MCCARTHY NAMED AFLAC NATIONAL ASSISTANT COACH OF THE YEAR

SUNY Cobleskill Assistant Men’s Basketball Coach Joseph McCarthy has been named as one of the winners of the second annual AFLAC National Assistant Coaches of the Year Award. McCarthy was selected as a recipient of the award from a field of more than 350,000 assistant college and high school coaches from across the nation as determined by a panel of judges from Scholastic Coach & Athletic Director magazine, the nation’s leading publication for the team athletic marketplace. AFLAC is one of the world’s leading providers of insurance at the worksite.

McCarthy recently completed his tenth season as a Fighting Tiger men’s assistant basketball coach. Acknowledged as an exceptional teacher of individual skills McCarthy works extensively with the team’s perimeter players and is responsible for the program’s scouting reports. The Fort Edward, NY native also coordinates the program’s player recruiting efforts. SUNY Cobleskill recently posted its ninth consecutive twenty-win season while making the school’s eleventh consecutive NJCAA Region III Tournament appearance.

The Fort Edward High School alumnus is no stranger to national recognition for his coaching having been honored by the National Basketball Coaches Association with a Merit Award for distinguished service to the game at the 2001 NABC Convention in Minneapolis, MN.

Selections were based on nominations made by head coaches, athletic administrators, past and current student athletes, and fans. Each winner will receive a pair of commemorative plaques, one for the individual and on for the recipients institution. AFLAC New York East State Sales Coordinator Jeff Dalaba will make the award to McCarthy at a ceremony held on the Cobleskill campus in late May.

“AFLAC is pleased to sponsor the AFLAC National Assistant Coach of the Year program,” said Joe Kuechenmeister, AFLAC Senior Vice President. “Assistant Coaches are the unsung heroes of American sport. So many of us were positively affected by our participation in sports that we wanted to pay tribute to these hard-working, under recognized coaches who do so much to improve the young people they work with.”

Scholastic Coach & Athletic Director, Scholastic Publishing’s oldest existing publication, has been in print continuously since 1931 and is the largest publication serving professionals in the team sports market. Scholastic (NMS: SCHL) is the world’s largest publisher and distributor of children’s books. Since 1920, Scholastic has created quality educational materials for schools and has expanded its reach to include the distribution of books, software, toys, online learning services and television programming directly to the home.

AFLAC Incorporated is an international holding company. A Fortune 500 company, AFLAC insures more than 40 million people worldwide. It is a leading writer of insurance marketed at the worksite, offering policies to employees at 252,000 payroll accounts in the United States. In January 2003, the company was ranked the # 1 insurance company in Fortune magazine’s list of “The 100 Best Companies to Work for in America” and was included in the overall listing for the fourth consecutive year.