RIVERDALE, N.Y. – The Metropolitan Basketball Writers Association (MBWA) will present Manhattan College Athletic Director Bob Byrnes with the organization’s 2012 Distinguished Service Award. Byrnes, who is in his 24th year as athletic director at his alma mater, will be joined by fellow Distinguished Service Award honorees Wagner College Athletic Director Walt Hameline and long-time Baruch College head men’s basketball coach Ray Rankis. Byrnes, Hameline and Rankis will be presented with their awards during the 79th NIT/MBWA All-Met Haggerty Awards Dinner on April 26 at the Westchester Marriott in Tarrytown, N.Y.
A 1968 graduate of Manhattan College, Byrnes has presided over a renaissance period of Jasper basketball. During his tenure in Riverdale, the men’s and women’s basketball programs have earned eight NCAA Tournament bids and made five appearances in the postseason National Invitation Tournament (NIT). Additionally, the Jaspers basketball teams won seven Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference Regular Season Championships, and the men’s basketball program earned the MAAC’s first ever at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament in 1995.
Byrnes serves as the chair of the MAAC Men’s Basketball Committee. He has spent two stints as the president of the Metropolitan Intercollegiate Basketball Association (former sponsor of the NIT) and is a member of the ECAC Officials Negotiating Committee. Byrnes was inducted to the Manhattan College Athletic Hall of Fame in 2004 for his outstanding contributions to Jaspers Athletics.
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