Dear Bona Nation,

When entrenched in the daily grind of an academic year, one hardly has time to pause and reflect on all that has been accomplished throughout the year. To sum up the 2024-25 academic year into one word: Transition. This past year was filled with turbulence and uncertainty with the intercollegiate athletics enterprise at large confronted by unprecedented transformation.

Despite the incredible industry disruption of this past year, the St. Bonaventure University Department of Athletics enjoyed a busy, productive and successful academic year. In particular, we worked diligently to improve our foundation, making great strides in facility enhancements, student-athlete experience, Department structure, sport program leadership, fundraising, facility planning and reporting processes.

Through our department's first Operational Plan, we outlined our 13 highest priorities, each priority containing six Operational Goals, and four Recommended Actions for each goal. The Operations Plan helped guide our Department through the development of a new Strategic Plan that was finalized this summer and will be released in the weeks ahead.

During the spring, we began executing our construction and renovation facility improvement plan, which is essential in positioning our student-athletes to compete at the highest level in the Atlantic 10 Conference.  When this phase is completed later this fall, we will have invested nearly $5 million in athletic facility construction, renovations and branding since May.

To address the overall competitiveness of several of our athletic programs, the Athletic Department's Executive Staff conducted a holistic review of the athletic aid and budget allocations distributed to our sport programs and amended those totals where necessary. With adjustments now in place, we look forward to all our teams having the ability to compete for Atlantic 10 Conference championships in future years.

Throughout the 2024-25 academic year, the Athletic Department implemented several new student-facing programs to enhance the student-athlete experience, with a strong emphasis on providing career preparation seminars and presentations. Preparing student-athletes for success following graduation remains at the core of our mission. We are deeply committed to this charge and have planned even more new programming for 2025-26!

Thanks to so many of you who continue to support our student-athletes generously as we enjoyed record-breaking results on Athletics Giving Day. In addition to raising nearly $500,000, we established records for dollars raised, number of donors, and number of student-athlete donors. We placed an emphasis on student-athlete "giving" for the first time and saw more than 200 of our student-athletes participate.

We look forward to continuing our journey into another exciting academic year in 2025-26. I encourage you to CLICK HERE and view the Athletic Department's inaugural Annual Report in its entirety. The document provides a detailed overview of what was a highly memorable and successful 2024-25 campaign.

Thanks for your continued loyalty, dedication and support.

And as always, Go Bonnies!!

Bob Beretta

Vice President & Director of Athletics