St. Joseph Elementary School alum Michelle Martin Tripi was recently inducted into the 2014 Molloy Athletics Hall of Fame on Jan. 10 during a ceremony honoring four alumnni that was held at Jericho’s Milleridge Cottage.
Currently a teacher at St. Mary’s Elementary School, Tripi was a dual-sport student-athlete at Molloy, playing both softball and women’s basketball. In the softball record book, she ranks within the top 10 of five different statistical categories.
She was named to the All-NYCAC Second Team, selected NYCAC Academic Player of the Year, and named a CoSIDA Academic All-American. In her other sport, Martini Tripi ranks second in career free-throw percentage (.751). From 2006-10, she returned to Molloy to serve as assistant softball coach.
She graduated from Molloy in 2002 with a bachelor’s degree in Accounting. While at Molloy, she met her husband, Joshua Tripi, who was a member of the baseball team. Upon graduating, she accepted an accounting position at Kimco Realty Corporation. At the same time she was also offered the head junior varsity coaching position for Holy Trinity High School’s girls’ basketball team. Experiencing two sides of the spectrum for two years, (corporate world vs. education world), Tripi decided to make a career change. In 2004, she returned to Molloy for her master’s degree in childhood education where she earned a 4.0 grade point average for her graduate course work completed in 2006.
Tripi accepted a faculty position at St. Mary’s Elementary School shortly after and has been teaching kindergarten for the past seven years. Her love of education and for children is quite evident in her classroom each day when she is interacting with her students. Tripi is a product of Catholic education whose journey started at Garden City’s St. Joseph Elementary School and wound its way through Holy Trinity High School right up through Molloy College.
In addition to her teaching career, Tripi coached six years as the assistant softball coach at Molloy (2006-10) and nine years as the head junior varsity basketball coach at Holy Trinity High School. Tripi is currently the head varsity softball coach at Holy Trinity.
Married in 2005, Michelle and Joshua Tripi currently reside in South Freeport with their two children, 3-year-old Mikayla and 2-year-old Cole.
