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Clarkson University Athletics

LINDA BONDELLIO - CLARKSON ATHLETIC HALL OF FAME

CLARKSON
ATHLETIC HALL of FAME
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LINDA BONDELLIO '03
Class of 2012 Inductee



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A match up nightmare that could beat opponents on the block and from the perimeter, Linda Bondellio rewrote the record books for the Clarkson University Women’s Basketball team in her four seasons with the Golden Knights. Nicknamed “the franchise” early on by one Clarkson athletic department employee, the alias never stuck, but the notion was certainly appropriate as Bondellio took little time in establishing herself as one of the conference’s best players.

A native of Watertown, NY, Bondellio arrived on campus in the fall of 1999 and showed that she would be a force for her four years. In her freshman season, Bondellio showed a glimpse of what was to come when she was chosen as the Upstate Collegiate Athletic Association (UCAA) Rookie of the Week five times en route to becoming the league’s Rookie of the Year after averaging 11.1 points and 6.9 rebounds per game. Her 278 points that year, just 19 short of the freshman record at Clarkson, proved to just be an opening salvo.

In her second season at Clarkson, Bondellio ascended to the UCAA All-Star squad as a first-team member, leading the conference in scoring at 16.3 points per game while ranking third in rebounds at 8.7 per game. As a junior she bettered those figures and led the UCAA in both scoring at 17.2 points per game, scoring her 1000th career point along the way, and rebounding with 10.2 caroms per contest. It was in the 2001-02 season that she gained national notice as a Division III Kodak All-American when she was chosen as an honorable mention member of the squad.

Bondellio’s performance topped out in her senior season when she again averaged a double-double with 18.0 points and 10.2 rebounds per contest. Again, she was chosen as a UCAA First-Team All-Star and was picked for
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the second time as a Division III Kodak All-American Honorable Mention, thanks in large part to her finishing in the top 50 in the nation in both scoring and rebounding.

Bondellio had previously tied the record for points in a game as a sophomore when she scored 32 against Skidmore on February 10, 2001, but her teammate and classmate Jen Martin broke the record in January 2003. Just a week later, Bondellio reclaimed the title along with Martin by scoring 34 points against conference power William Smith on January 18, 2003. By season’s end Bondellio’s career point total had swelled to 1,564, just 14 shy of the school’s all-time mark, but the 6-0 senior forward could take solace in the fact that her name was already littered everywhere else in the Clarkson record book. She finished with the highest scoring average in a career (15.6 ppg), the most rebounds (900), highest rebounding average (9.0 rpg), most free throws made in a career (384), most free throws made in a season (121), most points by a senior (449), highest single-season scoring average (18.0 ppg), and most points by a sophomore (407), along with three of the top six scoring seasons ever at Clarkson, three of the top six rebounding seasons, and the top three defensive rebounding seasons in school history.

Most importantly, Bondellio was a diligent student-athlete. As a senior she was chosen as a CoSIDA/Verizon Academic All-American and was also named the New York State Women’s Collegiate Athletic Association Basketball Scholar Athlete of the Year, thanks to a 3.32 grade-point average as a double major in business and physical therapy.

Bondellio becomes the fourth member ever of the Clarkson Women’s Basketball program to gain selection to the Golden Knights’ Athletic Hall of Fame and is the first athlete ever, out of the 64 current members, to be chosen less than 10 years after graduation. 
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