Tony Staffiere, who has been a head coach and worked as an assistant, will be the new Colby College assistant women’s basketball coach this season.

Christine Clancy, the assistant coach for the Mules of Waterville for the past two years, is the interim head coach and selected Staffiere as her replacement.

“I am really excited to have Tony join my staff,” Clancy said. “From the first day I met him, I have been impressed with his diversity of experience in the basketball world and his excitement to work with our great group of players on and off the court.”

Staffiere, a John Bapst of Bangor graduate, was a men’s basketball graduate assistant at the University of Maine last year while working on a certificate for advanced studies in higher education.

Staffiere was the head men’s basketball coach at Division II Mercy College for the 2007-08 and 2008-09 seasons. He also was an assistant women’s basketball/recruiting coordinator at Mercy during the 2006-07 academic year. Staffiere also had head women’s basketball coaching stints at Northern Essex Community College in 2005-06 and Regis College from 2002 to 2004.

Staffiere earned his bachelor’s degree in mass communications from Westfield State College in 1999 and then earned master’s degrees at LeMoyne College (2002, education) and Mercy (2007, organizational leadership). He graduated with honors at all three schools.

Colby finished 24-5 last year and set a program record for victories in a season. The Mules made the New England Small College Athletic Conference title game and the NCAA Division III Tournament for the first time. Colby has nine of the 11 players on last year’s roster returning for the 2010-11 season.

UMaine athletes gain honors

A total of 175 University of Maine student-athletes are among the 1,717 that have been named to the 2010 America East Winter/Spring Academic Honor Roll for earning grade point averages of 3.0 or better. Ninety of the UMaine athletes were also named to the Commissioner’s Honor Roll for earning a GPA of 3.5 or higher.

The Maine athletes per team on the America East honor roll were: baseball (11), men’s basketball (four), women’s basketball (eight), softball (15), men’s swimming (nine), women’s swimming (21), men’s indoor track (19), men’s out door track (24), women’s indoor track (31) and women’s outdoor track (33).