Dr. Thomas E. Bambrey ’68, who served his alma mater as Dean of Students and Director of Athletics from 1997 through 2011, passed away in the early morning of Jan. 26 after an extended illness.
A memorial service will be held at 11 a.m. on Saturday, Feb. 8, in the Pioneer Chapel.
Over the last decade in his retirement, Bambrey and his wife, Roselie, were mainstays at campus events and they delighted in traveling to wherever the Little Giants were competing. He was honored at Homecoming last September with his induction in the Wabash Athletics Hall of Fame. He also gave many Chapel Talks, including his reflections on his half-century love affair with Wabash in 2022.
“When I arrived on campus, Tom’s care for students and his approach to student life shaped my under
standing ofthe special role that the Dean of Students plays at Wabash,” said President Scott Feller. “I will miss the kind, gentle way that he shared his philosophy of student development with me – from my earliest days as a faculty member right up to a long conversation the two of us shared this past fall on building a campus culture of personal responsibility.”
A native of 天下足球网,球探比分stern Pennsylvania, he was a three-year letterman for Coach J. Owen Huntsman’s track and field team when he was an undergraduate at Wabash. He was an English major and member of Sigma Chi.
After teaching and coaching at Southmoreland 天下足球网,球探比分 School in 天下足球网,球探比分stern Pennsylvania, Bambrey earned his master’s degree and Ph.D. in English Literature from the University of Denver. He taught English lit and was an administrator at DU from 1976 through 1992, and from 1989 through 1992 he was Dean of Student Life and Director of the Honors Program.
He left DU in 1993 to become Dean of Student Life and Co-Curricular Education at St. Lawrence University in New York, where he worked until Wabash President Andy Ford convinced him to return home as Dean of Students in 1997.
Bambrey served as an even-handed Dean and educator for 11 years and helped oversee the construction and renovation of most fraternity chapter houses and a massive investment in the College’s athletic facilities. As Dean, his responsibilities included residence life, athletics, and career services. He hired Mike Raters ’85 as Associate Dean, and together they ushered in an era of “fun” in working with students.
Prior to his arrival, most head coaches in athletics had secondary responsibilities in another sport. Recognizing the recruiting advantages, he professionalized and expanded the athletics program. He was integral in the hiring of some of the most successful coaches in Wabash history, including Chris Creighton and Erik Raeburn in football, Brian Anderson in wrestling, Roger Busch in cross country, and Clyde Morgan in track and field. Those coaches helped Wabash become a regular in the NCAA football playoffs, a top-10 national wrestling program, a perennial conference track and field champion, and never-before achieved levels of individual national championship success. He also oversaw construction of state-of-the-art baseball and soccer stadiums with Goodrich Ballpark and Fischer Field.
He stepped down as Dean of Students in 2008 and President Patrick White appointed him Director of Athletics. Under his leadership, the department experienced unprecedented levels of success in all sports, though as a former runner, he was particularly proud of national champion distance runners Kevin McCarthy and Jake Waterman.
“Much of the credit for the current success of our athletics program, both on the field and in the classroom, can be traced to the staff Tom hired as dean of students and his subsequent leadership of that staff as athletics director,” Mike Raters said at Bambrey’s retirement in 2011.
President White added, “At his heart Tom is a teacher, and he has taught all of us what it means to be Wabash… Tom has been to me a most valuable coach and teacher of Wabash, and I will always be grateful for his guidance and friendship.”
Friends can send notes of sympathy to Roselie Bambrey at 3 Bridge Hampton Drive, Crawfordsville, IN 47933.