Westfield State University

Richard (Dick) Lenfest, Jr. has been the athletic director at Westfield State University since the 2005-06 season. In his tenure, Owls' athletics has been recognized ten times as the Howard C. Smith Cup winner, representative of the best overall athletics program in the Massachusetts State Collegiate Athletic Conference. The Owls won the Smith Cup in 2015, ‘16, ‘17, and 2018 the first four-year sweep in school history. The Owls have been presented the Smith Cup in six of the last seven years, including back-to-back trophies in 2021 and 2022. 

In the summer of 2018, Lenfest was recognized as an Under Armour Athletic Director of the Year by the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics (NACDA).

Lenfest was recognized with the  Harold J. VanderZwaag Distinguished Alumnus Award from his alma mater, the McCormack Department of Sport Management at UMass in the spring of 2020.

During Lenfest’s tenure, Westfield has added varsity women’s lacrosse, men’s ice hockey, and men’s and women’s golf to its sport offerings.

The Owls have qualified seven team sports for NCAA tournaments, and sent numerous individual athletes to the NCAA swimming and diving, cross country, indoor and outdoor national championships, including 2009 women’s high jump national champion Marlee Berg and 2015 men’s javelin champion Travon Godette. Thirteen of Westfield’s 20 varsity sports have won at least one league title in that span.

Westfield State has perennially led the MASCAC in placing athletes on the league’s All-Academic team, and more than 60 percent of the Owls student athletes maintain a 3.0 or higher grade-point average.

Lenfest has also led fundraising efforts that have helped Westfield State to establish its hockey team, improve its baseball and softball fields, and rename its track, creating endowed funds for track, hockey, and cross country, as well as starting the Owl Club annual and corporate giving programs and Owl Club golf tournament to support athletics.

Lenfest is a graduate of the sport management program at UMass, and earned his M.B.A. from American International College, where he also served as assistant athletic director and assistant women’s basketball coach.  Before beginning his career in college athletics Lenfest worked for ten years in professional baseball as an assistant general manager in the New York Mets system from with stops in Pittsfield, Mass. and Kingsport, Tenn.