May 08, 2019

Hallmarks of Excellence: 2019 Hall of Fame Inductees

Inductees in the 2019 PC Athletics Hall of Fame class are, front row, from left: Kevin Jones ’00 & ’06G, Michele Tamburo ’95, Amy Kvilhaug ’96, Jessica Tabb ’01, and Mary Cullen ’06. Rear: Sandra O’Gorman ’89, Jamel Thomas ’99, Albert J. Puerini, M.D. ’74, Kevin Sheehan ’73 & ’78G, Frank Conway ’90, and Mario Proulx ’84.

There are educators and athletics coaches and officials. Their lot includes a physician, a life coach, a financial literacy advocate/author, and a director of a youth basketball/life skills program. There’s a small-business owner and another who works for a small business. One is a stay-at-home dad.

The most common bond among this group of 11 women and men? They are Friars. And, as of Feb. 22, they are Friars who joined an elite class of 168 before them as inductees of the Providence College Athletics Hall of Fame — saluted for their unique achievements in athletics and acknowledged for the people they have become.

“We are honoring your athletics accomplishments and the lives you have led,” said College President Rev. Brian J. Shanley, O.P. ’80 at the start of the ceremony at the Providence Biltmore hotel.

Kevin Sheehan ’73 & ’78G

Kevin Sheehan ’73 & ’78G

Baseball

“PC changed my life so I could change other people’s lives,” says Sheehan, who knows firsthand the profound impact of higher education on one person and those around that person.

“I was a first-generation college student, and the effect that it had on my family was priceless,” he says. “Since then, countless members of my family have earned degrees and advanced degrees from PC.”

Besides his B.A., Sheehan holds two master’s degrees, one from PC. The retired career educator worked in four Rhode Island school districts, mostly as a high school teacher, principal, and coach. He also has taught courses in education to PC undergraduate and graduate students for 20 years as an adjunct instructor. He continues to assist the Rhode Island Department of Education as a mentor/coach of principals.

Sheehan plays in two softball leagues, combining for roughly four games per week, and devotes the rest of his recreation time to golf “and anything else that may be competitive.”

On the diamond, he was one of PC’s top pitchers ever, holding records for most career strikeouts (151) and most seasonal strikeouts (68). He went on to play professionally in the Philadelphia Phillies organization.

But as he says, upon hanging up his cleats and working in education, “I finally was accomplishing my ‘mission in life’…to be that significant person in a student’s life.”

Albert J. Puerini, M.D. ’74

Lifetime achievement award

“Working here has been, by far, the most enjoyable part of my professional career,” says Puerini, the head team physician for PC sports since 1988. He is available 24/7 to more than 400 student-athletes and serves as the primary care physician for 30 coaches, administrators, and athletics trainers.

Puerini offers weekly medical clinics in the Canavan Sports Medicine Center and covers all men’s basketball games, traveling to most away games. For hockey, lacrosse, soccer, and women’s basketball games, he takes charge of assigning local volunteer physicians. For all Friar athletes, he coordinates a roster of specialists ready to see anyone on a moment’s notice.

A Brown Medical School faculty member and two-time “Top Doc” in Rhode Island Monthly, the family practice physician is president and CEO of Rhode Island Primary Care Physicians Corporation. In this role, he enjoys “delivering a team approach to medical care” by involving clinicians of all job titles. It is not unlike his active leadership and oversight of student-athletes’ well-being in caring for all Friar athletic teams.

“The family atmosphere at PC is inescapable,” he says. “I have been able to promote these attributes in every aspect of my professional and personal life. I will always be indebted to PC for lessons learned while a student and in my 30 years as head team physician.”

Mario Proulx ’84

Mario Proulx '84 — Mario Proulx ’84

Men’s ice hockey

One of the program’s finest goaltenders ever, the Quebec native ranks second in career wins (64), first in single-season wins (26), and played on two NCAA Tournament teams, including the 1983 squad that advanced to the national semifinals.

Proulx, who now runs a small electrical company, was an assistant coach with the Drummondville Voltigeurs major-junior hockey team for nine years. He considers raising his two children among his proudest lifetime achievements, one he prepared himself for, in part, by working at youth hockey clinics for nearly two decades.

As a French-Canadian, Proulx fondly remembers how his PC experience introduced him to a new language and culture and helped him meet “many great people with whom I lived unforgettable experiences.”

Sandra O'Gorman '89

Sandra O’Gorman ’89

Field hockey

A PC scholarship opened her world to understanding success at the highest level of athletics and to the importance of fitness and health, says O’Gorman. A goalkeeper, she led PC to 18 wins, a No. 1 national ranking, and its first NCAA Tournament appearance in 1987, earning First-Team All-America honors. She holds the school record for career saves with 685.

O’Gorman played international hockey for Ireland until 1995, being selected the world’s best goalkeeper in the 1994 Women’s Field Hockey World Cup. Of that distinction, she says, “It was confirmation that I had realized my goal to become the best in my field, an idea that had crystalized during my time at PC.”

Since retiring at top of her sport, O’Gorman has kept her commitment to health and fitness. As her first step toward a career in sales, she began working for a Dublin-based chain of gymnasiums. She currently works for a sports tour company and umpires and coaches field hockey.

As busy as she is back in her home country, she is apt to acknowledge the foundation she set stateside in college.

“It made me realize the dedication and focus that was necessary to succeed at the highest level,” she says. “I cherish the friends I made on and off the field at PC.”

Frank Conway '90

Frank Conway '90 — Frank Conway ’90

Men’s cross country & track

This elite miler, who still runs five days a week, was the first New England athlete to break the 4-minute mile barrier indoors. A two-time All-American and four-time BIG EAST champion, he attained world rankings in the indoor mile in 1988 and 1989.
Conway credits world-class coaching for setting the lofty bar in PC’s program.

“At this important stage of my sporting life, the PC way under the direction and supervision of Ray Treacy provided the right level of competition that brought out the best in me. I cannot overstate the importance this made and still makes for aspiring athletes to this day,” he says.

These days, Conway puts his PC education to good use. He has authored two books — Cents and Sensibility: A Financial Guide for Young Adults and Ireland’s Essential Guide to Personal Finance — is a qualified financial adviser, and, in 2017, was appointed by the government of Ireland to chair of Price Monitoring Group.

Conway is the founder of MoneyWhizz.org and runs Ireland’s leading financial education resource in collaboration with the Bank of Ireland. The program offers advice to people of all age groups as well as small businesses.

The “real-life impact” Conway’s financial advice is geared toward signals a lasting continuation of what he picked up in Providence. Just like his circle of lifelong friends, his takeaways from here were hardly restricted to what he learned on the track.

“Through PC, I discovered the impact Irish immigrants had in the development of the U.S., itself an important life lesson … that so much is possible provided one is committed and focused,” he says.

Michele Tamburo ’95

Michele Tamburo '95 — Michele Tamburo ’95

Women’s swimming

While she plans to join a master’s swim team in a few years, Tamburo is content watching her two high school-aged daughters swim competitively year-round. Sydney is graduating this year and has already obtained a swimming scholarship for college, while Megan will be a rising sophomore.

Tamburo was a standout swimmer for the Friars, setting school records in the 100- and 200-yard backstroke, the 100- and 200-meter backstroke, and the 100-yard butterfly. She has since worked as a grades K-4 reading specialist in Bedford, N.H., for 11 years. She is a strong advocate of childhood literacy and a certified dyslexia practitioner.

Tamburo, her husband, and their daughters travel frequently for swim meets around New England and elsewhere in the country. When they are not doing that, they have visited the Caribbean and several parts of Europe to broaden their world perspective. It is a familiar mission for Tamburo, who honed her habit of seeking new understandings as a Providence student.

“Through my coursework, I learned to collaborate with others, work hard, and honor others’ perspectives,” she says. “As an educator today, I often think back to the outstanding professors I had in college, and I aim to make a difference in my students’ lives as my professors did for mine.”

Amy Kvilhaug '96

Amy Kvilhaug '96 — Amy Kvilhaug ’96

Softball

Softball remains a magnet for Kvilhaug, who holds seven PC career pitching records, including games won (72), shutouts (27), and earned-run average (1.20), and is one of only two Friars to have pitched a perfect game. She offers private instruction and recently began a private life-coaching practice — following 22 years of coaching collegiately.

Kvilhaug racked up a program-record 127 wins at Radford University, where she was also named the Big South’s coach of the year in 2005 and won a seasonal record 40 games in her final campaign. She then served as head coach at St. John’s University for 12 years until 2018, leading the Red Storm to the BIG EAST Tournament championship game from 2014- 2017 and winning the title in 2015. That year, she and her colleagues were named the conference’s top coaching staff. They achieved the honor again in 2017.

Although she has moved away from formal competition, Kvilhaug made her career change with poise last year. She counts mustering “the courage to take on a new business endeavor” among her most meaningful ways of building on the foundation she set for herself as a student-athlete.

“Without my total educational and athletic experience at PC,” she says, “I would not have been presented with the opportunities I was afforded as I began the professional journey into coaching. I may have done the work to become accomplished, but Providence gave me the platform to thrive.”

Jamel Thomas ’99

Jamel Thomas ’99

Men’s basketball

The former high-scoring Friar guard-forward, who played professionally for 10 years in the NBA, CBA, ABA, and Europe, continues to score big — with kids. In so doing, he is staying true to his word that he “will always be a part of” his beloved sport.

Thomas’ Movement Thru Hoops is a weekly, basketball-based skills program for about 80 youths in New York City and New Jersey. It attempts to instill life resources and values like trust, discipline, and hard work, while encouraging children to apply these values elsewhere in their lives and aspire to attend college.

“It’s one of the best decisions I made,” says Thomas, who ranks sixth in PC career scoring with 1,971 points and was a two-time All-BIG EAST selection.

Although he was not drafted after graduating from PC, Thomas suited up for three NBA teams and led the Continental Basketball Association in scoring in 2000-01, then played seven seasons overseas, which he calls “my extraordinary European experience.”

Late in his playing career, Thomas wrote The Beautiful Struggle, a memoir about his upbringing in New York City and rise through the ranks of his sport. Since turning from player to mentor, he has cherished the opportunity to give back to his home community and impart the game’s finer points to his Movement Thru Hoops students as well as younger family members.

“I trained my little brother to get to a level of basketball that most people dream about,” he says, referring to nine-year NBA veteran Sebastian Telfair.

Kevin Jones ’00 & ’06G

Kevin Jones '00 & '06G — Kevin Jones ’00 & ’06G

Men’s soccer

After two extra years as a PC graduate student, Jones put his master’s degree in counseling to work as a guidance counselor at Malden (Mass.) Catholic High School. After six years, he put that career aside, along with his varsity soccer and junior varsity tennis coaching duties, to become a stay-at-home father when he and his wife decided that was best for their family.

“To be home with my son and daughter has given me perspective on life in so many ways,” he says. Beyond his involvement at home, he has coached both of his children in soccer and hockey (despite never having played hockey, he notes) for the past five years.

Known at PC for his drive and will to win, Jones ranks sixth in career scoring with 59 points and was Second Team All-BIG EAST twice. He continues to get his soccer kicks in an over-40 recreation league “but find myself more interested in playing golf and spending time on the weekends with my family.”

Jessica Tabb ’01

Jessica Tabb ’01

Women’s hockey

Motherhood and hockey are stabilizers for Tabb, who was a 2001 All-American at PC, a three-time U.S. national team selection, a member of the 2003 world championship team, and a two-time NWHL champion with the Toronto Aeros. She ranks ninth in points scored (170) and eighth in goals (86) at PC.

A former fifth-grade teacher, Tabb has stayed at home in western Massachusetts for the last seven years, raising her four children. From feedback at parent-teacher conferences to the sibling-to-sibling goodwill she witnesses on both special and everyday occasions, she is constantly reminded that “the action or decision to stay home with my kids mattered and that being involved in their childhood matters.”

Tabb coaches her children’s hockey teams, runs a youth hockey skills clinic, plays in a weekly women’s recreational league, and just completed her first year as girls’ varsity coach at Northfield Mount Hermon prep school.

Mary Cullen ’06

Mary Cullen '06 — Mary Cullen ’06

Women’s cross country & track

Forever grateful for the scholarship aid that helped her attain a “top-class education” and, ultimately, achieve running success collegiately and professionally, Cullen hasn’t slowed down since graduating. The Sligo, Ireland, native, who competed until 2016, still runs daily and works selling merchandise and advising runners at a running store in her hometown.

Cullen completed a personal training course and is considering working with runners and other athletes — and maybe even competitive racing — after she has her first child this year. She was a six-time All-American and won an NCAA title in the 5,000 meters outdoors.

“Competing in the NCAA’s,” she says, “allowed me to pursue a professional running career after college, something I know would not have happened if I stayed in Ireland, so I will be forever thankful to Ray (Treacy) and Providence College.”

Of her student-athlete experience as a whole, she says: “I would do it all over again if I could.”