The event will be held at 6 p.m. in the Scoville Learning Center auditorium and is free and open to the public.
As a charter member of the Hall of Fame, Bob will be honored with a plaque, which will be displayed in the lobby of the SUNY Adirondack gymnasium. Five members of the first Hall of Fame class will be inducted during Homecoming Weekend on October 12.
“We are very excited to have this opportunity to honor our deserving athletes, coaches and contributors,” SUNY Adirondack athletic director John Quattrocchi said. “Bob is the man who started it all.”
A native of Akron, Ohio, Addison joined the SUNY Adirondack (then Adirondack Community College) faculty in 1962. He served as professor of physical education and athletic director for 38 years until his retirement in 1990.
Addison developed the college’s physical education programs, including the first co-ed programs, and introduced intramural sports. He coached basketball, cross-country, softball and helped design the college’s athletic facilities on the new Bay Road campus, which opened in 1967. He also taught classes in volleyball and badminton and the New York State coaching certification class.
His first two hires as athletic director were Bob Harris, who coached tennis, gymnastics and skiing, and Ben Davis, who coached men’s basketball. He says his most memorable athlete he ever had was Doug Luke, who later went on to coach the Cambridge High School football team to six trips to the state finals in the Carrier Dome in Syracuse, including a Class C state title in 1999.
Addison is a veteran of World War II and the Korean War, and is most proud of his World War II service as a member of the 1st Battalion Fifth Marines, an elite amphibious light infantry unit known as Edson’s Raiders. The unit saw action in the Battle of Bloody Ridge on Guadalcanal against the Japanese in the Solomon Islands, in which 300 of the unit’s 2,400 members were killed in action.
Bob continues to visit high school history classes around the area to talk about his war experiences as part of the Veterans Program.
For more information on this event, please call Director of Athletics John Quattrocchi at (518) 743-2269.
