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Cardinal Mooney graduate Reese honored as Penguin of the Year

Wednesday, March 1, 2017

By Greg Gulas

sports@vindy.com

BOARDMAN

Youngstown State’s Penguin Club held its 27th annual scholarship-ring dinner Tuesday with Ed Reese, CEO of EDM Management, Inc. honored as Penguin of the Year at Mr. Anthony’s Banquet Center.

It was an anniversary of sorts for Reese, whose association with Youngstown State University and specifically its athletics teams dates back 50 years to the 1966-67 basketball season.

“I started going to YSU games in 1966-67 and that day we played Philadelphia Textile at the South Field House,” Reese said. “We lost 71-70, but Penguin head coach Dom Rosselli and his teams were fun and special to watch. It was just the beginning of many great games that I would take in at YSU.”

Reese said being named Penguin of the Year was very humbling.

“When I look at the names from Ed O’Neill to President [Jim] Tressel to Carmen Policy, honorees like that group blazed a path and now it’s our turn to help out,” he said.

“There’s lots of momentum now at YSU and we need to keep it going. There are many great Penguin student-athletes and coaches that represent us across the country and worldwide and we need to be the team behind the team.”

Reese is a 1977 Cardinal Mooney graduate who spent his first two and a half years at YSU before transferring to Bowling Green State University, where he earned his undergraduate degree.

He credits YSU however, with kick-starting his dream to earn his BS in gerontology degree.

“One instructor, Carol Franken, understood what I wanted to do with my life and for that I will be forever grateful,” Reese said. “Very few universities back then offered that particular degree so I had to go to BGSU in order to earn my diploma. I am proud to say that YSU now offers a degree in that area and I’d like to think that I was the one behind that. I am now working with Paul McFadden of the YSU Foundation on funding a scholarship on her behalf.”

The annual dinner raises much needed funds for scholarships and rings for YSU championship teams and this year, six title teams will receive rings.

Teams earning rings include its men’s indoor track and field, men’s outdoor track and field and women’s outdoor track and field teams, women’s tennis, men’s cross country and its FCS national runner-up football team.

“Ed has supported YSU athletics for a long time and you can only admire all that he has done for the school and its athletics teams over the years,” added Attorney Dennis Haines who along with his wife Janet, were 2012 honorees.

Other 2016-17 scholarship honorees include Chris Colella, Kyle Kroynovich and Michael Yourstowsky, who earned the Chuck Perazich Sports Information Scholarship and Michael Moamis, the recipient of the Bruce Burge Athletic Marketing Scholarship.

The late Chuck Perazich was a former Penguin football manager and student sports information director during his undergraduate days, also serving as the longtime sports editor of The Vindicator.

Burge was the department’s first athletics marketing director, later moved over to the NBA and professional hockey and currently serves as president of has his own marketing firm, which is based in Atlanta.

“Ed Reese has given and just keeps giving back,” said YSU Board of Trustees member Dr. John Jakubek, who was among the nearly 1,100 in attendance.