Sept. 28, 2001

Eastern College Athletic Conference Commissioner Phil Buttafuoco has announced the 2001 Distinguished Service Award winners. Roy Danforth, Syracuse University, Fred Dunlap, Colgate University, Bud Heilman, Rutgers University, and John Reese, Wilkes University have been selected as the inaugural honorees.

The award is presented to individuals who have been involved with "servicing" intercollegiate athletics on the national, regional or conference levels. Service may, among other things, include involvement with NCAA or ECAC committees, hosting ECAC championships and/or otherwise providing outstanding service on an intercollegiate campus.

The recipients will be presented with their awards at the ECAC Fall Convention Opening Session at the Sheraton Hyannis Resort, Monday, October 1.

Fred Dunlap's Colgate connections are long and distinguished as he won recognition as a blocking back on the gridiron, a winning coach and an influential athletic director for 16 years.

Following his retirement from the athletic department, Dunlap served as a director of the Alumni Corporation and is also a member of the Maroon Council Board of Directors.

As a head football coach from 1976-87, Dunlap compiled a 77-49-3 record and in 1977, led his team to a 10-1 record and the ECAC Division I Team of Year award while being named "Man of the Year" by the Walter Camp Football Foundation in 1977.

During his tenure as athletic director, he increased the number of women's sports from six to 11, presided over the construction of an indoor field house and facelifts to the hockey rink and football stadium.

In recognition, the stands in the football stadium were named after Dunlap in 1991 and the Patriot League's football trophy also bears his name.

Colgate awarded Dunlap with a Maroon Citation in 1978 and the Alumni Award for Distinguished Service in 1990 when he was sited for "excellence on and off the playing field."

Roy Danforth served as director of athletics at Fairleigh Dickinson University-Teaneck from 1987 to 1994. During his eight year tenure leading the department, Fairleigh Dickinson won a record six Northeast Conference Commissioner's Cups, annually given to the school which fares best in the league's championship sports.

Over that span, FDU captured conference titles in baseball, men's basketball, men's soccer, men's and women's track and field, women's volleyball and women's basketball. The men's basketball program also made an NCAA Tournament appearance in 1988 and a National Invitational Tournament appearance in 1991, while the men's soccer team captured back-to-back NCAA Tournament bids in 1988 and 1989.

Donald "Bud" Heilman was head football coach at Rutgers University from 1966-1970. Heilman then moved from the gridiron into administration, serving in various administrative roles from 1971 until his retirement in 1992.

During his tenure as an administrator, Heilman served as an NCAA liaison and an NJSIAA liaison. Heilman also held the position of NCAA eligibility representative.