Plattsburgh director of athletics Bruce Delventhal has announced his decision to retire, effective Jan. 1, 2016.
Delventhal has served as AD for the past 10 years.
“It has been an honor to be the athletic director at SUNY Plattsburgh for the past ten years,” Delventhal said in a statement. “I have been fortunate to work with a terrific coaching staff and wonderful student athletes who have represented their teams, the college and the community in the very best possible manner. It is impossible to properly express my thanks and admiration for the efforts of our students and their coaches. My pride in SUNY Plattsburgh intercollegiate athletics is beyond words.”
The Cardinals’ women’s hockey program has won a total of four national championships (2007, 2008, 2014, 2015) under his watch.
Delventhal was responsible for creating the Friends of Plattsburgh State Athletics – the fundraising sector of the department – and oversaw numerous facility renovations that included a $2.1 million facelift for the Ronald B. Stafford Ice Arena in 2008 and the installment of three LED video panels which replaced the scoreboard and provided in-house video capabilities at the same facility before the 2012-13 season.
He currently presides as the secretary/treasurer for the American Hockey Coaches Association – a position he has held since 1988. Delventhal also serves as a member of the NCAA Men’s Ice Hockey Rules Committee and from 2009 to 2013, he sat on the NCAA Men’s Ice Hockey Championship Committee. In January of this year, Delventhal received the John “Snooks” Kelley Founders Award from the AHCA for having contributed to the overall growth and development of the sport in the United States.
A graduate of Hamilton and a holder of a master’s degree from Princeton seminary, Delventhal served as the head coach of two NCAA men’s hockey squads before being installed as Plattsburgh’s director of athletics. He coached at Union, the Rochester Institute of Technology and was an assistant coach at Princeton. In 1984-85, he led RIT to the program’s second national championship.
“I want to thank all of our SUNY Plattsburgh fans and the local business community for their outstanding support and friendship,” added Delventhal. “The members of the college community at all levels have been a pleasure to work with and I will miss them. I am very confident that there is not an athletic director within SUNY who has received and enjoyed the amount of support and friendship that I have during my tenure. I do believe that once a Cardinal, always a Cardinal.”
A national search for Delventhal’s replacement will begin in the early stages of the fall 2015 semester.
