The St. Lawrence women’s team has been awarded the prestigious Chaffee Award for team sportsmanship. The honor is voted on by all college varsity teams, and this is the first time St. Lawrence has won the award.
“It is truly an honor to receive this award,” said St. Lawrence head coach Chris Abplanalp, “This is a very special group of young women. We have a great group of leaders in our senior class and it showed this season. I am proud of the way they represented themselves and St. Lawrence University. “
The St. Lawrence women also captured the Liberty League season championship in January and finished No. 24 in the college season final rankings.
According to senior captain Allie Brazo: “As a senior, this award is really important to me because this team has strived all year to be the best we can be. I’m extremely proud of the way we’ve carried ourselves on and off the court and am glad we can represent SLU in such a positive way!”
The Chaffee Award is given annually to a women’s team coach whose team has demonstrated the qualities of sportsmanship, teamwork, character, and improvement. In 1987, the women’s squash team at Williams College donated the award in honor of their former coach, Clarence C. Chaffee. Chaffee began Williams’s squash program in 1938, coached the school’s first intercollegiate team in 1939, and led the program until his retirement in 1970. In the words of Jack Barnaby, the legendary coach of Harvard University and longtime friend and colleague of Chaffee: “If ever I had a favorite amongst my rival coaches it had to be ‘Chafe’… His love of competition, his unfailing sense of fair play, and the values he and his wife exemplified to all his players made him such a beloved coach that his fame went far and wide and still flourishes today. I know I speak for all the coaches of his era when I pay him tribute: We loved him, too.”
