Eric Meerbach, you hold a title to which no other WPI athlete
can lay claim: NCAA national champion. You achieved that lofty
honor on the golf course, winning the 1986 NCAA Division III
National Championship in golf in Exeter, Pa. Competing against some
of the best college golfers in the nation, you were not expected to
win, but you overcame the competition-and the rain-to clinch the
tournament by one stroke. You 296 score over 72 holes put WPI on
the national athletics map, and was a fitting milestone in a career
rich in achievement.
You took up golf at the age of 13 and won your first tournament
(the Junior Club Championship at the D.F. Wheeler Golf Course in
Bridgeport, Conn.) a year later. As captain of your high school
golf team, you placed second in the Connecticut High School Golf
Championship three times and you were twice a member of the
Connecticut All-State High School Golf Team. In 1983 you won the
Junior Golf Association of Connecticut Championship and set a new
course record at the Redding, Conn., Country Club. That same year
you were selected to be a member of the USE Junior Golf Team that
competed in a tournament against some of the top English junior
golfers, the first match-up of its kind. In that tournament, you
defeated the best of the English players in individual competition.
As a student at WPI, you continued to accumulate victories and
honors. the 1985-86 season was especially momentous. That fall you
won the Massachusetts Collegiate Open at the Stowe (Mass.) Country
Club with a score of 72. You won the New England Public Links
Championship as an individual in Stanley, Conn. You were an NCAA
First-Team All0America selection, and by virtue of your NCAA
tournament victory that spring, you played in the Division I NCAA
Championship.
Eric Meerbach, it is indeed an honor to induct WPI's first NCAA
national champion into the WPI Athletic Hall of Fame.
