Shannon Topa, a Keene State alumni and former KSC soccer player and diver, is now the new senior administration assistant for Keene State Athletics.
The senior administrative assistant will help with administrative assistant work, the budget and the scheduling, according to Director of Athletics Marty Testo.
Before accepting this position, Topa was working a similar position at Keene High School, where she also coaches women’s soccer.
“It’s kind of in my path. It’s what I’m doing right now at the high school, just at the next level, and I really enjoy what I’m doing. I love working in athletics and really it’s about the studentathlete experience, and being a student-athlete myself, I think it’s so important to give back and help create that experience,” she said. Regarding the position, Topa explained, “A lot of it is supporting the athletic director or the associate AD and just anything that needs to be done. It’s really about a lot of the behind-the-scenes kind of thing as far as scheduling, budget, really any sort of tasks that need to be done,” she said.
During Topa’s time at Keene State, she competed on the Women’s Soccer team as well as the Swim and Dive team. “It had a huge impact on my college experience, I’m still really close with a lot of my teammates, and I owe it to the Keene State Women’s Soccer team for providing that, and I think athletics is such an important piece of some college experience,” she said.
“She’s going to be our first line of defense out there,” Testo said. Originally this position was cut, but now they brought it back. “She’s [Abby Holmes, senior financial planning and analysis specialist] been helping athletics out because we’ve been short in this position,” Testo said.
“Shannon separates herself from other people in this position based on her athletic experience, and people say ‘Oh because she played?’ No, it’s because she has been in a role here before in this and she’s also doing it at the high school level.”
Molly Lu McKellar can be contacted at
mmckellar@kscequinox.com
