diving

Submitted photo and press release:

Jill Reimer Halpin, Class of 1997, of Batavia, joined the ranks of 126 other accomplished individuals who have been voted into SUNY Oswego’s Athletic Hall of Fame, forever solidifying themselves in the college’s athletic history. 

A two-time State University of New York Athletic Conference Diver of the Year, Halpin was recognized as a member of the 2020 Hall of Fame inductee class in April during a virtual induction ceremony.

Oswego State’s Interim Athletics Director Dan Kane welcomed guests, which included family and friends of the inductees, current student-athletes, past Athletic Hall of Fame inductees, members of the selection committee and most importantly, this year’s current honorees.

“Lou Holtz said, ‘Show me someone that has done something worthwhile, and I’ll show you someone who has overcome adversity,’ ” Kane said. “We are so fortunate to have the example of our inductees, for we know that their journey was not without setbacks and sacrifices.

"Through their perseverance, they were able to achieve amazing things on the field and court. We celebrate your achievements. Your example of greatness provides the hope and inspiration to our coaches and student-athletes … our sacrifices are worthwhile and greatness is achievable.”      

Event emcee and former member of the Oswego State men’s baseball team Roger Hancock, Class of 1974, read the official citation for each inductee, including Halpin.

In the citation, former coach for the Oswego State swimming and diving program John Moore described Halpin’s contributions. 

“She supported her teammates at both ends of the pool and was instrumental in our recruiting efforts of some of the future top divers in our conference,” Moore said. “Jill was a great competitor and a joy to coach, and she and her teammates would also be the foundation on which SUNY Oswego would become a powerhouse in diving in our conference for 20-plus years.”

Halpin was a two-time SUNYAC Diver of the Year, winning the award in both 1996 and 1997. Overall, she won three individual diving SUNYAC Championships, winning both the 1-meter and 3-meter titles in 1996 and repeating on the 3-meter board in 1997. At the time of graduation, she held the diving records for both boards at Oswego. In 1997, her score on the 3-meter board was an NCAA qualifier.

During her acceptance remarks, Halpin acknowledged her teammates and coaches from her time at Oswego.

“This is an amazing honor,” Halpin said. “I couldn’t have asked for better teammates and coaches. We worked hard and we had fun … When I look back on those years, I look back with a big smile.”

“This year’s honorees represent some of the best athletes in Oswego State’s long athletic history,” said event organizer Stephanie Lamb, Class of 2007, senior associate director of Alumni Engagement. “We are honored to recognize them.”

About SUNY Oswego

Oswego, one of 13 university colleges in the 64-campus SUNY System, enrolls around 8,000 students, some 7,000 of them full-time undergraduates. About 4,400 students live on campus among the college’s 13 residence halls. Oswego’s lakeside campus stretches for almost 700 acres and includes 76 buildings. As a comprehensive college, Oswego offers more than 110 majors, minors, cooperative and graduate programs. In all, students receive more than $84 million in annual need-based grants, loans and work-study awards, including $6.5 million in merit-based scholarships, to support their success at Oswego.

Press release:

Arron Carlson, a freshman from Pavilion, New York will be representing SUNY Fredonia at the NCAA Swimming and Diving Championships to be held in Indianapolis, Indiana by virtue of his performance last weekend.

Carlson won the 3 Meter Diving Event at the NCAA Region 4 Meet contested at Rochester Institute of Technology February 28 and March 1st.  His score of 478.10 topped his nearest competitor by five points. Arron led wire to wire in the 11 dive championship format meet.  He was the first diver to compete among the 15 total divers who qualified for the regional meet.  At no point in the competition did he fall to second place in the rankings. His first place ranking after every dive was the first time it occurred in Region 4 history.  Arron's total of 478.10 bettered Matt Depalo of host RIT and was 23 points ahead of 2013 All-American Matt Morrison of Ithaca College.  In the one meter competition he finished in sixth place with an 11 dive score of 436.10 .

The Notre Dame of Batavia grad's win on the three meter board guarantees his participation at the NCAA Championships March 19 - 22.  He will be diving on both boards during the championship meet. Arron will be accompanied by two teammates as Fredonia is sending three divers to the NCAA Championships for the second year in a row. 

Photo by Jim Fitzgerald, team photographer

There is a world-wide slaughter going on, which is not known to the public. Big fisheries and countries like Costa Rica, Taiwan, Indonesia, Japan, and Spain, are killing between 100 and 150 million sharks every year. The Maldieves pretend to be a marine sanctuary when they lure tourists to their islands but when nobody is looking, they torture sharks by cutting their fins off while the animal is still alive. It is a corrupt government that only thinks about money. Japan kills tens of thousands of dolphins & one thousand whales each year. Sharks also get their fins cut off and are thrown back into the sea, where they die an excruciating death. Dolphins are being hacked to pieces by Japanese fishermen, who behave worse than the most primitive cave men.

That is barbaric and needs to be stopped. The shark fins go to China for shark fin soup. For every affluent Chinese wedding, 30 to 40 sharks are brutally finned. The dolphin meat is sold in Japan as whale meat. This way they are not only looting our oceans, they are also cheating their own people by selling dolphins as whale meat. 

Please keep in mind, that the oceans are our life support system; if we lose the sharks we'll lose the oceans. Sharks maintain the biological balance in that very complex ecosystem and without healthy oceans, we humans have no chance of survival because the oceans produce 70% of our oxygen. ..My website: www.sharkprotect.com will give you more details. If we don't stop this slaughter we might soon be looking at one of the greatest ecological disasters of mankind.

Sharks are not killers and man eaters, that's what many in the media want us to believe. They do not want to hear what I have to say, because they prefer the horror stories of lost limbs, blood and dead people. 

Unfortunately, the Discovery Channel is not helping with their ridiculous "Shark Week", which is one big lie. Sharks are not as dangerous as people think. In order to prove it, I swim with sharks all the time. I have been in the water with as many as 30 Caribbean reef sharks at one time; I swam with tiger sharks, lemon sharks, bull sharks, black tips, hammerheads, et cetera. In more than a hundred twenty shark dives I have never been threatened by a single one of them. Of course, sharks are predators and we need to respect them. They are wild animals and not pets.  Some times sharks bite and kill but so do dogs, polar bears, mountain lions and many other predators. Sharks don't eat people; we humans are not on their menu.

Just imagine, sharks have controlled 2/3rds of our planet for over 400 million years. They were already 130 million years old, when the first dinosaurs appeared on this earth. That is hard to believe but true. How old is the human race in comparison to that? I don't think we have lived here as humans for more than maybe 2 million years. But in the last 30 years alone we have managed to bring over 100 of the 500 shark species to the brink of extinction. Stephen Spielbergs horror movie "Jaws", after the book by Peter Benchley, started a world-wide slaughter of sharks. Even Mr. Benchley said: "If I had known then what I know now, I could never have written that book. The monster I created is pure fiction."

Sharks need as many friends as they can get. We need young people to cry out against this senseless and brutal slaughter. This is your world; you and your children have to live with the terrible things my generation is doing to the environment. Keep in mind: "If we lose the sharks we'll lose the oceans" and when that happens, we'll all die because without the oceans and the oxygen they produce, we have no chance of survival.

That's why we should not kill sharks for money, fun or for macho photographs.  If we continue this kind of looting, we are digging our own grave.   And for what?     For money, greed and fun!   Is that really worth it?