NEW HAVEN, Conn. – Four women with connections to Yale Athletics will be honored this Thursday night at the Connecticut Women's Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony. Barbara Chesler, Meghan McMahon '87, Patricia Melton '83 and Tiffany Weimer have all been selected as Spotlight Honorees.
 
The Connecticut Women's Hall of Fame celebrates Connecticut women from a variety of fields whose work inspires change, innovation and progress for the benefit of local, national and world-wide communities. This year's 17 spotlight honorees, including the four with Yale connections, will be recognized along with the 2022 Hall of Fame inductees: Cora Lee Bentley Radcliffe, Jennifer Rizzotti, Lhakpa Sherpa and Suzy Whaley.
 
Chesler served as Senior Associate Athletics Director at Yale from 1985-2015. She was responsible for many aspects of Yale's thirty-five varsity sport intercollegiate athletic program, including supervision of varsity teams, oversight of operating budgets, capital projects and facilities and alumni relations and development. She cultivated the first Yale endowment exclusively benefitting women's athletics. She also served on various university, Ivy League and NCAA committees, including serving as the Chair of the first NCAA Rowing Championship Committee. A longtime advocate of expanding Yale's relationship with the greater New Haven community, she was the driving force in the development of Yale Athletics' Community Rowing Program. 
 
McMahon played number one singles for four years at Yale. She was a first team All-Ivy League honoree and achieved an Intercollegiate Tennis Association singles ranking of No. 23. She went on to earn her Master's in Social Work from the University of Illinois in Chicago in 1992. She returned to Yale and served as head women's tennis coach from 1994-2001, leading the squad to a record of 82-52. With her late husband, David Swensen, she served as Co-Chair of the $7 million Feed the Bulldogs Campaign, which recently achieved its goal of endowing the Yale tennis programs. She is a fellow of Berkeley College at Yale. 
 
As New Haven Promise President, Melton has overseen the disbursement of more than $25 million in scholarships to more than 2,300 New Haven students. Those students have largely been first-generation, low-income students of color, just as she had been. The first in her family to attend college, Melton earned a bachelor's degree at Yale and a master's degree at Arizona State. She also served in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve while at Yale. A seven-time Ivy League track & field champion, she was captain of her team and an All-American. A sprinter, she moved to the 400 meter hurdles late in her college career. She earned the highest athletic honor for a senior female athlete at Yale, the Nellie Pratt Elliot award, in 1987. She finished her athletic career at the 1988 U.S. Olympic trials, where she was a finalist in the 800 meters. In 2007, she received the NCAA's Silver Anniversary Award, which recognizes former student-athletes who have distinguished themselves in their chosen field. In 2013, she became the first African-American woman to be awarded Yale's George H. W. Bush '48 Lifetime of Leadership Award. Earlier this year she was selected by College Sports Information Directors of America as the recipient of the Dick Enberg Award, presented annually to an individual who has distinguished themselves nationally through their career achievement and meaningful contributions to society while promoting the values of education and academics.
 
Weimer, an assistant women's soccer coach at Yale, is a former professional soccer player. She is also the co-founder and owner of Duktig Brand, an innovative brand creating soccer-specific products for the soccer community. She is also one of the Founders of the Girls Academy Advisory Panel, the first-ever player-led board for youth soccer in the world. Weimer's professional playing career spanned more than 12 years, including living in six different countries and six different cities throughout North America. Before playing professionally, she was a three-time All-American and two-time runner-up for the Herman Trophy at Penn State. While playing at North Haven, Conn., High School she scored a school record 109 goals in her four years, earning All-American honors her senior and junior years.

"Huge congratulations to all the exceptional Spotlight honorees.  We are particularly proud of Barbara, Meghan, Patricia and Tiffany, who have and continue to be true leaders and ambassadors for Yale and the state of Connecticut.  Their accolades are extraordinary, but pale in comparison to who they are as people," said Victoria M. "Vicky" Chun, Yale's Thomas A. Beckett Director of Athletics.
 
The 29th annual Connecticut Women's Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony takes place at the Connecticut Convention Center in Hartford starting at 6:00 p.m. Thursday, and tickets are available to the general public.