Lafayette College’s athletic department was busy this summer, introducing two new administrative staff members and nine assistant coaches and staff members across eight teams.
The department announced in June that Joe Samaritano ‘91, the former director of gift planning for the college, would become the inaugural senior associate athletic director for advancement.
Samaritano, a former track and field athlete at Lafayette, has worked in institutional advancement since 1996 and served as an assistant track coach for five seasons. He said that the institutional advancement team worked in conjunction with the athletic department to create the new athletic advancement positions.
“It was conversations in advancement, it was conversations in athletics,” Samaritano said. “It was an outstanding vision of what we’d like to achieve. For me, it was just incredibly appealing, again, as a former student-athlete, a former coach, to want to be part of it.”
Samaritano said that he wants to continue to work with current charitable giving structures and the Maroon Club while adding a “major gift component.”
The department also announced that Dan Cason would join Samaritano as an assistant athletic director for advancement in August. Cason started in his role on Tuesday.
Cason comes to Lafayette from Dartmouth College, where he engaged with Dartmouth’s alumni network as the assistant athletic director for external relations. He noted that he and Samaritano will work together to build a strategy for athletics fundraising.
“We’re really building from the ground up with athletics fundraising now,” Cason said.
Cason said that he wants to get to know Lafayette’s alumni network and traditions as he adjusts to his role and is optimistic about his position, having felt that his growth was stifled at Dartmouth.
“With this position being brand new, there’s just a lot of potential,” he said, noting that a goal of his is to become an athletic director in the future.
Additionally, Associate Athletic Director for Student-Athlete Success Carly Riepenhoff added Katherine Hennessey to her staff as the assistant director for student-athlete success in August. Hennessey started in her role last Monday.
Hennessey is coming off a two-year graduate research assistant position at Lehigh, where she completed a Master of Arts in English literature. A former Division III track athlete at DePaul University, Hennessey noted that she is looking forward to “meshing” her experience as a student-athlete with her background in academia.
“This is my first year not being a student, so I’m looking forward to growing into a staff role at the college,” Hennessey wrote in an email. “I’m also looking forward to building off my experiences as a student athlete to create best practices for supporting Lafayette’s student athletes.”
The swimming and diving, men’s lacrosse, women’s basketball, football, men’s soccer, volleyball, field hockey and softball programs all added assistant coaches or managers to their programs over the summer.
“I’m extremely excited to be a part of such a wonderful college and Swimming and Diving program and look forward to continuing to provide the best student-athlete experience that we can,” Mike Rine, who joined the swimming and diving team from Lehigh, wrote in an email.
Men’s lacrosse added two new assistant coaches, Nick Hresko and Troy Haefele. Haefele wrote in an email that he is looking “forward to building strong relationships with the team and continuing to grow as a coach and person.”
Other assistant hires included Meghan Reese for field hockey, Lamine Balde on men’s soccer, Kelliner Croushore on softball, Jamarra Robinson on women’s basketball and Shai Bloom on volleyball. Sophie Freiling also joined football as the director of football operations.
Benjamin White ’27 contributed reporting.
