Keene State College’s now former President Melinda Treadwell served her final day as the institution’s president on Oct 24.The former president was once a KSC athlete who widened the horizon for the athletic department while serving as the college’s president.
Treadwell graduated in 1990 from Keene State College after playing for the KSC women’s basketball team for four years. The 1989-90 team was inducted into the Alumni Hall of Fame after becoming the first women’s basketball team to compete in the NCAA tournament, a team Treadwell was a senior on. The Director of Athletics at Keene State, Martin Testo, spoke on Treadwell’s time at Keene State impacting her role as president.
“Melinda was a student-athlete here. She actually lived the life of a student athlete at Keene State College, so she experienced something that student-athletes are continuing to experience today,” said Testo.
Head coach of the Keene State women’s lacrosse team and assistant coach of the KSC field hockey team Travis Wyant also appreciated Melinda’s experience as a student athlete, saying, “She knew how important athletics was to the student-athletes… it was just nice to have somebody who definitely knew the experience and knew the value of it as she was a student-athlete herself.”
Testo also spoke of Treadwell’s belief in him and athletics as a whole, saying, “She believed in what I was saying I was going to do. We’ve been really successful in a lot of ways that she told me we needed to be successful in,” Testo said. “One of the biggest ones was immersing the athletes back into the community through community service and outreach and we’re killing it with that.”
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Treadwell took on the role as the Little East Conference (LEC) President’s Council Chair. The role involved immediate decision making in the best interest of student-athletes in the conference, and in 2021 the main goal was to get student athletes playing sports again. Darryl Konicki is the associate commissioner of the LEC, and said he remembers Treadwell’s efforts to revive athletics within the LEC.
“She really was instrumental in providing a lot of information and insight that helped us get back to playing games. When we got back to playing, it was amazing how many people were reaching out to us just with the simple question: ‘How are you guys doing it?’ She was the perfect one to help guide us through that,” said Konicki.
Konicki served as Athletic Communications Director at Arcadia University for several years before joining the conference in 2018. He spoke on how college presidents can make impacts on athletics.
“Being present to show our athletic directors, coaches, student-athletes that they care about our athletic programs and they want to support them in every way possible, the visibility does go a long way with that,” said Konicki.
Testo talked about Treadwell’s visibility for all student-athletes at Keene State.
“Athletes knew her, they knew her story, she came to games, she honored every single team that won a Little East Championship and went to the NCAA’s. The passion and the ability to have a relationship with your president was present on our campus,” Testo said.
Jacob Enscoe can be contacted at
jenscoe@kscequinox.com
