Kathy Jekanowski ’96 was an integral member of the highly successful Westfield State women’s basketball teams of the mid-1990s.
 
A three-time all-conference selection, Jekanowski scored 1,044 career points in helping to lead Westfield State to the best four-year stretch in school history. The Owls posted a brilliant 88-27 record with four straight 20-win seasons, captured two MASCAC championships, and participated in NCAA Tournaments in 1995 and 1996. In addition, Westfield was the ECAC Tournament runner-up in 1993 and ECAC tournament semifinalist in 1994.
 
Jekanowski played with four other Westfield State Athletic Hall of Famers, including classmates Andrea Bertini and Mary Gibney. In addition to scoring 1,000 career points, Jekanowski totaled 503 career rebounds and ranks in the top 10 in school history in free throw shooting (71 percent, 286 for 402). But her biggest impact was made on the defensive end where she guarded the opposing teams’ best players. Her team-first efforts were did not go unnoticed as she was a first team all-conference selection in 1993 and 1996 and a second-team selection in 1994.
 
Jekanowski also scored 1,000 career points in high school at Hopkins Academy in Hadley, where she was an All-Western Mass. selection in both basketball and softball. She has been a certified athletic trainer for 18 years and earned a master’s of education degree in strength and conditioning from Springfield College in 2002. 
 
Jekanowski has been an athletic trainer at Amherst College since the fall of 2005 and was voted honorary class member by the Amherst College Class of 2011. She was the athletic Trainer for two national championship teams with the women’s ice hockey program in 2009 and 2010.
 
During her time at Amherst, Jekanowski has been an approved clinical instructor for Westfield State students in the athletic training education program. Jekanowski credits former Westfield State athletic trainer Rich Pierce, a 2006 Hall of Fame inductee, for guiding her into mentoring students as he did while she was a student-athlete and student trainer.