Questions & Athletes

The athletes featured in this issue are: Kyle Bondi, a junior Accounting major, and Colleen Murphy, a sophomore Secondary Education Math major.

Prior to Pitt-Greensburg, Bondi graduated from the Moon Area, and earned 10 varsity letters in high school. Bondi was also selected as All-Conference in football, basketball, and baseball. He excelled in the classroom and won the Scholar-Athlete award.

Before playing basketball at Pitt-Greensburg, Murphy graduated from Hollidaysburg, where she was a two year letter-winner. Along with letter-honors, Murphy was chosen to play in the 2015-16 Altoona Mirror Classic. She is also a recipient of the Academic Merit Scholarship, and Resident Scholar Award winner.

Question: What are a few ways you try to better your teammates and promote success?

Bondi: A few things I try to do to better my teammates, and the success of the program as a whole, is to be the best possible leader I can be. I am very vocal on and off the court and I like to try and “set the tone” and lead by example. I also try and get the most out of my teammates through competition and hard work.

Murphy: We try to push each other in practice and hold each other accountable. We try to out play each other in practice to make each other better and get better as a team as well.

Q: What songs or sayings get the team pumped up?

Bondi: Before every practice, or anytime we come together as a team, we huddle up and say two words as a team that we take very seriously and that we believe will lead to our success on and off the court this season. It goes “one, two, three, ‘together,’ four, five, six, ‘believe.’”

Murphy: Our theme for the year is 212 degrees: the extra degree. This pushes us to try harder and put our best out there every game.

The first game for the men’s team is:

Wednesday, Nov. 15, at 7 p.m., in Chambers Hall.

The first game for the women’s team is:

Friday, Nov. 17, at 1 p.m., at the Buffalo State Tip-Off Tournament.