Metropolitan Basketball Writers Association 
www.MetBasketballWriters.org
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
NEW YORK (April 1, 2016) – St. Thomas Aquinas athletic director Gerry Oswald and veteran basketball official Ed Corbett will be presented with Distinguished Service Awards by the Met Basketball Writers Assn. at the 83rd All-Met Haggerty Awards Dinner on Tuesday, April 12, at the Westchester Marriott in Tarrytown, NY.
The Haggerty Dinner is the longest running media-managed college basketball awards program in the United States.
Oswald is in his 42nd year working in collegiate athletics, which includes stops at SUNY Maritime, Manhattan and Fairleigh Dickinson along with service for both the NCAA and NIT.
When he arrived at STAC, located in Sparkill, NY, in July 2000, the athletic program consisted of eight sports competing within the NAIA framework. With his guidance, the Spartans lineup has grown to 18 programs competing at the NCAA Division II level, along with numerous club sports. St. Thomas Aquinas has achieved considerable success in multiple sports at the national level, including this past season when the men’s basketball team captured the East Coast Conference regular season and tournament titles, and then advanced into the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
During his tenure at STAC, Oswald has served on various regional and national committees. He was chair of the Division II national men’s basketball committee in 2007-08 and, in 2007, received the Joseph DeBonis Award from the College Basketball Officials of America.
While in college, Oswald was a captain and four-year player on the Manhattan basketball team (1971-74). Following graduation, he was head basketball and tennis coach, and physical education instructor, at SUNY Maritime. Working next at Manhattan, in addition to coaching golf and tennis, he was administrative assistant to the director of athletics and supervisor of Draddy Gymnasium, and traveled to Europe with the NIT All-Stars (1984-86). At FDU he was an assistant athletic director and golf coach before being named athletic director in 1995.
A native of Carle Place, NY, and former high school basketball star, Oswald lives in New City, NY, with his wife Catherine. They have three adult children.
In college basketball, if numbers are one of the key measures employed to assess worthiness, then the numbers for longtime on-court official Ed Corbett are a knockout: 35 years as a member of the IAABO, 30 years with the CBOA and 27 years whistling NCAA Division I games.
Well-respected just about everywhere, the list of conferences for which he’s called games is lengthy, including the Ivy League, Patriot, Northeast, Metro Atlantic, Atlantic 10, ACC, SEC, Big Ten, Colonial Athletic and Big East. And it’s not just regular season work, but championship games too, including seven finals for the Northeast Conference, four finals for the Patriot, eight finals in the MAAC, two finals for the Colonial and five finals for the Big East.
And then there’s the national stage as well: Fifteen years and five finals for the National Invitation Tournament and 20 years calling NCAA Tournament games, including six Final Fours.
Among his many accolades, Corbett has been inducted into the Catholic High School Hall of Fame (2005), Yonkers Sports Hall of Fame (2008), Westchester County Sports Hall of Fame (2009), along with receiving the Naismith National Official Award (2011).
Corbett and his wife, Susan, live in Yonkers, NY, and have two children and four grandchildren.
Speaking of children, this past season in New York, on Nov. 19, 2015, Ed Corbett had the unusual assignment of working a game between Maine and LIU Brooklyn in the on-court company of his son, Ed Jr., who also is a college basketball official.
"I was nervous all day and I am not nervous, even in a national championship game," Ed Sr. said after the game.
View previous MBWA Distinguished Service Award winners here