BEAVER TOWNSHIP — You would forgive Youngstown State University interim president Dr. Helen Lafferty if she was a little conflicted this Saturday when YSU takes on Villanova in the second round of the FCS playoffs. .
Mr. Lafferty, a Youngstown native and YSU alumnus, spent 40 years as an administrator and faculty member at Villanova University, most recently serving as an international member of the YSU Board of Governors before being appointed to YSU’s top position. says this. In a situation where you can’t lose.
“That’s definitely the definition of a challenge.” She told Curbstone coaches during Monday’s weekly meeting at the Avion Banquet Center. “An important thing someone has told me is that I can never lose. I’m not going to put you on the spot.”
Lafferty believes that academics and athletics complement each other.
“I believe the most important part of any university is the academic side. I’m an academic from head to toe, so I wouldn’t expect it to be any different.” she added. “I’m a professor, so academics are very important to me. But by being part of a sports team, you learn things you would never learn in a classroom.
“I’ve had the opportunity to coach a lot of athletes and I really love them. Sometimes I tell them sports analogies and they get it. So, again, I think there’s a lot of things that you can learn as part of a team that you can’t learn in a classroom. I really think there is one person who is really solid.”
When asked to participate in a promotion offering free tuition to lucky students at a YSU basketball game, Rafferty jumped at the chance to help one of his students.
“I was so upset because they were trying to get me to shoot the basket. I’m like, oh my god.” she said. “Servpro was kind enough to give me a tuition scholarship for the spring semester. There was a wonderful young woman there. Her name was Monica and she was from Nepal. If she can make more than one attempt, she’ll get the scholarship. Unfortunately, I didn’t make the shot, which was disappointing, but as you know, this kid is going to get that scholarship. Probably.
“So I took the microphone out of the gentleman’s hand and said, y’all know I didn’t make that shot. If she did that and clapped, she would get a scholarship. Can you do that? I asked. They almost brought down the rafters. Monica won a scholarship. But there’s another part to the story: On that Monday, they held a feast called the “Feast of Blessings.” She and her sister weren’t there because they were here at YSU, but they felt very bad about the fact that they didn’t get any blessings.
“Then Tuesday came and she was blessed. So the next day Monica and her sister came to my office and we were blessed, Dr. Lafferty, we were blessed,” I said, crying my eyes out.”
Connecting and building relationships was a top priority for Lafferty while on campus.
“I think one of my key accomplishments was staying focused on faculty, staff, and students and trying to build lasting, meaningful relationships with each group that were important to them and to me. ” ,” Rafferty said. “I think I achieved that pretty well and if I stay, that will continue to be my focus.”
Although COVID-19 has changed the way things are done both personally and professionally, Rafferty said education and activism continue to move forward.
“While COVID-19 has been a very dark part of our history, I think higher education will move forward and athletics will move forward as well.” she said. “But there’s also been a silver lining as we’ve started to define the word essential in a very different way. So who are the essentials? They’re the nurses, they’re the doctors, they’re the doctors. That was a good thing because they were the people who put food on the shelves of the food market.
“Another good thing is we’ve had to learn to pivot educationally. We did online what we used to do in person, and a lot of people did really well. So I think this probably gave us an opportunity to explore another avenue of our own expertise that we didn’t really think we had.”
Next Monday, Struthers native Tom Bochenek, professional and collegiate sports correspondent and statistician, will be the guest speaker.