Hall of Fame
Otis Edmond Sennett spent 34 years shaping and guiding high school athletics in Section III, primarily as an administrator, but also an excellent coach at Baldwinsville High School in the sports of soccer, baseball, track, golf and bowling.
He started as a physical education teacher and coach in 1949 at Baldwinsville. Five years later, Otis was promoted to Director of Physical Education and Athletics—a position he held until his retirement in 1983. Section III immediately recognized Otis as a valuable administrator to the section as they named him the first Executive Secretary of the section in 1963 while he was working at Baldwinsville. After he retired from Baldwinsville, the position officially became Executive Director which he continued to hold until 1991.
Boys basketball and boys track in Section III stood alone as the only sports with Sectional Championships, however Mr. Sennett changed that and successfully campaigned to grow all of the section’s varsity sports to Sectional Tournaments. Furthermore, he recognized the need to include girls athletics as varsity sports. In the early 1970’s, Sennett was successful in developing girls athletics to be accepted into varsity and junior varsity programs. These two accomplishments were some of the many that proved he was always ahead of the issues that could arise in the section when it came to governing high school athletics in Section III.
Otis was also instrumental in developing the majority of the Section III administrative policies, rules, and by-laws in the Section III handbook. Furthermore, he founded the Section III Scholar Athlete Dinner program in 1990, now called the Otis Sennett Scholar Athlete Dinner. He has been honored by the NYS Athletic Administrators Association (NYSAAA) with the National Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association (NIAAA) Award of Merit and now has the NYSAAA Otis Sennett Award of Excellence named after him since 2005.
Mr. Sennett, a Central Square resident, is a graduate of Hannibal High School and Cortland State. He was inducted into the SUNY Cortland Sports Hall of Fame after earning bachelors and masters degrees there. .