Edward Welch made significant contributions during the formative years of the Westfield State intercollegiate athletics program. 

He joined the Westfield State College faculty in 1948 and served as the adviser/director of the Men’s Athletic Association for eight years. All male students at the college were members of the Association, which included intramural sports and two intercollegiate sports: baseball and basketball. 

Welch played a pivotal role in the expansion of the athletics program in the mid-1950s, an era when the college’s male enrollment nearly doubled. Welch initiated the long-range plans to increase the number of varsity sports offered, and he was a catalyst in Westfield State’s acceptance into the 15-member New England Teachers College Athletic Conference in March of 1955. 

His efforts also were crucial in the campus’ expansion movement from downtown Westfield to its present location in 1956. 

Following his involvement with athletics, Welch served as the college’s dean of men and director of admissions until his retirement in 1973. After his retirement, the commonwealth named Welch Hall – one of the college’s three apartment residential halls – in his honor. 

Welch spent his retirement years in both Newport, R.I., and Mansfield, Conn. He lived in Newport from 1973-1985 and from 2000 until his death in 2002 at the age of 92. In Newport, he served as a guide and historian at the Preservation Society’s Hunter House and wrote a history of the house. 

Welch was born in Williamstown, Mass., and graduated from Williams College in 1931 with an English degree. He also obtained a master’s degree from Williams. Welch taught at Williamstown High School until 1938 when he accepted a position at the New York Military Academy in Cornwall-on-Hudson, N.Y. He was drafted by the U.S. Army in August of 1943 and was captured by German troops in November of 1944. He remained a Prisoner of War until the end of the war. 

Following his Army discharge, Welch became a member of the faculty of the postwar branch of the University of Massachusetts at Fort Devens. Three years later he joined the faculty at Westfield State. 

Welch is survived by his wife, Elizabeth; a son, Christopher of Newport; a daughter, Alicia Watt and her husband James Watt of Mansfield, Conn., and two grandchildren.