CATHY McERLEAN GODDARD
Clarkstown South High School
Class of 1977
It’s not unusual to see sizable gains in the progression of records in the early evolution of an event or sport. In the Title IX era of women’s sports, the trailblazing athletes established marks that became the focal point for future competitors to target. By the close of the 1976 spring track season, when girls’ track in Rockland was still in its infancy, the County record in the discus stood at 106 feet, 10 ½ inches, set by County champ Kathy Matone.
By the conclusion of the 1977 spring season, however, the record had been rewritten no less than six times. The “author” of each of those record book re-writings was one person – Cathy McErlean of Clarkstown South. In just her second season of competition, Cathy jettisoned the standard all the way to 125-7 – almost a 20-foot improvement, or close to an 18 percent gain over the previous record. That can easily be classified as a breakthrough performance. Cathy’s tour de force effort stood as the County record for 18 years and still ranks No. 3 on the all-time list, some 45 years later.
Cathy came out for track at the urging of a friend and since running was out of the question due to her asthma, she put her size and strong build to good use as a thrower. She enjoyed a successful first year in the discus, finishing second in the RCPSAL championships to Matone with a throw of 94-8 ¼ to Matone’s 97-1 ¼. The following spring, she went on a record-setting spree through four dual meets, posting successive marks of 110-9, 112-8, 114-8 and 115- ½. The binge continued at the County meet, which she won in 119-3, and the Section 9 championships, where she unleashed her personal best, the 125-7 for another victory and advancement to the third annual NYSPHSAA championships in Morrisville.
Undefeated to that point, Cathy entered the meet as the No. 2 seed. However, a pair of health issues conspired to douse her chances of a State title or medal. Not only did she have a bad case on bronchitis, aggravated by allergies, but her chronic vertigo affected her balance in the throwing circle. Cathy had never tried the spin technique in competition before the State meet. She had always just stood at the front of the circle, twisted and released – “punching it out” in throwing parlance. But she had been practicing the spin in training leading up to the States, and decided to give it a go there.
It did not go well. Cathy fouled on all three throws, losing her balance each time, and thus fouled out of the competition. In hindsight she thought she should have just punched out a throw to qualify for the finals, but since she was feeling so sick, “I’m not sure I wouldn’t have fouled out just punching it.”
Although she finished her scholastic career on a down note, Cathy enjoyed her participation on the Clarkstown South team and her interactions with teammates and coaches. Teammate Rose Maniscalco helped her with fundamentals the first year, while Sharon Peachey, Cathy Wulf and Diane DeNardo also offered support. Ginny Geerdes was South’s head coach and Ray Roswell an assistant coach who worked with Cathy a bit her junior year. Other South coaches included Jim Barber, Gerry Katchmar and boys’ head coach Mo Scro, who helped out in the throwing events. Matone was Cathy’s chief rival, albeit a friendly one, and Pearl River and North Rockland were the most competitive teams, in Cathy’s recollection.
During the summer before Cathy’s senior year, she and teammate DeNardo traveled to Randalls Island in NYC to take part in the inaugural AAU Women’s Eastern Regional Throwing Pentathlon. Although she only had experience with the shot put and discus, Cathy wound up winning the competition, capturing four of the five events, according to a brief item in The Journal-News sports section from Aug. 31, 1976: shot put, 31 feet; discus, 97 feet; javelin, 81 feet; and hammer throw, 56 feet. She only failed to win the weight throw. DeNardo finished second for a 1-2 sweep by the South ladies.
Although she did not attain the lofty heights in the shot put that she did in the discus, Cathy still had a healthy measure of success tossing the then-8 lb. steel sphere. She made second team All-County, won seven of her eight dual-meet competitions, and finished second in the RCPSAL championships, bowing both times to Kathy Hurban of Tappan Zee. Cathy McErlean’s personal best of 33-2 ¾ trailed only Hurban’s County record 35-2 that year.
Cathy attended Montclair State and competed in the discus and javelin her freshman year. To say the program was unstructured is an understatement; there were no practices and no coaches. “You just showed up at the field or the bus for meets,” she says. At the final meet of the season, the coach of an opposing team approached Cathy and invited her to a track & field training camp in south Jersey, purportedly for athletes with Olympic potential. The invitation was enticing but Cathy had to decline due to a summer job she already had lined up to help pay for college. “Back then Title IX was still a ‘newish’ concept,” she says. “Girls and a career in sports was not a realistic expectation.”
That summer job, at the LeCroy Corp., led to a position as a draftsman and then as a designer starting with printed circuit boards and progressing to microchip-type components. Cathy dabbled in many different pursuits, teaching music, working as a studio assistant at Fashion Institute of Technology with artist Grace Knowlton, and going into business with her husband, David Goddard, in a variety of businesses – paint contracting, home improvement, and finally cabinetry and millwork. She also operated a plant nursery and later a landscape business.
After her husband died almost 10 years ago at age 51 – they had been married 24 years – she closed the business but continued operating her pottery studio at the Garnerville industrial arts center. A potter for 30 years, she has taught pottery, worked as a potter and blacksmith at Museum Village, and served as a production specialist and interpreter at Historic Hudson Valley. More recent stints include work at several farms in the area, including Adams Fairacre Farm and Obercreek Farm in Wappinger, N.Y., Go Goats Milk Farm, and Fall Kill Creative Works.
Cathy, who is 63, grew up in West Nyack and now resides in Wappinger in Dutchess County, where she grows vegetables, maintains a small orchard, keeps chickens and hopes to add beehives. Her property holds a steel-pole barn that she is setting up as a pottery studio. She has two grown children – Kaitlyn Goddard, 30, and Paul Yuri Goddard, 26, an individual with a developmental disability who Cathy and David adopted from Russia when he was 8 years old.
By the conclusion of the 1977 spring season, however, the record had been rewritten no less than six times. The “author” of each of those record book re-writings was one person – Cathy McErlean of Clarkstown South. In just her second season of competition, Cathy jettisoned the standard all the way to 125-7 – almost a 20-foot improvement, or close to an 18 percent gain over the previous record. That can easily be classified as a breakthrough performance. Cathy’s tour de force effort stood as the County record for 18 years and still ranks No. 3 on the all-time list, some 45 years later.
Cathy came out for track at the urging of a friend and since running was out of the question due to her asthma, she put her size and strong build to good use as a thrower. She enjoyed a successful first year in the discus, finishing second in the RCPSAL championships to Matone with a throw of 94-8 ¼ to Matone’s 97-1 ¼. The following spring, she went on a record-setting spree through four dual meets, posting successive marks of 110-9, 112-8, 114-8 and 115- ½. The binge continued at the County meet, which she won in 119-3, and the Section 9 championships, where she unleashed her personal best, the 125-7 for another victory and advancement to the third annual NYSPHSAA championships in Morrisville.
Undefeated to that point, Cathy entered the meet as the No. 2 seed. However, a pair of health issues conspired to douse her chances of a State title or medal. Not only did she have a bad case on bronchitis, aggravated by allergies, but her chronic vertigo affected her balance in the throwing circle. Cathy had never tried the spin technique in competition before the State meet. She had always just stood at the front of the circle, twisted and released – “punching it out” in throwing parlance. But she had been practicing the spin in training leading up to the States, and decided to give it a go there.
It did not go well. Cathy fouled on all three throws, losing her balance each time, and thus fouled out of the competition. In hindsight she thought she should have just punched out a throw to qualify for the finals, but since she was feeling so sick, “I’m not sure I wouldn’t have fouled out just punching it.”
Although she finished her scholastic career on a down note, Cathy enjoyed her participation on the Clarkstown South team and her interactions with teammates and coaches. Teammate Rose Maniscalco helped her with fundamentals the first year, while Sharon Peachey, Cathy Wulf and Diane DeNardo also offered support. Ginny Geerdes was South’s head coach and Ray Roswell an assistant coach who worked with Cathy a bit her junior year. Other South coaches included Jim Barber, Gerry Katchmar and boys’ head coach Mo Scro, who helped out in the throwing events. Matone was Cathy’s chief rival, albeit a friendly one, and Pearl River and North Rockland were the most competitive teams, in Cathy’s recollection.
During the summer before Cathy’s senior year, she and teammate DeNardo traveled to Randalls Island in NYC to take part in the inaugural AAU Women’s Eastern Regional Throwing Pentathlon. Although she only had experience with the shot put and discus, Cathy wound up winning the competition, capturing four of the five events, according to a brief item in The Journal-News sports section from Aug. 31, 1976: shot put, 31 feet; discus, 97 feet; javelin, 81 feet; and hammer throw, 56 feet. She only failed to win the weight throw. DeNardo finished second for a 1-2 sweep by the South ladies.
Although she did not attain the lofty heights in the shot put that she did in the discus, Cathy still had a healthy measure of success tossing the then-8 lb. steel sphere. She made second team All-County, won seven of her eight dual-meet competitions, and finished second in the RCPSAL championships, bowing both times to Kathy Hurban of Tappan Zee. Cathy McErlean’s personal best of 33-2 ¾ trailed only Hurban’s County record 35-2 that year.
Cathy attended Montclair State and competed in the discus and javelin her freshman year. To say the program was unstructured is an understatement; there were no practices and no coaches. “You just showed up at the field or the bus for meets,” she says. At the final meet of the season, the coach of an opposing team approached Cathy and invited her to a track & field training camp in south Jersey, purportedly for athletes with Olympic potential. The invitation was enticing but Cathy had to decline due to a summer job she already had lined up to help pay for college. “Back then Title IX was still a ‘newish’ concept,” she says. “Girls and a career in sports was not a realistic expectation.”
That summer job, at the LeCroy Corp., led to a position as a draftsman and then as a designer starting with printed circuit boards and progressing to microchip-type components. Cathy dabbled in many different pursuits, teaching music, working as a studio assistant at Fashion Institute of Technology with artist Grace Knowlton, and going into business with her husband, David Goddard, in a variety of businesses – paint contracting, home improvement, and finally cabinetry and millwork. She also operated a plant nursery and later a landscape business.
After her husband died almost 10 years ago at age 51 – they had been married 24 years – she closed the business but continued operating her pottery studio at the Garnerville industrial arts center. A potter for 30 years, she has taught pottery, worked as a potter and blacksmith at Museum Village, and served as a production specialist and interpreter at Historic Hudson Valley. More recent stints include work at several farms in the area, including Adams Fairacre Farm and Obercreek Farm in Wappinger, N.Y., Go Goats Milk Farm, and Fall Kill Creative Works.
Cathy, who is 63, grew up in West Nyack and now resides in Wappinger in Dutchess County, where she grows vegetables, maintains a small orchard, keeps chickens and hopes to add beehives. Her property holds a steel-pole barn that she is setting up as a pottery studio. She has two grown children – Kaitlyn Goddard, 30, and Paul Yuri Goddard, 26, an individual with a developmental disability who Cathy and David adopted from Russia when he was 8 years old.