SUNY Cortland Athletics

In February 1980, the State University of New York Board of Trustees approved the naming of SUNY Cortland's $10 million Physical Education and Recreation Center in honor of Bessie L. Park, a physical education pioneer, who died on February 5, 1979 at the age of 97.

Miss Park, who graduated from the Cortland Normal School in 1901, joined the faculty at Cortland in 1915 as director of physical education. During the next 26 years, she served the institution in vital teaching, administrative and public service roles that helped forge her legacy as "the guiding spirit" behind the establishment of a physical education major at Cortland. At the Park Center dedication ceremony May 9, 1981, the late Ralph A. Brown, Distinguished Teaching Professor of History, touched upon the special traits of this physical education trailblazer. "Miss Park had tremendous energy and she was an innovator," said Brown. "Throughout her years at Cortland, she was often ahead of her time in her recommendations and her activites…Miss Park was a remarkable person, a wonderful human being. Energetic and forceful without being abrasive; intelligent and perceptive without any show of conceit or pomposity; possessor of intellectual curiosity that matched her high moral standards; highly competent in her chosen field of endeavor; intensely devoted to her work; and innovator who knew restraint; inclusive rather than dominating. Bessie Park was a scholar, dedicated to the pursuit of truth and excellence, possessed of honor and integrity, and a strong leader."

A native of LaFayette, N.Y., Miss Park received the Distinguished Service Award from the Cortland College Alumni Association in 1970. The plaque summarized her lifelong commitment to her Alma Mater: "She was the first head of the Department of Physical Education for Women in 1923 and helped move the College to a leadership role in her field. She was the first executive secretary of the Alumni Association when the Alumni Office first opened its doors in 1944. She was the first editor of the Cortland Alumni Magazine which she founded. She served as a member of the Alumni Board of Directors from 1946 to 1967."