ERIE, Pa. - Penn State Behrend has hired Dillon Bender as its first full-time assistant sports information director. Bender will assist Sports Information Director Jill Yamma with the coverage and publicity of the university's 24 sports. Bender will also serve as the coordinator of the university's summer camp programs and will assist in the marketing and promotion of home athletic events. Bender comes to Penn State Behrend after serving as the Graduate Assistant for Sports Information at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology located in Terre Haute, Indiana. At Rose-Hulman, Bender offered support in all areas of the sports information operation, including in-game coverage, graphic design support, social media updates, website writing, photo archiving and gameday management for the institute's 20 sports. Bender also assisted in a website redesign for the school's athletic page which launched in the summer of 2017. While at Rose-Hulman, Dillon covered 16 conference champions during his two-year stay at Rose-Hulman.
No stranger to the Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference, Bender is a 2016 graduate of Mount Aloysius College. While at the Mount, Bender was a three-year standout basketball player for the Mounties. Bender concluded his three-year career at Mount Aloysius as the school's 8th all-time leading scorer, amassing 1,185 points. Bender also holds the single season and career three-point records at MAC. He hit 87 triples during his senior season in 2015-16 and knocked down 238 threes in his Mountie career. Bender tied the single-game three-point record with nine threes against Grove City College in 2013. Dillon finished in the top 10 nationally twice in three-point field goals made per game. Bender ranked 6th in the nation with 3.54 triples per game in 2014 and 8th with 3.48 in 2016. Bender also owns the single season (86%) and career (83%) free throw percentages at the school. Dillon's father, Dick, serves as an assistant basketball coach at Clemson University in South Carolina.
Bender earned AMCC All-Conference honors as a senior and was named the AMCC Male Scholar Athlete of the Year. He also became the first CoSIDA Academic All-American in Mount Aloysius College history, garnering second team honors as a senior in 2016. Lastly, Bender was named one of ten finalists for the coveted Josten's Trophy, awarded to the most outstanding student-athlete in NCAA Division III basketball.
Dillon graduated from Mount Aloysius College in 2016 with a bachelor's degree in History and Political Science. He earned a master's degree in Sport Management from Indiana State University in 2018.