Class of 1992
Mary O'Neil
O’Neil came to work at CCRI in 1972, coming from being a nurse at URI. from the first day, she became the unofficial athletic trainer for student-athletes and with her office being like a second home for them.
Later in the year of 1972, she became the official athletic trainer. She was not just the athletic trainer for the college, she was also the charge nurse in the Student Health Office, serving those positions from 1972 until 1993.
O’Neil was “family and friend” to any that met her and took her responsibilities seriously, being very accomplished and active in her field; she was named Woman of the Year in 1982 by the Women’s Business Club of Jamestown and was active in the Rhode Island Hospital Alumni Association, the South County Hospital Cancer Support Group and the Rhode Island College Nurses Conference Group.
Lou Pullano
Pullano came into CCRI following from an amazing athletic career at Cranston East High School. As a freshman at CCRI on Coach Whitey’s baseball team, he was selected as an All-New England Honorable Mention.
In his last season, he was on the All-New England first team as an outfielder and after graduating, he went to play for the University of Rhode Island, where there he was All Yankee Conference second team and was the captain of the team that won the Yankee Conference Championship. Pullano later went on to start a teaching and coaching career at West Warwick High School, winning a number of championships for both soccer and baseball and was awarded an interscholastic coach of the year award once.
He is the founder of the Met Life Soccer Fest and was inducted into the Rhode Island Soccer Hall of Fame. In 1996 he became an administrator of CCRI’s athletics and in 2002 Pullano served as CCRI’s Athletic Director and Associate Vice President for Athletics and Enrollment Management until 2008. He is currently an Associate Professor and Faculty Athletics Representative at Johnson and Wales.
He is an active member of the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics, served on the organization’s Executive Board as well as being elected President of the National Alliance of Two-Year College Athletics Administrators, acted as Project Administrator for the NCAA National Youth Sports Program and that received NCAA national recognition.
Pullano is a part of North American Society for Sports Management, National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics, Society of Health and Physical Educators, and has been awarded Hospitality College Faculty of the Year in2012-2013, Hospitality Teacher of the Year in 2011-2012, Rhode Island Sons of Italy Hall of Fame, Community College of Rhode Island Alumni Society of the Knights.