FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
S-30-03-04
Thursday, October 16, 2003

Elizabethtown College To Induct Five Alumni Into Athletic Hall of Fame

ELIZABETHTOWN, Pa. --- Elizabethtown College will formally induct five of its alumni into its Ira R. Herr Athletic Hall of Fame Sunday, October 19. The group will also be recognized at halftime of Elizabethtown's Homecoming men's soccer game against Widener Saturday, October 18. The new Hall of Fame members are Martha Eppley '62, Anthony Coppol '76, Joseph Torchia '76, Pamela Boteler '90 and Robert Martin '91.

Martha Eppley, a native of Harrisburg, Pa. and 1958 graduate of Susquehanna Township High School, played both field hockey and women's basketball while at Elizabethtown College. Eppley was the goaltender of Elizabethtown's legendary 1961 undefeated, untied, and unscored upon field hockey team. In the eight games the Blue Jay varsity squad played that year, Eppley never allowed the ball to pass through the Etown pipes en route to recording eight shutout victories. Furthermore, during that year Etown played half of its games against teams that are currently members of NCAA Division II, including Shippensburg, Lock Haven, East Stroudsburg and Millersville. As a result of her efforts, she was named to the Central Penn Field Hockey All-Star Team in 1961.

Since graduating from Elizabethtown in 1962, Eppley has given a lifetime of service to the College, having served as Elizabethtown's Associate Dean of the Faculty and Registrar as well as a member of the Business Department faculty, chair of the Business Department, and as an institutional research officer.

Anthony Coppol, a native of Claymont, Del., was one of the more effective pitchers in the history of the Elizabethtown baseball program. In a time when the baseball team only played about 20 games per year, Coppol compiled 15 career victories in four seasons on the mound while Etown won three straight Middle Atlantic Conference titles - a feat that has never been duplicated by the team.

As a sophomore in 1974, he struck out 42 batters in 32-1/3 innings of work while posting a 2.03 earned run average as the Blue Jays won their first MAC championship since 1964 while finishing 15-5. In 1975, he won five games and posted a 2.76 ERA for an 18-5 Etown team that set what at the time was a program record for victories, won its second straight MAC title, and reached the East Coast Athletic Conference tournament for the first time ever. As Etown won its third MAC title in a row, played in the ECAC tournament for the second straight year and finished 17-7 in 1976, Coppol again won five games and compiled a 1.89 ERA.

Joseph Torchia, originally from Lewisberry, Pa. and a 1972 alumnus of Red Land High School, was the captain of Elizabethtown's men's cross country team for two years as well as a four-year letterwinner in the sport. He spent two seasons as the Blue Jays' top runner, and in the 1974 Middle Atlantic Conference Championship meet, he placed fifth overall in 27:29 to earn All-MAC honors, making him just the fifth Etown harrier ever and the first since 1967 to win the award. While a student at Etown, Torchia also served as the assistant coach of the women's basketball team in from 1974 to 1976. In 1982, he returned to Etown to continue the early development of the fledgling men's and women's cross country programs shortly after the reinstatement of cross country as a varsity sport at Elizabethtown following a three-year lapse.

A practitioner of internal medicine for over 13 years, Torchia is currently a physician with the Heritage Medical Group.

Pamela Boteler, a native of Beltsville, Md. and a 1986 graduate of High Point High School, has carved out a remarkably successful athletic career as both a student and as an alumna. Boteler arrived on campus in the fall of 1986, having been recruited as a basketball player. She certainly made a major impact on the fortunes of the women's basketball program - her defensive skills played a key part in Elizabethtown's 66-65 NCAA Division III national championship game victory over Cal. State-Stanislaus in 1989, as she held Stanislaus' All-American player to just three points in the second half, and she was a team captain in the 1989-90 season.

However, it was in cross country, a sport Boteler only picked up while a sophomore at Elizabethtown, where she earned her widest recognition. In her rookie season as a harrier in 1987, she smashed the Etown record for individual meet wins in a season with five, set a new Elizabethtown course record and twice set a new Lebanon Valley course record, medaled in every invitational, finished third at the Middle Atlantic Conference Championship meet to earn a spot on the All-MAC team, and finished sixth at the NCAA Mideast Regional Championship meet to become the first Elizabethtown All-Region runner in women's cross country. She also missed qualifying for the NCAA Division III national championship meet as an individual by just two seconds. In 1988, she finished eighth at the MAC Championships, making her the only women's harrier to date to earn back-to-back All-MAC honors, and she finished in the top ten in every invitational in which the Blue Jays competed. By the time she wrapped up her senior season in 1989, Boteler held the program record for most individual meet victories with 12, and she had won the team's MVP award all three years she competed and had served as the team's captain for two years.

Since graduating from Elizabethtown, Boteler has made a name for herself in the world of sprint kayak and sprint canoe racing, and she has dedicated herself to achieving gender equity in sprint canoe racing, which, while having been a men's Olympic sport since 1924, still is not recognized as a women's sport at the Olympics. In 2000, the first year women were allowed to compete at the national level in the United States in sprint canoe, women still had to compete against the men rather than in their own events. Boteler helped shift people's perceptions of women in the sport that year by winning the bronze medal at the national championships in the single-person canoe men's intermediate 500m event and by teaming with another woman to win the gold medal in the two-person men's intermediate 500m event. As a result, in 2002, women's sprint canoe events finally began to be contested in all age categories and all boat classifications at the U.S. national championships. Boteler has also teamed up with several other international sprint canoe racers to form "WomenCan," a group that lobbies the international sprint canoe governing bodies, as well as the governing bodies of the various countries that compete in the sport, for full gender equity. Boteler is also currently employed as the Director of External Affairs for the Office of the Inspector General in U.S. Department of the Interior.

Robert Martin, originally from Dublin, Ireland and a current resident of Kinzers, Pa., was a two-time All-American for the men's soccer team in 1989 and 1990. During his years as a Blue Jay from 1987 to 1990, Elizabethtown went 87-9-4, won the 1989 NCAA Division III national championship, won the 1987 and 1990 Middle Atlantic Conference titles, finished first in the MAC North Division all four years, and finished as an NCAA Division III quarterfinalist in 1987, 1988, and 1990. In addition to earning All-America honors, Martin was also named a MAC Northern Division All-Star in 1987, 1989 and 1990.

Over the course of his career, Martin compiled 34 assists, which remains to this day the fourth highest total in the history of the men's soccer program. His 16 assists in 1989 also remain the fourth highest single season total in Etown history.

The five 2003 Ira R. Herr Hall of Fame Inductees will be formally inducted in a lunchtime ceremony beginning at 1:00 p.m. Sunday, October 19 at the Myer Hall Susquehanna Room on the Elizabethtown College campus.