Setting Their Spring Staffs
Karen Brandt New Head Women's Track & Field Coach
Dempsey to Complete Baseball Staff, Lahr Assisting Softball
SELINSGROVE, (Pa.) - Already a co-head coach for both the school's men's and women's cross country teams, Karen Brandt, formerly of Bedford, has also become the head women's track and field coach at Susquehanna University. Her husband Jim Brandt co-coaches the cross country teams with her and will continue to join her as distance coach of both the Crusader women's and men's track teams.
Brandt takes over a program which returns the first national champion in Susquehanna women's history as Janee Shaner (Hughesville/Hughesville H.S.) won the javelin last spring as a freshman at the NCAA Division III Outdoor Track and Field Championships. The team also tied its best finish ever at the Middle Atlantic Conference Championships last season, placing second under 21st-year men's head coach Jim Taylor.
Brandt succeeds Jane Wildman, who was hired last year as Susquehanna's head coach of both women's soccer and track and field. An Ohio native, she has accepted a position as head women's soccer coach at Oberlin College and will be returning to her home state. While she never actually guided the Crusader women's track team at a meet, she directed the women's soccer team to a 7-8 record last fall - the second best mark in the program's five-year history.
In addition to Brandt, current assistant men's basketball assistant coach Tommy Dempsey will also serve as an assistant coach with the Crusader baseball team following the basketball season, while Tammy Lahr is a new Crusader assistant softball coach.
KAREN BRANDT
In its first season under the Brandts, the Crusader women's cross country team equaled its highest finish at the Middle Atlantic Conference Championships - placing fifth and qualifying the entire team for the NCAA Division III Mideast Regional. The squad went on to place 17th out of 40 teams at regionals. The men's program also qualified two runners for regionals.
Prior to Susquehanna, the Brandts served as head coach of the cross country program for six seasons at Lower Dauphin High School. They took the Lower Dauphin program from near-termination to two Mid- Penn Division II championships. With Jim serving as head coach and Karen as his assistant, the Lower Dauphin boys' team won the championship in 1996, with the girls taking the title in 1997. During their Lower Dauphin tenure, the Brandts' coached four runners who qualified for the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association State Championships.
Prior to taking over the cross country program in 1992, the Brandts had served as distance coaches for Lower Dauphin's track and field program from 1989 through '94. During those five seasons, they guided several runners to conference and district championships, with three of them also qualifying for the state championship meet.
Freshman Kim Owen was their top runner on the Crusader cross country program last fall and was their captain at Lower Dauphin the season before. She will also be one of their top distance runners this spring.
The Brandts are accomplished distance runners themselves, with both of them running in the Boston Marathon in 1991 and Karen recently qualifying for the event for the fourth time. While she has previously run two of them, she plans to participate in her third Boston Marathon on April 19. She has 12 years of experience in distance running, competing primarily in road races.
"I'm looking forward to building things here. We're a little bit behind in recruiting right now for next year because of the coaching change, but I've been putting in some real long hours to make up that deficit," said Karen Brandt. "I'm very excited and really looking forward to the long term as far as building a team of the caliber of what Coach (Jim) Taylor has done with the men here (10 Middle Atlantic Conference championships, 31 All-Americans, six national champions)."
"Karen brings us tremendous experience and enthusiasm for the position. She is a veteran runner herself, who I'm sure will transmit her own sense of commitment to our women's track athletes," said Susquehanna Director of Athletics Don Harnum.
Brandt earned both her bachelor's degree in humanities and master's degree in American studies from Penn State in 1987 and '97 respectively.
She and Jim reside in Selinsgrove. Karen was raised in Bedford, Pa., and is the daughter of William and Rebecca Wolfe of Valley Road.
TOMMY DEMPSEY
Dempsey is completing his second season as a Susquehanna men's basketball assistant coach, also serving as head coach of the junior varsity team.
A 1997 Susquehanna graduate with a bachelor's degree in sociology, Dempsey was a two-year varsity basketball letterwinner at the school, serving as a co-captain during his senior year.
While he didn't play baseball at Susquehanna, he was a four-year varsity player and three-year starter at Dunmore High School. Dempsey started as a second baseman for two seasons before becoming an all-scholastic shortstop while batting .391 as a senior.
He also played both basketball and baseball at Lackawanna Junior College for one year before transferring back to Susquehanna. At LJC, Dempsey played as both a second and third baseman and batted .294 in his lone season.
"Tommy's a nice addition to our staff. He's a Susquehanna grad who obviously is committed to the program and the players," said new Crusader baseball head coach Tim Briggs.
Also a student in the Susquehanna Teacher-Intern Program, Dempsey resides in Selinsgrove.
TAMMY LAHR
Lahr was a four-year softball starter and letterwinner as an outfielder at NCAA Division II East Stroudsburg University. She was the recipient of East Stroudsburg's Senior Athlete Award in 1998, also leading her team in hitting for part of her senior season.
She graduated Magna Cum Laude with a Bachelor of Science Degree in elementary-education from East Stroudsburg in 1998.
Lahr was also a four-year starter and letterwinner at nearby Shikellamy High School, also playing as an outfielder. At Shikellamy, she earned the 1994 Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association Outstanding Female Athlete Award, and was also named to the All-Star Softball Team by The Daily Item newspaper for three years.
She has previous coaching experience as a softball coach and counselor at the East Stroudsburg Softball Clinics from 1995 through '98. Also a volunteer assistant on her mother's Northumberland Little League team, ages 13-15, she recently was appointed head coach of the Northumberland ASA Softball Team, ages 18 and over.
"Tammy will add to our great coaching staff, which already includes John Wendt and Cheri Swineford. She had a very good softball career as a player and is really eager to share some of her offensive and defensive skills as a coach," said fifth-year Crusader softball head coach Vince Anselmo.
Lahr resides in Northumberland and is pursuing a career in teaching. She is the daughter of Steve and Connie Lahr of Northumberland.
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