In 2026, Eastern Alumni Hall of Fame player Tammy Schondelmayer begins her ninth year officially associated with the program, returning as an assistant coach under former teammate and head coach Diana Pepin after an 11-year hiatus.
Schondelmayer played on four straight NCAA qualifying teams between 1986 and 1989 – as well as the 1986 NCAA Division III national champion – and returned to assist Pepin for four more years between 2011 and 2014.
In addition to being selected to the Eastern Alumni Hall of Fame in 2009, Schondelmayer became the program’s ninth inductee into the Connecticut Scholastic & Collegiate Softball Hall of Fame this past September (joining, among others, Pepin, who was inducted in the “coach” category in 2017).
At the time of her Alumni Hall of Fame induction, no player in the history of the program had started more games at shortstop than Schondelmayer, who was recruited to play off the Eastern intramural flag football field in her freshman year by former coaches Clyde Washburne and Jeff Anderson.
Schondelmayer made 153 of her 165 career starts as a shortstop between 1986 and 1989, departing the program as the all-time leader with 279 assists.
As the program’s first all-region selection ever at shortstop as a senior in 1989, Schondelmayer topped all Eastern players in 11 individual categories, among them batting, slugging and on-base average, total bases and assists. That year, Schondelmayer set a program record (since broken) with an 18-game hitting streak.
As a player or coach, Schondelmayer was part of teams which assembled four of the top seven consecutive-game winning streaks all-time, including the record 40 during the record-setting 44-3 season in 2012.
In Schondelmayer’s four-year career, Eastern averaged 34.5 wins per season, compiling an overall record of 138-36 for a winning percentage of 79.3. Against regular-season competition up north in those years, the Warriors were 96-12 (88.9 percent), losing only two games to Division III opponents.
Today, Schondelmayer still ranks among the program’s all-time Top 10 in five career categories: first in triples (22), sixth in total bases (23).seventh in games (169), eighth in assists, and ninth in stolen bases (51). Her 150 career hits are the 23rd-most in program history.
A Dean’s List student, Schondelmayer was the female recipient of the Eastern/E-Club Outstanding Scholar-Athlete Award in 1990. She was also named Outstanding Physical Education Major that year.
In 2022, the New London native retired after 21 years as director of athletics at Bloomfield High School, where she oversaw the Class “S” school winning 66 state championships. In 2024, the Bloomfield HS track and field invitational was re-named in her honor.
Schondelmayer earned her B.S. Degree in Physical Education and minor in Coaching from Eastern in 1990, and went on to obtain an M.S. Degree in School Health from Southern Connecticut State and a Sixth-Year Certificate in School Administration from AIC.
