Fund Provides Diversity Education By Marty Dobrow


PHYLLIS PLOTNICK ’69 is not one to oversimplify a world of endless complexity. All the same, she thinks that much of the world’s pain flows from one word: “otherness.” Plotnick felt the sting of that word acutely a few years ago


when she read of the suicide of an 11-year-old boy, Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover. Carl had been the target of bullying and gay taunts in school. His world made miserable, Carl took his own life. Reading about this tragedy in her home in Florida, Plotnick was doubly stung when she saw that Carl lived in Springfield, Massachusetts: her long-ago home during forma- tive college days. Plotnick hadn’t just attended Springfield College—she


believed in it. She thought that its mission statement was more mission than statement because of a man she had never met: Tom Waddell ‘59. Entering Springfield a decade after Waddell had, Plotnick


Collage of Tom Waddell achievements


Sara Lewinstein, a lesbian athlete who helped organize the games. They bonded deeply. She had long had a dream of having a child. So had he. And so it came to pass, in the most conventional way, that Jessica Waddell Lewinstein was conceived. For the rest of Tom’s life, she would be his greatest jewel. “He left quite a legacy,” says Jessica, now a 30-year-old public


relations manager for a California-based video games company. “He’s always had quite a large presence in my life, quite a large influence. I’ve always looked up to him. I’ve always been proud of him. I’ve always cherished those memories I have of him.” Like this one: “I remember him asking me what color car he


should buy. And I suggested pink. And he suggested I maybe have another suggestion.” ** On April 30, 1987, ABC’s 20/20 aired a special on Tom Waddell. In


Ludlow, Mass., Jack Savoia heard his wife Jane calling from the living room: “Jack, Jack, come here! Look, there’s Tom!” Savoia raced in and saw his fellow track co-captain withering away


from AIDS, summoning the strength to speak his truth. “I had tears in my eyes,” Savoia recalled. He flew out to California to say goodbye. Savoia stayed at


Waddell’s home for five days and the men talked about many things. One of them was Waddell’s exclusion from the Springfield College Athletic Hall of Fame, which had been started back in 1972. Savoia said to him flatly, “I promise you—you’re going to get into the hall of fame.” Waddell died on July 11 of that year. In the alumni magazine that


fall, a remembrance of Waddell celebrated his life but made no Continued on next page


TRIANGLE 1 Vol . 85, No. 2


went on to have what she regards as an excellent college experience, but she says in her own way she knew the pain of otherness. It was during those years that she became aware of her attraction to women in an era before gay rights took hold. “That was at a time when that really couldn’t be discussed or really acknowledged in any way,” Plotnick says. “And I couldn’t even really acknowledge it to myself. It was very difficult.” In years to come, as she charted out a career first in physical


therapy and then in counseling, Plotnick became intrigued about Waddell’s journey. After he died in 1987, she read all she could about the man, and was struck by his progressive vision. “The more I read about him, the more I realized that he was such an amazing pioneer in really living the life, the Humanics philosophy.” When she heard about Carl’s suicide, an idea bloomed in


her head: “Since this happened in Springfield, it just brought my attention back to everything that the College stands for. Maybe there could be an opportunity here to address some of these issues of otherness, and in so doing, to honor something in Tom Waddell’s name.” Thus was born the Dr. Tom Waddell ’59 Fund. Its mission


was simple: “to provide financial support to promote diversity education programs that will enable our students to positively impact the community at large.” In just two years, Plotnick’s brainchild has already sponsored programs focused on anti- bullying, Title IX, and the inclusion of transgender athletes. The latter, held on April 17, drew a large and enthusiastic crowd to Marsh Memorial. Plotnick believes Springfield is uniquely positioned to be a


leader in modern civil rights because of its mission and because of Waddell’s legacy. “I think he is really such a great symbol of openness,” she says. “I was just taken by his willing- ness to be so vulnerable to ideas that were really outside the box … The things that he did seemed to really be focused on the other: not on him, not on his glory, but on the other. That’s really what Springfield is about.”1


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