Manhattanville Athletics Hall of Fame
In his role as the college’s first Athletic Director, Joel Daunic was arguably the most influential person in the establishment and growth of intercollegiate athletics at Manhattanville College during the 1970s and 1980s.Coming to Purchase from the private sector, Daunic guided the Athletic Department toward NCAA and Division III membership for all sports and went about the arduous process of legitimizing athletics at Manhattanville both internally and externally. When he arrived on campus, the department had only three club sports in a formerly all-women’s college; by the time he left in 1983, he had turned Manhattanville into a thriving program that sponsored 14 varsity sports as well as club and intramural offerings.
As an administrator, he hired some of the top coaches in program history to lead its new athletic programs, including basketball coach Tim Cohane and swimming mentor John Collins. Daunic also attracted sports camps and organizations to campus to produce revenue and generate publicity for the small college, including making Manhattanville the preseason training home of the ABA’s New York Nets and scheduling an exhibition basketball game with the Chinese Men’s National Team.
Daunic also had a big impact on the college as a coach as well, serving as the first head coach of the men’s basketball team in 1973-74 and also helming the men’s tennis and both men’s and women’s cross country programs. But his real passion was women’s basketball, and his guidance played a major role in the creation of a national power. In just two seasons as head women’s basketball coach, Daunic recruited fellow Hall of Fame inductee Theresa Carey ’82 to Purchase and was responsible for starting one of the most dominant runs of any Manhattanville team ever, posting a 22-9 record and capturing the program’s first New York State AIAW championship in 1978-79.
