With the move to Division I, a lot of eyes have been looking toward the Thomas J. Niland Jr. Athletic Complex, especially with the $45 million expansion plan that Le Moyne College revealed in May of this year, but there is one question that many people are not thinking to ask:
Who is Thomas J. Niland Jr?
While the first assumption would be that he was a generous donor of the college, the truth of Niland’s history is much more important than that.
Niland Jr. was raised in Tonawanda, New York, attending Canisius College before leaving after his sophomore year to enlist in the army and fight in WWII. He was a first-cousin — and a childhood companion — of the three Niland brothers who helped inspire the film Saving Private Ryan, as famed filmmaker Steven Spielberg has acknowledged. Two of those cousins, Bobby and Preston, died during the Normandy invasion, while a third, Fritz, was sent home to prevent more family tragedy — essentially the tale told in the film.
As for Niland Jr., after storming Utah Beach at Normandy, he went on to fight in the Battle of the Bulge, where a tank shell destroyed his right elbow, forcing him to return home.
Despite losing his ability to bend his dominant arm, Niland Jr. returned to Canisius and rejoined their basketball team, becoming the captain for his last two years of college.
Then, in May of 1947, the same month that he graduated, Le Moyne approached him and asked him to be the college’s first Athletic Director.
Niland Jr. was integral in the creation of the athletic program of Le Moyne College, so much that when he was inducted into the Le Moyne College Athletics Hall of Fame in 1985, they said that “all that Le Moyne athletics has been, is and will be is a result of his teaching, his friendship and his work.”
That is not hyperbolic, as when Niland Jr. came to Le Moyne there were no athletic facilities. His oldest son, Tom Niland III, recounted how his father poured his life into the creation and development of Le Moyne’s athletic program, speaking about how his father had travelled the state, looking at other college’s facilities to make sure that Le Moyne had the best possible athletic complex.
Niland III even remembered a night right after the athletic center was finished when there was a particularly bad storm, one so bad that the roof had blown off. Niland III said that his father’s reaction to the news was to wake Niland III and his siblings up in the middle of the night to go clean up the mess.
That is the dedication that got Niland Jr. named the Small Catholic College Coach of 1959.
But, Niland III said–speaking to his father’s humility and heart— “It was never about him, it was about Le Moyne College.”
Yet, very few students at Le Moyne know who Tom Niland Jr. is. Does such a great man, who established the athletic program that has just jumped into Division I, not deserve to be better memorialized on campus? His son thinks he does.
Afterall, Niland III said that “It was not a job, it was his life. Everything he did was committed to this school.” Now this school should commit more to the man who built its thriving athletic program.