Class of 1999
Claudia DeFaria
DeFaria is considered as one of the greatest players in CCRI women’s basketball history. She was the nation’s 3rd leading scorer in ‘91-’92, averaging 24.2 points per game and she put her name in the all-time scorers list with 916 points.
At that time, she became CCRI’s all-time assist leader and she tied the former record of scoring 38 points in one game. The first CCRI women’s basketball player to be named an NJCAA second-team All-American. In DeFaria’s sophomore season, she became the team’s co-MVP; she was also a two-time All-New England and an All-Colonial States Athletic Conference player.
DeFaria went on to Rhode Island College after graduating from CCRI and she became the first and only player to score over 1,ooo points in only two seasons. DeFaria scored 1,048 points, which ranks her 12th all-time in career scoring and is also seventh all-time with 592 career rebounds. As a senior at Rhode Island College, she was named the Little East Conference’s Player of the Year, First Team All-LEC and to the All-LEC Tournament team. She led the LEC in both scoring and rebounding, averaging 19.2 points per game and 11.8 rebounds per game, a double-double for the entire season.
She was named a New England Women’s Basketball Association (NEWBA) Second Team All-Star and was named a Distinguished Student-Athlete by the Rhode Island Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (RIAIAW). She was inducted into RIC’s Athletic Hall of Fame in 2002, named to the college’s 75th Anniversary Women’s Basketball Team in 2005, was named to the Little East Conference Women's Basketball 25th Anniversary Team in 2011, was inducted into the New England Basketball Hall of Fame, the Little East Hall of Fame in 2014, and she was also honored as the CCRI alum of the year in 2008.
DeFaria is currently the Assistant Coach for Rhode Island College’s Women’s Basketball team and a member of the Rhode Island College Hall of Fame selection committee. She served 5 seasons as their associate head women’s basketball coach from 2008-2013 and in the 2019-2020 season, she served as their coordinator of women’s basketball operations.
Before that, DeFaria was on CCRI’s women’s basketball staff and helped lead them to the NJCAA Division II National Tournament Final Four twice and the Elite Eight four times, while capturing five consecutive New England and Northeast District Championships.
Jeff Francis
Not many players were as feared at the plate and on the mound as Francis was. Francis was the New England Junior College Player of the Year in 1982 and rightfully so as he was the national leader in ERA with an incredible 0.98 ERA.
He finished that season being unbeaten at 5-0, only allowing 5 runs in 46 innings; he was also challenging for the national triple-crown in hitting. Francis finished with a home run percentage of .33 per game, was among the nation’s leaders in RBI percentage, with it being 1.42, and finished with a batting average of .414.
After his incredible season, he was signed by the Milwaukee Brewers.
Edward Liston
Edward Liston’s experience in community colleges stretches over 40 years from coast to coast. Before being appointed as CCRI’s second president in 1978, he served as president of Los Angeles Pierce College, a community college in Woodland Hills, Calif., for five years, he was founding president of Housatonic Community College in Bridgeport, Conn. and has served on the faculty at Jefferson Community College in Watertown, N.Y. as well as Rockland Community College in Suffern, N.Y.
In the beginning of his tenure, he officially changed the college’s name from Rhode Island Junior College (RIJC) to Community College of Rhode Island (CCRI). Liston oversaw the construction and planning for the urban Providence campus, which opened in 1990. At the end of his presidency, he was laying the groundwork for the future, including a major expansion of the Knight Campus, an addition to the Providence campus and the development of a fourth campus on Aquidneck Island.
It was Liston’s support that paralleled the growth and success of CCRI’s athletic program and of the Community College itself in the eighties and nineties. He had an incredible ability to develop close relationships with the business community and the local high schools helped in effort to create programs at CCRI that are now national models.
Liston served as a member of the Board of the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) and the Chairman of the National Council of State Directors of Community Colleges; he was elected to 2 terms on the NJCAA Executive Board and was appointed as the liaison to the Athletic Council of the AACC.
In 2000, Liston retired from CCRI and published a book, “Recollections of a Pioneer President” to document the milestones of the college’s history.
To honor him for his positive impact on CCRI and its graduates, the Rhode Island Board of Governors for Higher Education voted to name the Providence campus the Edward J. Liston Campus. He was inducted in the college’s Hall of Fame in 2002.
Ken McDonald
McDonald was a complete basketball player for CCRI; in 1990, he set the single-season scoring record, scoring 754 points.
That record is second all-time now. He is also second all-time for most three-pointers in a game, shooting 9 of them at the NJCAA championships in Kansas, which gained him national recognition. McDonald was named first-team All-American after the 1989-1990 season. The former North Providence High All-Stater is the 6th player on the all-time scorers list.
He was an All-New England and All-Region XXI tournament selection, went on to play for Providence College and then averaged 37 points per game for a professional team in Ireland. McDonald went on to have a prolific coaching career. His coaching career includes 28 years of extensive coaching experience at the collegiate, professional and international level.
He has honed his leadership skills as a head coach of an NCAA Division I program as well as an NBA G League organization. His collegiate coaching experiences includes time spent in the SEC, ACC, Big 12 and Sun Belt. He has been on staff for 14 NCAA Tournament appearances and a pair of NIT berths. He started to coach at the NCAA Division I level by working as an assistant under his old Providence College coach and he did that by helping Barnes’ 1996-97 Clemson squad reach the Sweet Sixteen.
During McDonald’s four years on Barnes’ staff at Texas from 2004-08, they advanced to the Elite Eight twice. He has coached 13 collegians who became NBA Draft picks and 21 G League performers who earned NBA call-ups. His G League coaching career began as an assistant with the league champion Austin Spurs in 2012. In 2013, he was promoted to head coach, and he led the organization in that role from 2013-17 — a run that included two Western Conference Finals appearances.
Before that, McDonald spent four years as the head coach at Western Kentucky from 2008-12. He also served as an assistant coach and advanced scout for USA Basketball.
Brendan Murphy
No one has ever destroyed CCRI men’s basketball record books like Murphy did in 1992.
The sharpshooter from Smithfield is 2nd on the all-time scorers list, finishing his career with1,398 points and has set 3-point records for the season with 110 and career with 212. He is also 2nd all-time for free throws in a single game, shooting 18 of them.
Murphy led the team to challenge for the NJCAA championship. After scoring 40 points in the national tournament, Murphy was named NJCAA Division III National Player of the Year, he also was an NJCAA All-American, two-time first-team All-New England, and All-Colonial States Athletic Conference selection.
He played for the NAIA national champion Hawaii-Pacific in 1993 and was named NAIA national Scholar-Athlete of the Year in ‘93-’94. He is now a widely-known contemporary artist.
Diane (O'Brien) Simonelli
A truly versatile and accomplished athlete, Coventry’s Diane O’Brien was as hard working as she was prolific. During the 1988-1989 women’s basketball season, O’Brien became the first player to score over 700 points in a career.
She was a two-time MVP, All-New England honorable mention in her freshman year, was first-team All-Region XXI and an all-tournament selection in her sophomore year as she led the team to its 1st ever appearance in a regional final.
O’Brien won the Colonial States Athletic Conference scoring title by averaging 18.3 points per game in ‘88-’89; she was also the winner of the Siperstein Award for athletic and academic excellence and she continued her basketball career at Southern Connecticut, where she was a rebounding leader in the Northeast 10 Conference.