IUP Athletic Hall of Fame
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Eric Shafer earned NCAA Division II All-America honors in cross country in 1990 by finishing 10th at the national meet, the second-best performance by an IUP runner in school history. He was 15th with about a mile and a half to go before surging past five runners on a hill, helping IUP secure a 14th-place finish as a team.
Shafer had previously that fall won the ECAC championship and finished fifth at the PSAC meet and fourth at regionals in 30 minutes, 41 seconds, the fastest 10-kilometer time in school history.
He also earned All-America honors in 1989 by finishing 24th at nationals. That enabled coach Ed Fry’s team to place ninth.
Shafer excelled on flat surfaces, too, earning All-PSAC track honors in each of his last three seasons. He finished second in the 10,000-meter event at the conference meet in 1990 and 1991 and placed third in the 5,000 in 1991. IUP earned runner-up honors as a team that year.
Shafer continued to run after leaving IUP. He finished 31st at the 1999 Boston Marathon, ran a personal best time of 2 hours, 24 minutes, 4 seconds at the Shamrock Marathon in 2000 to place fourth, finished 15th in the 2008 Marine Corps Marathon in 2008 and placed 17th in the USA National Marathon Championships in 1998. Shafer once put together a streak of finishing at least one sub-17-minute 5K every year for 37 consecutive years. He still competes in distance races for the Pittsburgh Pharaoh Hounds Running Club.
A 2024 inductee into the Pittsburgh Marathon Hall of Fame—along with fellow IUP grads Kerry Green and Sara Raschiatore Zambotti—Shafer graduated in 1991 with a degree in business administration/accounting and earned an MBA from the University of Pittsburgh in 2006. He works as an accountant for the Carrier Corporation in Pittsburgh and serves as cross country and track coach at Carlynton High School in suburban Pittsburgh.
Shafer resides in the Pittsburgh suburb of Crafton.
Personal Reflection:
I am so humbled by the honor of being selected for the IUP Athletics Hall of Fame and want to thank the selection committee for their consideration. There have been so many great athletes that have been recognized before me and it is an honor and privilege to take my place next to so many that have represented IUP so well throughout the years.
As I reflect on this honor I think of all my coaches, teammates and family members who cheered, encouraged and supported me to make this day possible. This induction is as much and maybe even more about their support and sacrifices as it is about my selection.
A big thank you for this honor goes out all my teammates who pushed and inspired me by their dedication to the team and who pushed their way through long runs and exhausting interval workouts. I learned quickly after graduation how hard it was to do solo intervals when I was no longer on the team. In particular, I want to thank Tom Rogozinski, who could always be counted upon to push me with his intensity in interval workouts and long runs; Joe Grunwald, who pushed and encouraged me from early in my freshman year and suffered through a lot of long runs with me around campus; Wayne Shipley, who encouraged me in everything including academics and running and did his best to keep me humble; and Tom Good, who also pushed me through a lot of track and cross country workouts and long runs. One of the great honors of my athletic career was joining these four guys as scorers on the 1989 cross country team that placed ninth in the nation at the NCAA national championship meet.
I would also like to thank Coach [Ed] Fry for all his support and belief in my abilities. I will always remember a conversation we had after practice a few days before the national championships my junior year, where he first stated in a way that only he could how much he believed that I would become an All-American and place in the top 25 in the nation. Even with that I did not appreciate Coach Fry’s influence the way I should have until years later when I became a cross country and track coach myself. Coach Fry always led our teams selflessly and always put his athletes first, something I have always tried to emulate with the teams I have led as a cross country and track coach over the past 19 years.
To my family, particularly my brother Kevin and my cousin Joe, thanks to you two for inspiring me as an athlete at a young age. My brother Kevin was always a more naturally gifted athlete from an early age, which always made me work harder at athletics so as not to be shown up by my “little brother.” And to my cousin Joe, who was four years older, you inspired me to pursue high school athletics by watching you play basketball for Allentown Central Catholic when I was just starting junior high school (even though I had no idea at that time that my sports would be cross country and track).
Finally, and most of all, I want to thank my parents who, without all their hard work and sacrifices, this moment would not have been possible. They worked tirelessly so that I would have the opportunity to obtain a college education and could also pursue, as quoted by Donald Sutherland’s character Bill Bowerman in the movie Without Limits, something as “absurd as distance running.” Sadly, my father would never get to see me earn my degree and my ultimate successes in distance running as he would pass away from a heart attack early in my sophomore year. While one of the hardest moments of my life, my mom assured me immediately after his death that I would stay in school. It is my mom that I wish to celebrate the most on this induction, as her steadfast support in my remaining in school despite my father’s untimely passing inspired me to earn my B.S. in accounting degree along with pursuing my dreams as a distance runner.
My time at IUP and competing on the cross country and track and field teams was one of the best experiences of my life and I am extremely grateful for this honor of being inducted into the IUP Athletics Hall of Fame.
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