IUP Athletic Hall of Fame
That Bernard Ganley has been selected for induction into the IUP Athletic Hall of Fame because of his achievements as the Indians' golf coach from 1961 through 1969 is true only in part.
His resume relative to the spring sport is certainly sufficient to merit the recognition, including, as it does, the only team national championship won in IUP history.
The trophy was from  the 1968  NAIA/Nationa l Association of Intercollegiate Athletics tournament in Bemidji, Minnesota, where 42 teams from across the country contested the crown. No other Eastern team had ever won the national title.
IUP's Rick Hrip won the individual national champion (medalist) plaque as well; Rick Worsham and Terry Eisenhute finished third and fourth. The team 's combined score was the second lowest in tournament history.
The achievement came toward the close of an eight-year coaching tenure in which IUP placed fourth, fifth, eighth and ninth in four other NAJA tournaments. His teams also won three NAJA district titles and IUP's first Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference crown.
And the Indians made their initial appearances at NCAA
national tourneys, in the days before college-division ( now known as Division II) events. Ganley was elected president of the NAJA Golf Association.
He achieved all this while holding the demanding, full time position as Administrative Assistant to President Willis E. Pratt in an era when IUP was promoted to university status (in 1965) and its enrollment tripled from 3,200 to 9,600.
Ten years later (in 1979), the 1948 IUP graduate became the first to serve his alma mater as President, an interim appointment that covered nine months and came before retiring as Administrative Vice President in 1981 . (More recently, he has been Acting President of Mount Aloysius College in Cresson.)
Ganley came to IUP in 1960 as Assistant Dean of Men, head track and field coach and assistant football coach. The U.S. Navy World War II veteran had played Indian football, basketball and baseball and was well known in the Indiana County area as a coach and guidance counselor at Cherry Tree and Homer-Center.
He and his wife, Joan , met while both were students at IUP; she is a home economics  graduate  who taught in Saltsburg and part-time on campus. Community involvements have included the United Way and Red Cros. and he is currently on the board of directors of Indiana First Savings Bank.
