Ting Vanneman

INDUCTEE 2015 - Ting Vanneman - Basketball, Football 1962 - 1963

Ting Vanneman

"Ting” Reeve Vanneman played football, basketball, and track at Greenwich High School from 1960 to 1963.  He earned all-County as a tight end on the undefeated 1962 football team and as a forward on the basketball team.  In track he threw the discus and shot, setting high school records for both at the time.  In his senior year he was elected president of the Student Government and was co-valedictorian of his class.

At Cornell, he played freshman basketball and football (back when freshman could not play varsity sports) and found that the seasons overlapped too much to keep that up at the college level.  Switching to offensive tackle in 1965 when college football finally changed to the two-platoon system, he was all-Ivy in his senior year.  To avoid having to lift weights in the off-season, Ting picked up lacrosse as a spring sport at Cornell, played crease defense man in the undefeated 1966 team and was co-captain of the 1967 team which ended with an 11-1 record.  In his senior year he was also elected to Phi Beta Kappa and was named Cornell Athlete of the Year.  In 2003, he was inducted into the Cornell Athletics Hall of Fame.

Ting was supremely lucky to have a series of coaches through high school and college that you could only dream about. At GHS he played football for Sam Rutigliano and basketball for Charlie Luce, two of the finest men anybody could hope to play for.  In college, he played lacrosse for the legendary Ned Harkness and football for Jack Musick, a great gentleman and a fierce competitor.  The lessons learned under these men have remained with him throughout his life.

Ting is now Professor of Sociology at the University of Maryland where he enjoys teaching classes on inequality and social class and doing research on changing gender relations in India and the United States.