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Alumni
Athletes Inducted into Pomona-Pitzer Athletic Hall of
Fame
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For their extraordinary athletic exploits, six individuals
were inducted into the Pomona-Pitzer Athletic Hall of Fame
Saturday, October 4 in a ceremony at Frank Dining Hall.
Brittany Burch (Pomona 1992, Women’s Track & Field), José
Cortés (Pomona 1953, Men’s Tennis), Chris Davis (Pomona
1991, Men’s Soccer), Debbie Kennedy (Pomona 1992, Women’s
Volleyball), David Mason (Pomona 1984, Men’s Wrestling), and
Kelly Redfield (Pomona 1992, Women’s Cross Country and Track
& Field) were inducted in front of family, friends, coaches,
students and other Hall of Fame members. The event was the
46th annual induction ceremony.
 Brittany
Burch ‘92
Burch enrolled at Pomona in the fall of 1988 as the MVP of
her high school tennis, basketball and track and field teams
in Nashville, Indiana. Burch intended to play basketball for
the Sagehens, but changed her focus to the track and field
team mid-way through her first year. An all-around athlete,
Burch excelled in individual events, and in the two-day,
seven-event heptathlon.
During her four years on the track and field team, Burch
earned All-SCIAC honors 16 times in six events: the 100m
hurdles, 400m hurdles, javelin, high jump, long jump, and
shot put. As a junior, Burch won SCIAC titles in the high
jump and shot put, and as a senior won SCIAC titles in the
100m hurdles and 400m hurdles. Burch also helped lead her
team to the 1992 SCIAC title, which was Pomona-Pitzer’s
first in the sport.
Burch qualified to the NCAA National Championships three
times in the heptathlon during her final three seasons, and
she earned two All-America honors. After taking 13th place
as a sophomore, Burch improved to 8th place as a junior, and
3rd as a senior. During her final competition, Burch set the
still-standing heptathlon school record of 4699 points.
A team captain as a senior, Burch still stands on Pomona-Pitzer’s
track and field top-10 lists in seven events.
Burch earned her MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management
in 2000, and is now enjoying hiking, biking, mentoring, and
traveling, Burch lives in San Francisco and works as a
Senior Product Manager for Siebel Systems, Inc.
 José
“Joe” Cortés ‘53
A four-year tennis star at Pomona after arriving on campus
from Colombia, José “Joe” Cortés was Pomona’s #1 tennis
player for four years: 1950, 1951, 1952, and 1953. He earned
First Team All-SCIAC honors for the final three years – only
because freshman didn’t play on varsity teams then.
Cortés earned First Team All SCIAC honors three years, and
was SCIAC Singles Champion once and runner-up twice. In
doubles, Cortés was also conference champion once and
runner-up twice.
After receiving his master’s degree in 1955 Cortés returned
to Bogotá, Colombia, and started to compete again—training
either at 5:15 in the morning or in the evenings after work
at his full-time job with an insurance company. Cortés won
over 150 trophies in various Colombian tournaments.
Most notably, Cortés won Colombia’s National Singles
Championship four years (1961, 1962, 1963, 1964), and was
Colombia’s National Singles Runner-up three times. In
addition, Cortés was a six-time National Doubles Champion
and six-time National Mixed Doubles Champion.
A member of his nation’s Davis Cup team for many years,
Cortés also won the singles and doubles titles at the 1962
South American Amateur Tennis Championships in Lima, Peru.
Cortés played against some of the all-time greats such as
Rod Laver, Luis Ayala, Fred Stolle, Barry McKay, and Manuel
Santana, and he even won a set from Neal Frazer, (considered
the best player at the time) and he beat Don Candy, one of
Australia’s top players, and Orlando Sirola, the Italian
Davis Cup member whose team had won the Cup for Italy.
Cortes and his wife Nancy (Kotal) Cortes ’53 live in Bogotá,
Colombia. Cortés is president of a cluster of family-owned
companies involved in banking, insurance, investment banking
and construction. His wife is the General Director of the
Colombian American Cultural Center in Bogotá and is trying
to start the first bilingual university in Colombia
(projected opening date Feb. 2004).
 Chris
Davis ‘91
Arriving at Pitzer College in the fall of 1987 after playing
on a State Championship team at North Olmsted High in
Cleveland, Chris Davis quickly jumped into his starting
goalkeeper role as a Sagehen frosh.
Davis didn’t miss a game the next four years, and tallied an
impressive list of accomplishments. Davis was twice named
First Team All Conference, and was the 1990 SCIAC Most
Valuable Player in Soccer. A team captain his junior and
senior years, Davis helped lead his Pomona-Pitzer squad to a
co-championship in 1990 during his senior season.
Also during his senior year, Davis was named to the NSCAA
All Far West Region Team, and the NSCAA All America team.
Davis set a team record for fewest goals allowed in a season
in 1990, along with a team record for average goals against.
Finally, Davis was named the 1990-91 Pomona-Pitzer Most
Valuable Athlete in all sports.
Davis is the Executive Director for CommenSpace, a
non-profit conservation organization, and lives in Seattle,
Washington with wife Heather Moss. Davis enjoys climbing,
mountaineering and kayaking.
 Debbie
Kennedy ‘92
Coming to Pomona from nearby Lakewood High School in the
fall of 1988, Debbie Kennedy joined the Pomona-Pitzer
volleyball team as a setter with two all league MVP
accolades.
As a Sagehen, Kennedy earned First Team All Conference
honors as a junior and a senior, and she earned All West
Region honors both years, as well. After her junior year,
Kennedy was named to the NCAA III All America Second Team as
a setter.
During Kennedy’s four years, she helped lead her squad to
NCAA Championship berths in 1988, where the team made the
final 16, and 1990, where the team made the final 8.
In the Pomona-Pitzer volleyball record book, Kennedy holds
marks in Single Match Set Assists (for 3-game, 4-game, and
5-game matches), Single Match Service Aces (for 4-game and
5-game matches), season Set Assists (1048), Set Assists per
game (11.1), season Service Aces (65), and Service Aces per
game (0.8). Her career Set Assists mark of 2440 was a school
record in 1992, and still stands third all-time.
Kennedy currently lives in Long Beach, where she enjoys
cooking and traveling. She has earned an M.S. in Gerontology
and M.A. in Public Administration. Kennedy worked for many
years as an information technology consultant for major
health plans such as Aetna, PacifiCare, and Blues plans
before joining PacifiCare Health Systems last February as a
Director in Information Technology.
 Dave
Mason ‘84
A successful Maryland high school wrestler at the Gilman
School in Baltimore, David W. Mason arrived at Pomona
College in the fall of 1980 and made an immediate impact on
both the campus and the wrestling squad.
Competing one year under coach Mike Steinhour and the last
three years with coach Walt Ambord, Mason compiled an
outstanding SCIAC, NCAA Regional and NCAA National history.
At the SCIAC Level, Mason was a four time finalist in the
SCIAC Tournament and won the conference title in 1981, 1983,
and 1984. Mason's loss in the1982 title match would be the
last time he lost to a SCIAC opponent. Overall, Mason lost
matches to a total of three different SCIAC wrestlers while
competing in four different weight classes (142 lbs., 134
lbs., 126 lbs., and two tournaments at 118 lbs.).
At the NCAA Division III West Regional, Mason took fourth as
a freshman and second as a sophomore. Mason then won two
straight NCAA West Regional titles as a junior and senior to
qualify for the NCAA Division III National Championships in
1983 and 1984. As a senior in 1984, Mason was named the
Outstanding Wrestler of the NCAA Division III West Region.
That year at the NCAA tournament, Mason was one win from
All-American honors. He wound up losing a close match to
Shawn Sheldon, who in later years would become a multiple
National Champion and two-time Olympian.
On campus, Mason was a Sponsor in 1982, a Resident Advisor
in 1984, wrote for both the Collage and the Student Life,
and was the wrestling team captain in his final two seasons.
After graduating from Pomona, Mason worked as an English
teacher and coached on two high school wrestling staffs from
1984 through 1991. He coached one Senior National Champion,
a few National Prep Champions, and several conference
champions. He also continued to wrestle occasionally in
freestyle and folkstyle tournaments and won the Maryland
Open title in 1988.
Mason and his wife, Jenny, have two sons, Jake and Sam, and
live in Millersville, Maryland, where they are all preparing
for their green belts in Tae Kwon Do under Master Apolo
Ladra. Dave Mason works in Baltimore, Maryland for UBS and
has been in the financial services industry since 1992.
 Kelly
Redfield ‘92
A state meet runner-up for Helena High School in Montana,
Kelly Redfield immediately became the #1 runner for Pomona-Pitzer’s
women’s cross country team in the fall of 1988. For the next
four years, Redfield would remain the top runner for both
the track and cross country teams as she accumulated a raft
of honors.
In cross country, Redfield earned four First Team All-SCIAC
honors, including one individual conference title that was
the first-ever earned by a Pomona-Pitzer runner. At the NCAA
West Region meet, Redfield earned four All Region honors
with finishes of 5th, 4th, 3rd, and 2nd. Redfield qualified
to the NCAA National Championships four straight years, and
as a senior in 1991 earned Pomona-Pitzer’s first All America
honor for women’s cross country. She is still the only woman
in team history to earn All America honors. In addition,
Redfield led the women’s team to two SCIAC titles in 1989
and 1991, and was team captain her final three years.
In track and field, Redfield won two SCIAC titles in the
3000 (1990 and 1992) and one in the 1500 (1992). As a
senior, she qualified to the NCAA National Meet in the
10,000m, where she finished 13th. Redfield still stands on
the track and field all-time lists in the 1500m, 3000m,
5000m, and 10,000m. A team captain as a senior, Redfield
helped lead her team to the 1992 SCIAC title, which was
Pomona-Pitzer’s first in the sport.
Redfield was selected as Pomona-Pitzer’s Athletic Excellence
Award winner in 1992 for success in more than one sport. Now
in her Internal Medicine residency at Stanford after earning
her MD and MPH degrees, Redfield lives in Menlo Park, and
enjoys running, cooking, eating, reading and sleeping
whenever not at the hospital.
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