CORTLAND, N.Y. - Since 2007, the Peter J. Cahill Award has been presented to the State University of New York Athletic Conference's (SUNYAC) Most Valuable Player in women's tennis. A Cortland grad, Cahill taught and coached multiple sports at his alma mater for thirty years.
He assumed the head coaching responsibilities for Cortland's men's cross country and men's swimming and diving team in 1972. Eventually, Cortland added the women's swimming and diving team in 1978, and Cahill coached those three teams until 1998 when he became the women's tennis head coach.
Cahill's coaching resume before tennis was already outstanding. During his time coaching both men's and women's swimming and diving teams, he won a total of eight SUNYAC titles, including becoming the first coach in SUNYAC history to lead both a men's and women's program to win conference titles in the same sport and season in 1985. Additionally, he sent seventy-seven male qualifiers and over fifty female qualifiers to the Division III Swimming and Diving Championships. Cahill won the SUNYAC Coach of the Year for men's swimming and diving in 1979, 1981 and 1985 and was the 1988 women's swimming and diving SUNYAC Coach of the Year winner as well.
In 1998, when he took over as the head women's tennis coach, his led his team to conference titles in five of his first seven seasons. Two players qualified for the NCAA Division III Championships during his tenure and he was named SUNYAC Coach of the Year for women's tennis in 2003 and 2005.
Unfortunately this legendary member of the SUNYAC passed in 2006. The following year, the conference decided to honor Cahill by creating and naming the award after him.
Peter J. Cahill Award winners:
2007 – Kristen Greiner, Geneseo
2008 – Dana Lim, New Paltz
2009 – Tiarra Garrow, Oswego
2010 – Stephanie Schara, New Paltz
2011 – Stephanie DiCapua, Cortland
2012 – Montana Wilson, New Paltz
2013 – Paige Munroe, New Paltz
2014 – Marylen Santos, Geneseo
2015 – Cat Crummey, Geneseo / Olivia Ammirati, New Paltz
2016 – Sarah Mensah, Brockport
2017 – TBD
