A number of area administrators and student-athletes were honored April 24 when the Northeastern Ohio Interscholastic Athletic Adminstration Association (NEOIAAA) held its annual spring luncheon at SPIRE In Harpersfield Township.
Geneva’s Jen Crossley and Mayfield’s Keith Leffler were two of the four recipients honored with athletic director of the year awards, joining Bay’s Matt Spellman and Warren Harding’s Bill Nicholson.
Dr. Don Lewis, commissioner of the Chagrin Valley Conference, was presented the Ralph Quisenberry Award for contributions to interscholastic athletics, and a pair of area student-athletes were named recipents of the Phil Cassella Scholarship — Perry’s Charlie Rockwell and Hawken’s Hannah Doyle.
The presentations were made in front of a large crowd at SPIRE, part of a day full of festivities that included guest speakers, workshops and other recognitions.
In being named the winner of the Ralph Quisenberry Award, Lewis said he was “shocked” to be honored. Along with being the commissioner of the CVC, Lewis and his conference helped broker a meeting this past August between area conferences and football officials to avoid a potential boycott of games over game compensation for officials.
The Quisenberry Award is presented to the individual from outside the profession of athletic administration who has made contributions and service to interscholastic athletics.
“I’m humbled and honored,” Lewis told The News-Herald. “To be recognized by the group of athletic directors took me by surprise. It’s all for the student-athletes, the kids. They make the hours worthwhile.”
Crossley is in her 15th year as the athletic director at Geneva. A 1991 graduate of Geneva, she played softball at Youngstown State and then got her Master’s in Sport Studies at Kent State.
“I was pretty shocked,” she said of her AD of the year award. “It’s very humbling that my colleagues feel I’m deserving of this award. … I always saw myself as a teacher and coach, but when I got my Master’s that kind of changed and I had the chance to come back to my hometown to work in this program.”
Leffler has been the AD at Mayfield since 2013, guiding an athletic department that has 40 teams in 22 sports. The 1993 graduate of Twinsburg got his Bachelor’s Degree from Miami (Ohio) and his Master’s from Nova Southeastern.
“It’s nice to be recognized, but ultimately I’m a beneficiary of being able to work with great people,” Leffler said. “I’m very fortunate to do this job at Mayfield with a great administration, coaches, athletes and community that really supports our kids.”
The four winners of the Phil Cassella Scholarships were Doyle, Rockwell, Sibohan Fitzpatrick of Magnificat and Moose Frombach from Avon.
Rockwell is a three-sport athlete at Perry, lettering three times in football and track and field. Additionally, the son of Perry AD T.J. Rockwell assists with middle school athletic director Melinda Allen and helps with the Perry girls flag football team.
Rockwell plans to attend Ohio University and major in Aeronautics.
Doyle, daughter of Hawken AD Jim Doyle, is an All-Ohioan and two-time team captain in field hockey and also a two-time academic All-Ohioan in lacrosse. She is currently interning with the Cleveland Guardians and plans to attend South Carolina to major in sports and entertainment management.
Travis Burnett
A pioneer in the flag football community, Travis helped co-found the Flag Football World Championship Tour, FlagSpin and USA Flag. Featuring 15+ years of content creation for the sport of flag football, creating and managing the largest flag football tournaments on the planet, coaching experience at the youth and adult level as well as an active player with National and World Championship level experience.
