A four-year member of the cross country and track and field teams, Tom Stewart ’88 has gone on to a distinguished career as an athletics administrator and cross country and track and field official.

On the trails, Stewart won the 1985 Westfield State invitational meet in a time of 24:56, a race that would later be named the James Earley Invitational, which is still contested today.   He earned all-conference honors in 1985, and again in 1987 after missing the 1986 cross country and track seasons due to back surgery.

He was a member of the 1987 men’s cross country that was one of the best in school history, which finished third at the New England regional and 19^th at the NCAA national championship race, where Stewart placed 42^nd overall.  He was a member of teams that won four straight cross country and track and field titles.

Stewart was also a solid performer on the track, where he was an all-conference performer in the steeplechase, running 9:40, the fastest time for a WSU freshman, and qualified for the New England D3 Championships, where the Owls won the team title in 1985. In 1986 he again earned all-conference and all-New England honors in the steeple chase as the team finished third in New England.

Since graduation, Stewart has been extremely active as a track and field official.  Officiating since 1987, in 1991 he became the youngest Master Official in the nation at that time.  He has been the director for the MIAA Track and Field and Cross Country Championships for the last 32 years, and is now the meet director and administrator for the Intercollegiate Association Amateur Athletics of America Championships, the oldest collegiate championship meet in the country.

As an official he has signed off as referee, started, or timed 15 Canadian, American, New Zealand, European or World Records, including Yomif Keljecka world indoor record in the Men’s Mile (3:47.01).

Stewart also coached the women’s cross country team at Westfield State in 1995, bringing in a recruiting class that included WSU HOF’er Diana Cares, and a group of teammates that won the next four conference titles.

Stewart also owns IC4ATrack.com, where he has timed cross country, track and field and road races since 1992.

Stewart has served as athletics director at Holyoke Junior College since 1996, and HCC has hosted six NJCAA cross country national championships in his tenure. He chairs the cross country and golf national championship committees and is a member of the NJCAA finance committee.

Stewart resides in Westfield with his wife Jackie. Tom has adult children Colin, Kathryn, and Anna, and a step-son, Josh, as well as several horses, Sharpei and Kingston.