arena evoked nostalgia from Newport News-native Hinson, still a basketball fan though now with limited playing time. He and his toddler son flew in from Denver for the weekend and were joined by his parents from the Williamsburg area.

“It’s been great to be back,” Hinson said during a post-game reception. “I hadn’t come back in a long time and it brings back a lot of memories…There were a lot of people that supported us and I wanted to come back for them.”

One of those was Regina Dean, Kirby’s wife, who continued her tradition of baking post-game treats of brownies and chocolate chip cookies. The Tupperware containers made the rounds among players and their families during an hour-long program in MainStage Theater. “That was the tradition for every game,” she said. “I figured they needed something to celebrate if they won and something to pick them up when they didn’t.”

All of the key assistant coaches that contributed to the team’s success returned as well: Charles Hale is still with EMU, now working with current head coach Melvin Felix. Carey Keyes, a real estate agent, is head coach of the East Rockingham High School boys varsity team, a perennial postseason state tournament contender (his senior star, Tyler Nickel, recently signed with UNC). Mat Huff teaches special education at Luray High and coaches the boys varsity team. And Greg Smith also returned. Though Smith had left coaching at EMU the year prior to the epic run, he had been instrumental in the recruitment of the core of that team and remains in contact with the players.

‘Lightning in a bottle’

James De Boer, then in his first year as EMU’s sports information director, also returned for the celebration. De Boer left EMU last summer but says in his 12 years there, athletics staff routinely recalled the 2010 run, characterizing the intense alchemy of that unique season as “catching lightning in a bottle.”

“It still stands as the greatest single season in the history of EMU men’s basketball,” De Boer said. “What that group of men accomplished literally put EMU basketball onto the national landscape.”

The D3 Hoops poll reflected that: EMU entered at #24 on Jan. 3 and appeared for 25 consecutive weeks, through the end of the 2010-11 season. During that time, the Royals rose as high as #3 on multiple occasions and never fell below #18.

“We were also nationally in the top 10 in attendance,” Dean said. “I don’t think many people knew that. In 2009, we were 13 and 0 at home and won games by an average of 19.9 points and that was with me calling off the dogs halfway through the games.”  

Though the team had notched successful records in the preceding years, Dean said later that R.E. Lee grad and junior college transfer Eli Crawford was the difference-maker. Coach Paul Hatcher’s program at Lee was a powerhouse in the area (the school is now known as Staunton High). A player who would have been a starter on any other team, Crawford sized up the team dynamic and told Dean, “I want to be your sixth man and the best sixth man you’ve ever had.” He was.

In January, 1,546 rowdy EMU fans packed Yoder Arena to watch the Royals upset No. 1 ranked Randolph-Macon by 23 points. 

“This was before the era of D-III sports getting a chance on ESPN highlights, and before social media really took off, yet there was just a feeling that people around the nation noticed what had just happened,” De Boer remembers. “Despite not getting the recognition they should have in the national poll, or perhaps to spite that fact, the guys did it again, this time on the road, beating a top-ranked Guilford team a month later in Greensboro, 90-63.”

Legacy lives on

After losing in the ODAC tournament, EMU earned an at-large bid to the NCAA National Tournament and hosted their next two games. The win against Centre College set up a next-day game scenario and Dean remembered coming to campus early the next morning to watch film. Instead he ended up spending the next three hours greeting the fans who were lined up for tickets around the indoor track. “The support was amazing,” he said.

EMU would go on to beat Wilmington and Whitworth, but lose against Guilford, the team they had beaten in the regular season by 27 points. To this day, Dean believes that if his full team had been available (lone senior Austin Twine suffered a season-ending ACL injury in February), the team would have gone to the Final Four. As it was, they were 25-5 and ended the season ranked fourth in the D3 Hoops national poll.

Dean understands the importance of that single season, but he also notes the success of teams before and after. “From 2008 to 2018, only three teams in the ODAC won more games than us. As great as they were for two years, they put our program on the map, they created a culture and that’s why we continued to win after they walked out the door, why we win now and why we will continue to win in the future because they showed it can be done at Eastern Mennonite.”

In the fall at EMU’s 2022 Homecoming and Family Weekend, the team will be the first basketball team to be inducted into the university’s Hall of Honor. 

2010. What a year it was for the Runnin Royals.

EMU finished with a record 25 wins, finished second in the ODAC with a 14-2 record and, most importantly, advanced to their first NCAA tournament ever. But they weren’t content to just be there…they were there to make noise.

Take out Centre? Check. Knock down Wilmington (OH)? Check. Advance to the Elite Eight by beating Whitworth? Check. Unfortunately, that’s where the Cinderella story ended as Guilford, a team the Royals had just beaten by 27 a month earlier, picked up a 10-point victory over EMU, 90-80, ending its historic season.

Now, more than a decade later, that team still remains one of the most successful in EMU history and they’ll be back on campus Saturday, Feb. 5, for a reunion event hosted by EMU Athletics and Alumni Relations.

“Several years prior to that season, I had given an interview where I made the statement that I’d like to win a national championship at EMU,” said Kirby Dean, former head coach of the Royals. “The statement was so ludicrous at the time when considering the history of our program that I was literally embarrassed when I heard the interview. So to be knocking on the Final Four’s door several years later was as gratifying as any athletics experience in my life. That entire season and yearend run remains a highlight of my life and the relationships formed and developed during that time are a bond that will never be broken.”

When this year’s Royals squad takes on Lynchburg, many of those familiar faces will be back in Harrisonburg, albeit in a different capacity. The 2009-10 team will be honored at halftime of the men’s game, followed by a reception in the Royals Den at 4 pm and a brief program and digital presentation in the Main Stage Theatre at 5 pm. That presentation will include video clips of the team’s historic run and remarks from Dean.

The roster included Cutter Chisnell, Eli Crawford, Martin Harrison, DJ Hinson, Luke Holloran, George Johnson, Eric King, Jonathan Leaman,  Owen Longacre, Orie Pancione,  Todd Phillips, Chase Smith,  Andrew Thorne, Austin Twine, and Jessi White.

The team was coached by Dean and assistant coaches Bill Hale, Carey Keyes and Mat Huff.

“I am really looking forward to the reunion of this team,” said Director of Athletics David King. “It has given me a chance to reflect, not so much on what they achieved, but on what their success has had on EMU athletics and the university and the lessons they taught us. While we didn’t experience a significant enrollment boost, their success put EMU “on the map” in the basketball world and made EMU a destination for high school players. Their success brought the campus, the local community and our alumni together in special ways. They proved that “it can be done” at EMU and provided a model for achieving that level of success. Lessons abound from their demonstration of commitment, unity, unselfishness, hard work, team bonding, perseverance and campus connectedness to name just a few. It was a special group of people who together reached special levels of success.”

Along with this recognition, the 2009-10 team will also be inducted into the Eastern Mennonite Athletics Hall of Honor later in 2022. They will become just the fifth team inducted and the first basketball team to go into the hall.

To keep up to date with everything surrounding the men’s basketball program this year follow EMU on  and , like EMU Athletics on  or visit our .

George Johnson ’11 was used to being the person who others came to for help. He grew up in northside Richmond, and through his work ethic and entrepreneurial savvy, he built multiple successful businesses by his early 20s that employed his friends and family. Several of those businesses are mental healthcare providers that serve low-income youth in Virginia, Texas, and Missouri.

It wasn’t until Johnson went through the most painful challenge of his life – being hounded by federal prosecutors in a years-long saga, during which he was betrayed by members of his own family – that he considered seeking mental health services for himself. 

“I’m a prideful guy,” Johnson said. “I’m the one who everyone comes to asking for things … I never thought about myself needing this assistance.” 

Johnson has chronicled his life: his childhood in Richmond, his success as a , his meteoric rise as an entrepreneur, his federal trial, and the healing he’s found through therapy, in his self-published memoir, , which came out earlier this year. 

He first started writing as a therapeutic form of journaling while on house arrest last year. After two months, he had filled two notebooks, and began to consider sharing his story with the world. He thought about the “lack of education of mental health awareness” that he’d seen growing up in a Black, inner city community. 

“I knew who I’d be appealing to,” he said. “I look a certain kind of way. I sound a certain kind of way.”

Now he’s spreading the word even further, through conversations on podcasts and Instagram live and in articles. And people are responding. 

“I get a lot of people, every day, saying, ‘Man I never shared this,'” Johnson said. “Because I shared my story, it’s helped young kids and adults … all over the world.”

Early stardom

Before the book, before the trial, and before most of the businesses, Johnson was already making waves as a basketball player. Readers may remember his pivotal role in ��ݮ����’s most decorated basketball season, when the Royals advanced to the NCAA Division III Elite Eight in 2010. Coach Kirby Dean had recruited him from the Miller School of Albemarle, where Johnson had enrolled for his senior year of high school. 

“He was just a really sharp kid … he was really articulate and had a lot of personality and was easy to talk to,” Dean said. “We just had a good chemistry from the get-go.”

Johnson said that learning to navigate uber-wealthy circles at the Miller School and Mennonite culture in college – especially when he faced disciplinary consequences from the administration for having a child with a classmate, out of wedlock – taught him how to communicate with, and earn respect from, just about anyone.

Being able to “graduate and do everything I did on the basketball court – it was, early in my life, basically an example of what I needed to do when I left EMU,” he said.

After graduating in 2011, Johnson was preparing to play professional basketball overseas when he was mugged and beat up (one of the many stories he shares in his book). His injuries kept him in the U.S., and he played semi-professionally in Richmond for two years before joining his brother’s mental health company as an office manager. 

Living and working with his brother proved to be untenable, though, and Johnson struck out on his own, offering administrative services to mental healthcare providers. As he started other businesses, he brought on friends and family to work for him. 

Despite his success, Johnson feels he was “operating out of fear,” similar to others he grew up around, he said. Where others might cope with anxiety and PTSD with drugs or alcohol, Johnson coped through workaholism – which made him a good financial provider, but took a toll on his relationships.

“That balance is a daily struggle still, but I do have a better outlook of how important these relationships are,” he said. “I’m more conscious of that. My daughter is around me a lot. I go back home more now.”

The trial

Johnson was immersed in the grind, living in Houston, when he heard that his brother – the one he’d had a falling out with – had been charged with fraud and tax evasion. And before long, his brother tried to implicate him in his crimes. Johnson entered a hellish two-year whirlwind of FBI interrogations and accusations. They only stopped once his brother’s attorney admitted in court that they couldn’t produce any evidence of Johnson being a so-called “co-conspirator.” 

About a year later, though, his lawyer called to tell him that the lead prosecutor had picked the case back up, but with entirely different charges: subscribing to a false tax document.

“I asked him why,” Johnson writes in Double Crossed. “I had thought it was done, thought we had won. He told me, you can never really ‘beat’ the federal government. They either decide to stop pursuing you or they don’t. And if they don’t eventually, one way or another, they will win. They always win. And something about me had triggered something in them. They weren’t going to stop until they won.” 

Another of Johnson’s brothers, his oldest, had prepared his taxes for years. Johnson and his attorney discovered that he hadn’t reported income from two different companies over four years – income that the brother knew about, but hid from the IRS. 

Johnson decided to sign a plea deal, and explained to the feds that he hadn’t known about the omission, but would pay back the taxes owed from those four years. His sentence was to be set in October 2019, and Johnson hoped for leniency for his honest mistake. The prosecution, however, pushed for the maximum sentence possible, because Johnson’s brother – the oldest brother Johnson had trusted throughout this whole ordeal – was going to testify against him to save his own skin.

Johnson asked friends, mentors, and colleagues to write to the judge attesting to his character. Word got around, and even more letters were sent than he asked for – almost 20 in all.

The judge “had never had such a wide range of people reach out to him,” from a high school athletic director to a retired mayor to incarcerated men who he’d counseled, Johnson said.

Kirby Dean was one of those writers. 

“I wanted him to know that George was a good kid,” he said. “He had been a great kid in high school. He had been a great kid in college, and he’d spent his whole life doing things the right way … he deserved some grace.” 

In the end, the judge was somewhat lenient – Johnson was to sell off his most lavish possessions, be on house arrest for a year, and pay back the government over $100,000 in back taxes. Thankfully, though, he was not given any time in prison. 

Finding strength through vulnerability

It was on house arrest last year that Johnson finally put pen to paper and set out to express all the trials – literally and figuratively – that he’d been through.

“With everything I was dealing with for three or four years, I never had a chance to just sit down and breathe,” he said. For the first time, “I could literally just decompress.”

Now that he’s free once more, Johnson said he’s “hit the ground running” in the business world. But with both the book and a heap of emotional healing under his belt, he’s doing it with his mental health and relationships as priorities.

“I think he’s on the track now that he was on originally, to do really great things,” Dean said. “It’s how you respond to adversity that defines who you are.”

Johnson has chosen to respond with self-healing, and by working towards forgiving his brothers. 

That vulnerability “didn’t make me less of a man. It actually made me stronger,” he said. “I can’t express how powerful that is.”

First published 9/3/2021

Crawford picks up the reins from Chad Seibert, who coached the past three seasons. Crawford was assistant coach with Seibert for each of those seasons.

Crawford is well known in the area having been a standout basketball and football player at Robert E. Lee High School. After playing basketball for two years at Potomac State in West Virginia and Central Florida Community College, he landed at ��ݮ����, where he was key to the men’s basketball team appearance in the Elite Eight NCAA Tournament play and finishing fourth in the final NCAA Division III basketball poll in 2011.

In an interview following that historic run, Crawford talked about his journey to the EMU community — which now extends to the EMHS community — and reflected on his passion for being a positive role model for kids.

“I stayed out of trouble as a kid, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t had my times of personal adversity,” he said. “I can see God’s work in my life, and I want to extend that knowledge to the next generation and be there for others the way that people have been there for me.”

“Coach Crawford is committed to developing young people not just on the court, but also in life,” says , athletic director. “His experience, energy and focus on fundamentals will push athletes to be at the top of their game and be great teammates. I am so excited to see the team come together under his leadership and compete at a high level.”

Hall moves into the head volleyball position after serving as assistant coach for the EMS 2020-21 season, coaching a local area travel team, and taking part in leading volleyball camps with a former coach at Alta Vista High School where she was a standout outside hitter, graduating in 2016.

A third grade teacher at Waterman Elementary, Hall graduated from ��ݮ���� in 2020 with a degree in elementary education. Her college volleyball career saw her compete in 103 matches, and named two seasons to the All-Academic ODAC (Old Dominion Athletic Conference) team, as well as a��k in 2019.

With only four seniors returning to the court and no juniors coming out for the team this fall, Hall has been eyeing younger players during open gym times, considering how to build a strong varsity team presence.

“I’m excited to see what we can do,” said Hall. “I love the sport. I’ve learned so much over the years from the different coaches I’ve played for. I’m excited to help create a great experience for each individual and the team as a whole.”

In 2019, she reflected on her play, saying “I want my teammates to see God in me when they see me on and off the court,” she explained, “so I think that has been another big motivation for me to show people the abilities and gifts that God has blessed me with and using those abilities the best I can…”

“We’re so fortunate to have Meredith commit to our program,” says Andrew Gascho, athletic director. “Last year was hard on the program, due to COVID. I have full confidence that Coach Hall will bring the positive attitude and resiliency we need to create an incredible experience for our student athletes.”

With EMU Athletics back in action this semester, so too is the Royals Athlete of the Week award.

So far three of the five honorees are seniors, and their Q & A profiles are a great opportunity to hear more about how the pandemic has affected their athletics career, what they appreciate about their student-athlete experience, the lessons they’ve learned and their future plans.

The seniors include

• , point guard on the men’s basketball team from Forestville, Md. (awarded Feb. 3);
• , forward on the men’s basketball team from Woodbridge, Va. (Feb. 26);
• , defender on the women’s soccer team from Douglassville, Pa. (March 5).

Tim Jones

Read his and visit his .

In a pandemic-shortened career, Jones was near the top of the program leaderboard in points and assists. His Feb. 3 honor came after the season opener against Lynchburg, where he had 17 points, five rebounds and four steals, and notched his second career double double by racking up 10 assists.

“As a senior and team captain, Tim leads our team every day on and off the court,:” said Head Coach Melvin Felix. “His hard work really showed against Lynchburg by helping us come back and getting in that game not only with his scoring but more importantly by getting everyone else involved, and getting 10 assists. When he is a dual threat with scoring and passing we are a much better team.”

Jones is a business administration major, with minors in recreational leadership and sports studies and marketing. He hopes to pursue more opportunities to play basketball before entering the workforce.

“I learned that I have the ability to adapt in any situation or environment,” he said in his profile. “I have also learned to appreciate life and the freedoms of life. Lastly, compassion for others is one of life’s greatest gifts.”

D.J. Hill

Read his and visit his .

Hill’s honor came after a tough two-point loss to Emory and Henry. The senior would end the night with 18 total points and grabbed 11 rebounds to help the Royals. 

“DJ as a player is so important for our team on both ends of the floor,” Felix said. “He gives everything every time he steps on the floor. That showed in his performance on the road at E&H, not only did he have to guard their best player all game but he also allowed us to dominate the paint with his scoring and rebounding.”

Hill is a liberal arts major with a business concentration and a business administration minor. He hopes to work in information technology with the U.S. government after graduation.

In his profile, Hill gives credit to several special people for inspiration through this season, including his mother, his grandmother, a former teammate and a former coach, and also “Mrs. Bonnie,” from the EMU dining hall.

Megan Breidigan

Read her and visit her .

A four-year starter as defender, Breidigan has helped the Royals earn 18 shutouts over her career. She enters this season as a co-captain with fellow senior Rachel Sauder. In the team’s season opener against a talented Bridgewater College team, Megan played her role well, communicating with a young roster and shutting down the Eagles’ best offensive player. She was awarded the Athlete of the Week honor on March 5.

“Megan did an outstanding job in her first game back after a 482-day layoff due to the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Head Coach Ted Erickson. “For her to command the back line, to play that sharp, with a freshman goalkeeper behind her as well as the opponent being an NCAA Tournament level team was impressive. I was proud of Megan and the team for not giving up after Bridgewater scored the early goal. Megan has been an outstanding role model, captain, teammate, and friend to all of her teammates and she will be missed next fall.”

Breidigan, a secondary English education major with a psychology minor, talks about what she learned from being on cross-cultural in Guatemala last semester during the pandemic.

She completed her student teaching in fall 2020, all online, and plans to be a middle school teacher and coach in the future.

***

Owen Longacre was wrapping up filming for a portfolio he was creating to submit to the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards the day before the Gov. Ralph Northam shut down schools in March.

It was the final video that Longacre needed to create of him teaching his students to submit his full application to the organization in the hopes of being awarded a National Board Teaching Certification. And if he had waited just one more day, it wouldn’t have happened.

“One day later and I wouldn’t have had it all,” Longacre said. And that would have been a shame as it had taken a year and a half for the Spotswood High School social studies teacher to complete his application, which included tests, essays, videos and more.

It is a rigorous process that involves the completion of three extensive portfolios where teachers film their classes and submit several pages of written analysis of their teaching practices along with evidence of student work.

Applicants also sit for a three-hour standardized exam that measures their content knowledge of the various subjects in the social studies, ranging from history and geography to civics and economics.

But Longacre was able to submit everything he needed, and it was evaluated by National Board certified teachers. Only about 40% of applications submitted are accepted on the first try, Longacre said. So, it was a relief when he found out he was one of the 40%.

Applying for his board certification has always been part of Longacre’s goals as a teacher.

“It’s the highest mark a teacher can achieve and it’s a reflective process where you become a better teacher and better for your students,” he said.

The entire application process focuses on asking teachers to reflect on what they’re doing as educators and why. It asks them to provide evidence that what they are doing as a teacher is contributing to the improvement of their pupils.

The process also asks teachers to show how they form relationships with students and fellow educators in the school and outside of it.

It also required his students to buy into the process, as they would be filmed and given assignments to help create the content needed for Longacre’s portfolios.

So, when he found out he had received board certification, the first thing he did was email his students to thank them.

“It was a collaborative process in that way,” Longacre said, adding that his students last year felt like celebrities being filmed all the time.

And for Longacre, learning that he had received that mark of excellence was a joyous, exciting and relieving way to end 2020.

“I guess you could call it an early Christmas gift,” he said.

The new incarnation of the ��ݮ���� (EMU) Royals mascot will make his first appearance Friday, Oct. 16, at 7:30 on Facebook Live during Homecoming weekend. He’s coming to fill some (literally) large shoes left behind by the “sleek blue” Herm that Royals have come to know and love for 22 years.

But the history of Herm begins well before this passing of the torch – the Herm unveiled this October will be the fifth loyal lion to take to the court, fields, and campus-at-large. Read on to learn how our very own, very loveable Panthera leo came to be.

Many thanks to Ashley Kishorn, field hockey head coach, and Les Helmuth, former alumni relations director, for their contributions to this history.

March 1980 

•  Eastern Mennonite College basketball coach Sherman Eberly ’68 says that he’d like to see “some type of mascot” and an organized pep band next season, which would “add a great deal to team spirit.” Up until now, the Royals logo .

1981  

• Alumni relations director Les Helmuth ’78 holds a student competition to create a cartoon mascot for the Eastern Mennonite College Royals. The Royals Lion wins the competition, and a character design is first drawn by Darrell Yoder ’81 with the name “HRM,” short for “his royal majesty.”

• Gloria Lehman ’74, a home economics teacher at Eastern Mennonite High School, and Helmuth create the first iteration of the Herm costume. Helmuth said he served as the first HRM as “the headgear was intoxicating and I couldn’t find anyone to wear it.” This first incarnation became known as the “wimpy” lion.

• Rob French ’84 becomes HRM for the next three years. , “there was a disagreement between our cheerleaders and Bridgewater’s. I went over to apologize and they pulled my tail!” 

1984

• HRM is reborn as a professionally made costume with string hair.

1988

• A new and improved “Herm” enters the scene with a mane of blue and white feathers. “That was a flea-bitten old thing,” said Professor Lester Zook. “Every time it would run across the gym, those feathers would fly. It was almost embarrassing.” 

1994

• The athletics department commissions artist Henry Gomez to rebrand Herm, but “its rippling muscles and grimacing expression created controversy in the department,” The Weather Vane .

1995 – 1997

• Herm is mysteriously absent … gap years, perhaps?

1998

• The “sleek blue lion” Herm, designed by EMU communications staffer Wendell Esbenshade, begins its 22-year reign over EMU’s athletics facilities after appearing on the basketball court. Director of alumni and parent relations Janet Stutzman purchases the new costume on behalf of the alumni club “the Loyal Royals.” 

Fall 2000

• First-year student Rebecca Shimp, as Herm, hands out balloons for the newly-constructed University Commons. “Those big fuzzy feet are hard to manage,” Shimp says.

January 2002

• , who helps throw candy, t-shirts, and water bottles to the crowd at basketball games. Not to be outdone, “I can act stupid and make the crowd laugh,” says Herm.

February 2008

• Herm is named “player of the week” . “Herm can usually be seen dancing on the sidelines, goofing around with a referee, or running up and down the sidelines, all to encourage the fans to cheer on their Royals,” Sunil Dick ’08 wrote.

April 2009

• that Herm is suspended indefinitely for fraternizing with a rival mascot – the Bridgewater Lady Eagle – in “late night roller [rink] escapades”

November 2012

• as a bronze-level Bicycle Friendly University by the League of American Bicyclists.

October 2013

• to open the annual ResLife Olympics, in which dormitories compete against one another in “extreme” musical chairs, “Ninja” dodgeball, and soccer. Parkwoods wins this year for the third time in a row.

April 2017

• Herm helps escort EMU’s ninth president, Dr. Susan Schultz Huxman, around campus during her Inauguration Week.

April 2020

• Herm announces his retirement, saying, “my speed and agility are no longer a match for today’s athletes, and with my limited tech skills I have fallen behind in my abilities to stay ‘hip’ with our student body … I feel the time has come for me to walk away from the Royal throne and pass the torch to the next Loyal Lion in line for EMU.”

October 2020

• Herm the Fifth begins his tenure as the EMU Royals mascot.

In his third year with the Runnin’ Royals, Jones is a business administration major with a minor of recreational leadership and sports studies. He led EMU and was eighth in the Old Dominion Athletic Conference with 15.5 points per game. Jones was third in the ODAC with 101 free throws and second with 134 attempts. He added 80 assists and 23 steals in his second season as EMU’s starting point guard.

The Honors Court recognized more than 1,350 men’s collegiate basketball student-athletes who excelled in academics during the past season.

To meet the criteria for the Honors Court a student-athlete must be a junior or senior with a cumulative GPA of 3.2 or higher at the end of the academic year.

Marvin Cofield ’84, an elementary school physical education teacher in Montgomery County, Maryland, and owner of the in Washington D.C., recently spoke with fellow alum David Driver ’84, sports editor of the Daily News-Record, for this published on June 12. 2020. In addition to his work with youth athletes, Cofield is an assistant women’s basketball coach at Chesapeake College on the Eastern Shore.

Marvin Cofield estimates he has been pulled over, while driving, between “10 to 20 times” by police in his native North Carolina, Delaware and his current home in Maryland.

The former ��ݮ���� basketball player, who is African-American, points out that in several of the encounters the police acted professionally, and he was given a speeding ticket which he admits were warranted.

But the bulk of the traffic stops, Cofield believes, were the result of racial profiling and involved a white officer. The scariest incident came with an officer pointing a pistol in his face while his future wife was in the passenger’s seat. That encounter came in a secluded spot in the middle of the day with no reason given for why Cofield was stopped in 1993 in Maryland.

“I was afraid for her,” said Cofield, 58. “It was horrible. It was horrible. There was no one around. It could have gone very badly. I was torn between rage and fear. I had just bought a new 1993 sports car and was rolling through town with out-of-state, temporary plates. I was compliant; I got no ticket. I think about that all of the time.”

Despite decades of dealing with such terror, the 1984 EMU graduate is encouraged that change could be taking place in the country after protests following the death of unarmed George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police late last month.

Why the optimism?

For one, Cofield (disclosure: he was a classmate of mine at EMU) notes that it is not just African-Americans who have been protesting in large cities and small towns across the United States and even in other countries. A protest on June 1 in Harrisonburg, for example, included folks from various races and ages in a crowd that was estimated at about 1,000 people. An EMU basketball player from another era, Maleke Jones, a senior for the Royals in 2017-18, had a major role in the event.

Another reason Cofield has not grown pessimistic: for nearly 40 years he has been coaching basketball at the youth level, and those in his charge keep him hopeful.

He works with boys and girls of various racial and economic backgrounds; for years he has coached a group of about 30 youth that has met in recent years on Saturdays at a private school in northwest Washington, D.C. While running the Marvin Cofield Basketball School, he said he has never had a racial incident with any of his students.

“I am very optimistic that it is going to change,” he said this week of improved racial justice for African-Americans. “The young people are very intelligent, they are very bright. Even in my basketball program they want to discuss these things. They come from a very intellectual perspective. It is not emotional, it is intellectual. They are actually reading and researching (issues). They realize we are fighting systematic racism. You can’t have forgiveness without repentance; (it’s) Biblical.”

“I love the togetherness I have seen in the young people,” added Cofield, who is married with three children. “For the most part, they are doing (protests) peacefully. That was a standard that was set 50 years ago (by some leaders such as Martin Luther King, Jr.). I am extremely optimistic. I am.”

So is a prominent former NFL star.

Doug Williams, who led Washington to a Super Bowl title as a quarterback in 1988, told ABC TV affiliate Channel 7 this week he is also inspired by today’s youth. “They keep going forward. That encourages me,” said Williams, the first African-American quarterback to win a Super Bowl.

Cofield said the video of Floyd being killed “drove everything home,” especially for his children, he noted. “This is not an isolated incident. When you are a black man in this country and you walk out of your house, you are not protected the same (as others). You have to convey this message to your children, especially your sons.”

Cofield, who did his student teaching at Spotswood High, played hoops at EMU for four years. He was a high school coach and teacher in North Carolina before moving to Prince George’s County, Maryland in 1994. Prince George’s borders Washington, D.C. and is one of the most affluent majority-black counties in the country. Cofield teaches elementary school physical education in Montgomery County, Maryland.

Cofield has also been a personal trainer for several top-flight basketball players. The EMU product has trained several future Division I standouts such as Cedric Lindsay, who played at the University of Richmond; former VMI player Rodney Glasgow, Jr.; and Sheronne Vails, part of a Final Four team with the women at Louisville. Cofield has also been the assistant women’s basketball coach at Chesapeake College on the Eastern Shore of Maryland for the past few seasons.

What does Cofield bring to the program?

“Oh wow, where do I begin? Coach Cofield is fantastic,” said Gwen Barnes, the head coach at Chesapeake and a college player at West Florida. “What he brings to our program is experience and the connection to the players. He brings a high level of knowledge. He brings a level of respect to the program. Coach Cofield is tough but he is firm. He gets the best out of kids.”

And that includes off the court as well. Speaking out about racial issues is nothing new for Cofield — it is something he has done in high school and at EMU.

“I don’t like seeing people taken advantage of. I don’t like discrimination in any form. I know it is an utopian dream,” he said.

But perhaps now, that dream is coming closer to reality for many Americans who haven’t had much of a voice in the past.