The Eastern Athletic Communications Association (EAST-COMM) Executive Board announced its 2024 award winners on Monday, and Tom Emberley, director of athletic communications at Farmingdale State College, has been selected as a recipient of the Irving T. Marsh Award. 

A total of six individuals were recognized, and will be honored at the 2024 EAST-COMM Awards Banquet on the evening of Thursday, June 27, during the association's annual workshop in Ellicott City, Maryland at Turf Valley Resort. 

The Irving T. Marsh Service Bureau Award is presented annually to one or two athletic communications professionals who, in the opinion of the membership and the Executive Board, has exhibited excellence in the field of athletic communications. This year's recipients include Emberley, and Greg Royce, an assistant director of athletics at Goucher College (Md.).

Emberley has worked in intercollegiate athletics for more than two decades, and is in his third year at Farmingdale State – where he has also served as an adjunct assistant professor in sport management since 2016. He serves as the staff liaison to the Rams' Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC), which has performed numerous community service projects over the last two-plus academic years – including recently starting a partnership with neighboring Northside Elementary School. Emberley previously served a seven-year stint as Associate Commissioner of the Skyline Conference (the conference in which FSC's 18 varsity athletic programs compete), and is proud to have mentored numerous students who have pursued careers in the athletics field – including Farmingdale State alumnus Kevin Primm, who was selected as EAST-COMM's Bill Esposito Memorial Award in 2023. 

A 2001 cum laude graduate in sport management from Western New England University, where he was a two-year member of the Golden Bears' football team, Emberley's interest in the intercollegiate athletics field began while working as a student assistant at WNE under the tutelage of 1992 Marsh Award winner, Ken Cerino. He served a post-graduate internship in the sports information office at the United States Naval Academy, and he has since worked in on-campus and conference-office capacities with varying roles across all three NCAA divisions in the Northeast Corridor. Emberley, who received his MBA in Management and Leadership from Dowling College in 2011, has been a member of three NCAA sport committees – including a present term on its Division III Women's Basketball Committee, two years on the Division III Men's Volleyball Committee and a four-year stint on its Division III Men's Lacrosse Committee (serving as chair in 2019-20). In addition to serving on numerous NCAA working groups and in site-representative roles at a variety of its championship events, he has performed per-diem work for both the National Football League and, previously, Major League Baseball. Additionally, Emberley has filled the role as EAST-COMM's treasurer since 2020.

"I cannot think of anybody more deserving then Tom for this prestigious honor," said Farmingdale State Director of Athletics, Tom Azzara. "He is a multi-talented individual who always puts the student-athletes first, and truly enhances the experience for every one of them. Tom's popularity among his peers is second to none, and his professionalism and engaging personality is what sets him apart. FSC congratulates Tom for receiving the Irving T. Marsh Award."