Stingers fueled by $100,000 alumnus donation
Former Concordia football player sets up student-athlete scholarship
When Al Fiumidinisi played for the Stingers football team in 1985, he faced a reality much different from his comfortable CEGEP life.
Playing football for Champlain Lennoxville in CEGEP, Fiumidinisi and all of his teammates lived on campus. They had a practical daily routine that allowed them to do everything they needed to on a given day.
“Classes would finish at 4 p.m. We’d have our practices from 5 p.m. until about 6:30 p.m., 7 p.m. Afterwards, we’d go to the cafeteria to eat and study, and go to bed,” Fiumidinisi said. “It was the perfect scenario.”
Not to mention that he was playing for one of the best CEGEP teams in the country at the time.
But once he arrived at Concordia, all of that changed.
He realized that, like himself, most of his teammates lived off-campus. He lived on Montreal’s North Shore and had to commute roughly three hours per day to and from the Loyola Campus, where his games and practices took place.
“It was taking me about an hour to an hour-and-a-half to get to school. And then I would go to my practices,” he said. “[B]y the time I got home, it would be 11:30 p.m., 12 a.m. I was exhausted.”
He really wanted to continue playing football, but quit after one year.
“I just couldn’t do all the travelling,” he said.
In June, almost 40 years after his time at Concordia, he donated $100,000 to the university, designated as a scholarship for student-athletes. For the next 10 years, one member of the Stingers football team and one member of a Stingers women’s team will each receive a $5,000 scholarship.
Fiumidinisi—currently a senior portfolio manager at the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce—majored in finance and minored in accounting at Concordia. As such, he also instructed that the scholarships be awarded to student-athletes enrolled in a John Molson School of Business program.
Fiumidinisi remembers the difficulties of balancing his studies and sports, and wanted to help those who are going through the same struggles.
“Some people just like to build their bank account and get as much as they can. That’s not my game,” he said. “My kids are well taken care of, and everybody’s good. I think it’s good karma to give back.”
Fiumidinisi took out student loans to pay his tuition. He is hoping that the scholarship will help alleviate the recipients’ financial stress, and perhaps allow them to afford slightly higher rent.
“Instead of paying $1,000 [for] someplace really far away, maybe they could spend $2,000 and be much closer to campus and be able to do the sports they need to do,” he said.
The Stingers are used to receiving small, recurring donations from their alumni. Receiving large sums of money all at once usually only happens once a year on Giving Tuesday, an annual and well-known November tradition where the university encourages students, staff, and alumni to donate to its various departments.
“It's always uplifting when we see alumni giving back based on the importance that they found and derived from the non-academic aspect of their time at Concordia,” Recreation and Athletics director D’Arcy Ryan said.
Ryan says that the new scholarship also holds practical value for the department.
“If we're using it on the front end and deciding beforehand what team will get it on the women's side, it can be used as a strong recruiting tool,” he said.
This is the single largest donation the Stingers have received since late 2022, according to Ryan, when Montreal-based Power Corporation of Canada donated $1.3 million to Concordia Stingers athletics. It aimed for the department to develop resources in women’s sports for nutrition, mental health and mentorship.
One member of the Stingers women’s hockey coaching staff, Devon Thompson, was able to hone her coaching skills and leadership abilities thanks to the donation.
In late 2021, former Stingers basketball player George Lengvari donated $1 million each to Concordia and McGill basketball programs.
“I’m kind of hoping [Fiumidinisi’s donation] has trickle-down effects with regards to other alumni looking to do something in a similar vein,” Ryan said.
The Stingers football coach will make a recommendation to the Concordia financial aid and awards office each year, while the women’s scholarship recipient will be decided by the Athletics department.
“These kids work hard. They spend 35 hours a week just doing football and they go to school,” said head football coach Brad Collinson. “Some of them have part-time jobs, so anytime we can relieve some financial stress from them, it’s important.”
The Stingers football team is allowed to hand out a maximum of 33 scholarships per academic year. This new scholarship does not add to that total, but it gives the team another one to work with.
Nevertheless, Collinson hopes that the winners will be inspired to pay it forward when their time comes.
“The winner of that will be very happy and very appreciative of what an alumnus did for them,” Collinson said. “And hopefully moving forward when they graduate, they’ll do the same.”
Fiumidinisi shares the same wish. He believes that everybody—not just Concordia alumni—should do their part in helping others.
“If everybody gave back, I think we’d live in a better place,” Fiumidinisi said.
This article originally appeared in Volume 45, Issue 1, published September 3, 2024.
