2015 January/February Commodore Nation

January/February 2015

SMILING IN SPANISH VU student-athletes take life-changing trip to Costa Rica

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CONTENTS P.8

P.12

Irish lacrosse power

P.17

Pura vida

4.0 Club

Sophomore Caroline Peters will be playing for the Irish National Team for the third time since she was 17 when she travels to the Czech Republic this summer.

Thirteen Vanderbilt student-athletes went on the trip of a lifetime in December, delivering more than 1,200 pairs of shoes to children in need in Costa Rica.

The fall semester witnessed 13 Commodore student-athletes achieve a perfect 4.0 GPA.

P.19 P.2

Compliance Corner

P.3

Coach’s Handbook Assistant women’s swimming coach Angie Nicolletta is in her fourth year with the Commodores.

National Commodore Club

P.7

Inside McGugin

P.10 Family matters The Kilichowski family will travel around— and out of—the country to support and watch their oldest son, John, pitch for the Commodores

P.22

VU From Here Fans Gloria and Ray O’Steen

P.23

It’s my turn Rod Williamson’s monthly column

P.16 Playing tall Small in stature, freshman guard Riley LaChance doesn’t back down from any opponent, any challenge.

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P.23

Dominican trip Tim Corbin and the baseball team spent Thanksgiving break in the Dominican Republic.

P.24 My Game Freshman sprinter Jennifer Edobi talks about living in Nigeria, playing the guitar and her faith.

C O M M O D O R E N AT I O N

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Inside McGugin

By The Numbers

Notes from the athletic department

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M

JOHN RUSSELL

ark your calendars, the Black & Gold Spring Game is coming early this year. The annual intrasquad scrimmage will kick off at 1 p.m. on Saturday, March 21 in Vanderbilt Stadium.

It marks one of the earliest spring games in program history as the Commodores will begin spring practices on Feb. 16, less than two weeks after National Signing Day. Duke is the only school from a power conference that is expected to start spring practices earlier. Sixty-eight players are expected to return for the 15 spring drills under

Ralph Webb and the Commodores will begin spring practice on Feb. 16—the earliest start in recent memory.

second-year coach Derek Mason, who will also serve as defensive coordinator this season. l In January, athletic director David Williams announced the hiring of Darren Ambrose as Vanderbilt’s new head women’s soccer coach.

Ambrose has spent the last 15 years at Penn, where he was the program’s all-time winningest coach with 148 victories while capturing three Ivy League championships and reaching the NCAA Tournament three times. l The Vanderbilt men’s golf team was selected to host a NCAA Regional on May 16-18, 2016 at the Vanderbilt Legends Club’s North Course in Franklin. This is the first time a men’s regional will be held at the Vanderbilt Legends Club. But the club’s North Course did host the 2012 NCAA Women’s Championship. The top finishing teams will advance to the NCAA Championship, which will be held in Eugene, Ore. l At halftime of Vanderbilt’s men’s basketball game against Auburn on Jan. 6, the Vanderbilt women’s golf team was awarded the Tolbert Cup for the 2013-14 school year. The athletic department award is presented annually to the team with the best combined total GPA, winning percentage and community service hours. n

Amount of preseason All-Americans on the defending national champion Vanderbilt baseball team.

Pitchers Walker Buehler and Carson Fulmer, outfielder Bryan Reynolds and infielder Dansby Swanson earned preseason All-American honors from Perfect Game and Collegiate Baseball.

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Number of VU student-athletes to earn a 4.0 GPA last semester—the most since the Academic Center started keeping track three years ago. The list featured eight sports, 10 majors, two graduate students and two repeat members of the 4.0 club.

Calendar

February Events

Febuary 27

Febuary 7

‘Dores begin SEC play Southeastern Conference play begins as the women’s tennis team hosts Mississippi State at the Currey Tennis Center. Geoff MacDonald, the longest-tenured coach at Vanderbilt, is in his 21st year and has led the Commodores to the NCAA Tournament every year.

JOHN RUSSELL

Lacrosse kicks off The 20th season in the lacrosse program’s history begins at home at the VU Lacrosse Complex against non-conference foe Kennesaw State. The Commodores enter their first year in the BIG EAST Conference.

Febuary 11

JOE HOWELL

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JOE HOWELL

In-state showdown The Vanderbilt men’s basketball team welcomes in-state rival Tennessee and Vols first-year coach Donnie Tyndall to Memorial Gym. The Commodores have won two of their last three home games against the Vols, including a 64-60 victory last year.

C O M M O D O R E N AT I O N

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Luck of the Irish Sophomore represents Team Ireland, grandfather on lacrosse field

by Jerome Boettcher

W

STEVE GREEN

ell before Caroline Peters roamed the midfield, she tumbled.

Her blond curls whipped around as she flung through the air, working in rhythm with her partner to keep balance while displaying flexibility and ingenuity in their routines. This was the life of an acrobatic gymnast.

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“It’s gymnastics but just on the floor and you’re with partners,” she said.

“I was on the top so I was flipped around.”

Peters spent most of her childhood on mats in acrobatic studios until she fractured her elbow. That effectively ended her acrobatics career right before middle school and led to her current sport.

The combination of her elbow injury and her family’s move from rural Maryland to a suburb of Washington, D.C., introduced her to lacrosse—a popular sport almost anywhere in the Northeast, especially in Montgomery County and Rockville, Md. When Peters first started playing lacrosse in sixth grade she couldn’t have imagined the doors the sport would open. In the last four years, lacrosse has given her the opportunity to travel to three countries— with a fourth coming this summer.

In addition, lacrosse has allowed Peters to meet a side of her family she hadn’t connected with—her Irish heritage.

“It has been a great experience,” a beaming Peters said, “definitely meeting so many different people, having so many more connections and just having fun with it.”

This August, the Vanderbilt sophomore will play for the Irish National Team for the third time since 2012 when she heads to the Czech Republic for the 2015 European Championships.

Caroline’s maternal grandfather, Bernie O’Rourke, was born in Ireland and moved to the United States when he was a teenager.

Prior to the fall of 2011, Caroline had never been to her grandfather’s native country.

That’s when Caroline’s father, Jeff, started putting things in motion. He did his research and learned Caroline could try out for the Irish National Lacrosse Team when she turned 16. Jeff and Caroline, who has dual citizenship, hopped a flight to Dublin in October 2011 for tryouts.

“My dad was a big driving force into it,” Caroline said. “He is the one who got everything going with all our passports.

He was mostly the one who said, ‘You should really try this. It will be a great experience.’ Very glad or I wouldn’t have had all these experiences.”

Father knows best.

That first tryout was just the beginning. With her dad, grandfather and great aunts and uncles she had never met before in attendance, Caroline was the only high school player to make the team. She was separated by five years to the next youngest player and the oldest player on the team was 31.

“It was really refreshing to be over there and be surrounded by these women who really brought me in,” she said. “There was a big (age) gap. But they all act the same. It was really easy to interact with them.”

The following summer, before her senior year of high school, she led Team Ireland with 19 goals at the 2012 European Championships in Amsterdam as her parents, siblings and grandfather watched with pride.

Watching his granddaughter play lacrosse for Team Ireland has been doubly satisfying for Bernie O’Rourke. He wrestled and played lacrosse at the University of Maryland (the first of his family to attend college) before tearing his shoulder. He now lives in Austin, Texas, but can often be found at lacrosse games at Vanderbilt and around the world.

“He is really into it and so proud that we’re doing any stuff related to Ireland,” Caroline said. “Just that I can represent a country he is so used to

SUBMIT TED

With the country continually trying to expand the sport, Caroline has been joined on the team by several Americans, along with a bevy of players from England, with family connections in Ireland.

In fact, one of her closest friends on the team is 31-year-old Sarah Walsh Kotkowski. The former Northwestern standout, who calls Annapolis, Md., home, was a player when Caroline first joined the team, served as assistant coach at the 2013 World Cup and will be the head coach for the 2015 European Championships.

“I remember walking into the locker room when I first got there for my first tryouts and I saw a Northwestern backpack and thought, ‘Oh my God, I’m scared,’” Caroline said laughing. “She has been great. She has been a great mentor. It was cool to learn from someone who has experienced so much at the D-I level.”

More than anything, her experiences with the team have opened her up.

Self-admittedly soft-spoken and reserved, Peters said the enjoyment her Irish teammates display on the lacrosse field has been refreshing. She’s learned the words to the Irish national anthem and belts “Ireland’s Call,” a popular rugby song the team sings after every game.

“I’m more of a quiet person so they could tell when I wasn’t singing,” she said laughing. “It has gotten me more out of my shell than just being on a new team and meeting new people. Being on my own and having to stay with them, we’re together for four weeks. So it has been really cool.”

Along with some of her American teammates, Caroline would like to help grow the sport of lacrosse in Ireland. She said many players in Ireland don’t pick up the sport until late high school or even college.

For the sport and country that have provided her with so many opportunities, Caroline wants to give back.

“The experience of even playing for them is amazing,” she said. “That I even have that opportunity because I know a lot of people don’t. Just being able to represent a country is cool. When people bring (playing for Ireland) up, it makes me more excited.” n

and so involved with. He goes over there a lot, too, to see family. It is cool. I know he has expressed that he just loves we are all into it.”

With the Women’s Lacrosse World Cup looming in 2013, Caroline headed back with her father to Dublin in the fall of 2012 for tryouts.

Again, Peters made the team and brought back even more, unexpected memories.

With Hurricane Sandy wreaking havoc in the U.S., Caroline and Jeff were stuck in Ireland for a week. Neither seemed to mind. The extra time allowed them to meet, visit and stay with more extended family and explore the beautiful Irish countryside.

“It is just so neat to see how they live, seeing them in person and knowing them,” Caroline said. “Just how welcoming they were—it was so last minute. It was just so nice to be able to go in and out and meet all of them and still be able to travel and see the countryside without being restricted in Dublin. It was really cool. They are amazing and it was nice to actually meet them. Just the experience of being over there is so different from here—but very welcoming. Everyone over there is so welcoming.”

Months before Caroline’s freshman season began at Vanderbilt she played on the sport’s biggest stage. She once again led the team with 14 goals as Team Ireland finished 10th at the Women’s Lacrosse World Cup in Canada.

She’ll be front and center again in August. This past October, she made the quick, four-day trip to Dublin on her own to once again tryout. Not surprisingly she made the team and will venture to the Czech Republic for the European Championships just weeks before classes begin.

“It is really cool to represent a country like that,” she said. “I have never been on a team where they sing the national anthem before every game and they have their main songs from Ireland after every game. Win or lose, everyone comes together and sings in front of all the fans. It has been a new, enjoyable experience that I’ve never been a part of. Even when I’m so mad that we just lost this game it just puts things into perspective.”

For Caroline, forming friendships with her Team Ireland teammates has proved to be just as rewarding as traveling the world and learning about her Irish ancestry.

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STEVE GREEN

Caroline Peters first tried out for the Ireland National Team when she was 16. She has twice played internationally for Ireland and will rep her grandfather’s home country a third time in August at the 2015 European Championships in Czech Republic.

Caroline Peters is a second-generation college lacrosse player. Her grandfather, Bernie O’Rourke, played lacrosse and wrestled at the University of Maryland.

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Family support beams proudly for sophomore pitcher

by Jerome Boettcher

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Januar y/Febr uar y 2015

JOHN RUSSELL

S

hortly after the spring semester started in January, Vanderbilt sophomore John Kilichowski headed to a new class and introduced himself to a professor.

The introduction was unnecessary. The professor knew who he was, after meeting his mom in Omaha, Neb., last summer during the College World Series.

This is a common occurrence for the left-handed reliever, who often is known as Debbie Kilichowski’s son.

“I mean the amount of girls I’ve met where I introduce myself and they say they’ve met my mom is unbelievable,” John said laughing. “It has gotten to the point where this has to stop. I have to meet someone for the first time here.”

Friendly and supportive, the Kilichowski family’s love for their oldest son is apparent and beams proudly.

The Kilichowskis, who call Tampa home, work around their busy schedules to make sure they can support their oldest child. His mother is a dental hygienist and his father, Bill, owns a small marketing business. Often, when he travels to watch his son play, he’ll work remotely. They’ll even fly John’s sister, Alexa, a freshman at the University of Florida, out of Gainesville so she can see her brother play. They’ve split hotel rooms with other families.

“They will maneuver their plans to get where I am,” John said. “I think it is a lot of my mom, that Italian family thing they got going on. Everything is together. In our family, Sundays were together. You have spaghetti on Sunday. That is the thing. We all got together. Now it has come to that point where it is weird if we’re not together.”

John can’t remember it being any other way.

His parents were always there to cheer him on. His first memories of baseball trace back to when he was a toddler, tossing a ball back and forth to his mom. His father was his biggest influence with baseball, serving as his coach all the way up to high school.

“To have him make that commitment all the time, especially with work, it is very nice looking back on it to see the sacrifices he made to spend time with me like that,” John said. “So I was very lucky.”

Now, as he wears the Black and Gold, his parents continue to root him on. Though he was used sparingly last year—notching a 1.57 ERA in just 13 appearances—and as a reliever, never certain on when he would pitch, that didn’t matter to his family.

They made it up to Nashville for a handful of series, including the Super Regional to see the Commodores punch their ticket to the College World Series. Then they were on hand for the entirety of the College World Series even though John pitched just once (allowing just one run in three innings of work in a victory in the first game of the championship series against Virginia).

In March, his family will head to Los Angeles to watch the defending national champs in the Dodgertown Classic. The weekend series against Florida at Hawkins Field May 7-9 will be a celebratory affair as Debbie’s brothers and sisters will also come to celebrate Debbie’s birthday.

“They try to make it as much as they can. They are big supporters of the team,” John said. “I played some last year but there were times where they came where I wasn’t playing and they just love watching us do well—our culture, the fun that we have out here, which is very nice. They are so easy going. They have become close with all the other families. The parents are just a close knit group of people.”

In November, the Kilichowskis showed their passion and loves knows no borders. They ventured out of the United States as Bill, Debbie and Alexa joined John and the rest of the Vanderbilt baseball team in the Dominican

Vanderbilt sophomore pitcher John Kilichowski is used to having his parents and sister in the stands cheering him on—even if that means leaving the country.

Republic for the squad’s weeklong trip. Not wanting to spend Thanksgiving apart, the Kilichowskis were in attendance as John pitched against international competition despite less than ideal conditions after a weird rain delay in which the field was soaked up by sponges.

Still, John was at ease.

“I remember feeling a lot more at home,” he said. “It was so foreign, everything that was going on—the way the pregame was, the field, everything like that, the atmosphere. My family was sitting right behind (the backstop). I would look at them seven, eight times a game and it was amazing how it blocked out the newness. It made me feel very much at home.” n

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C O M M O D O R E N AT I O N

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JEROME BOET TCHER

Vanessa Valentine, a junior on the cross country and track teams, blows bubbles with children in Costa Rica on the last day of seven distributions with Soles4Souls in December.

Valentine, one of 13 Vanderbilt student-athletes on the week-long trip, said it was the first service trip she had ever been on and it called it life-changing.

Pura Vida: Lives of ’Dores changed on service trip

by Jerome Boettcher

T

he scene—one of many that played out that unforgettable week in December— warmed the heart of Marcello Hernandez-Blanco.

He looked out and saw much more than children receiving new pairs of shoes. He heard uncontrollable laughter—from beaming Costa Rican children and caring American students.

He saw lines of kids waiting to receive temporary washable tattoos. He saw seven-year-olds coloring shark pictures with 20-year-olds and not letting a language barrier get in the way.

Hernandez-Blanco was born and raised in Costa Rica. He went to college here, is a consultant for the government in sustainable development and climate change. His mother-in-law, Lillian Solt, an American missionary, began a clinic in the community Los Lagos three decades ago designed to meet the economic needs of patients in addition to working with rural and poor communities to help develop micro-enterprises.

So when he watched more than a dozen Vanderbilt student-athletes spend more than a week of their Christmas break in his native country of Costa Rica to help less fortunate

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people in areas that are miles away from the tourist rich parts of the beautiful country, he beamed with pride.

“This fills my heart tank. This part really fills you as a human being emotionally,” he said. “It is really nice to see how young people are engaging. This is a way you can empower yourselves to do greater things in the states with this new perspective you have from Costa Rica, from poverty, from development. I think your reaction has been amazing. The shoes are one part. The time you took to share with them, to be able to clean their feet, to draw with them, to write a smile on their faces, I think those are the most powerful things. The shoes, for me, it is not the end. It is just the means.”

Hernandez-Blanco served as a guide for the 13 Vanderbilt student-athletes who enjoyed a life-changing experience in December. Along with two support staff members of the athletic department, the crew of 13 spent eight days in Costa Rica delivering 1,263 pairs of shoes with Soles4Souls, Inc., a Nashville-based non-profit organization that delivers shoes and clothes to children and people in need all over the world.

Soles4Souls, led by Travel Manager Kelly Hoskins,

and Vanderbilt partnered with Solt and CEDCAS, staying in the three-story clinic for the trip.

The student-athletes included Skyler Carpenter (track), Matthew Cleveland (cross country), Jill Doherty (lacrosse), Taylor Hudson (football), Megan Huebner (cross country/track), Hannah Jumper (cross country/track), Shannon Morrish (soccer), Baker Newman (tennis), Gabby Nesi (lacrosse), Christiana Ogunsami (soccer), Mallory Schonk (lacrosse), Vanessa Valentine (cross country/track) and Jake Van Geffen (cross country).

All 13 were chosen through a selection process by athletic administrators as each studentathlete had to apply—submitting an essay and letters of recommendation.

It marked the second straight year the Vanderbilt athletics department sent student-athletes on an international service trip, which is funded by the NCAA Opportunity Fund. Twenty-one student-athletes traveled to Tanzania with Soles4Souls in the summer of 2013.

And like that initial trip to Africa, the Costa Rican adventure left a lasting impact.

“It changed my life,” Taylor Hudson said. “I think (it changed) our lives even maybe more than the kids.”

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JEROME BOET TCHER

More than 1,200 pairs of shoes were distributed during the week-long service trip with Soles4Souls.

would decorate their shoes with their names, a soccer ball, a butterfly, a shark and add warmth to the shoe.

“You hand them these shoes and they just beam,” Vanessa Valentine said. “They are just so happy to have them. And you tell them they can color on them and they can get even happier. It is really touching to see their joy when they get their pair of shoes.”

“The distributions have been some of the greatest experiences of my life,” Jake Van Geffen said. “Just getting to serve and be humbled by washing these kids’ feet. It has been great to be a small part of fulfilling that need and seeing the kids light up when you hand them the shoes.”

On the last day of distributions, the group headed to a town called Guapiles, about two hours from the clinic in Los Lagos. At the second site, the bus pulled up to a school and a long line outside the fence that snaked around the block.

The distribution wasn’t scheduled to begin until 10:30 but many children and parents began lining up at 7 a.m.

“Many of them had never received free shoes,” Solt said. “They are very interested. They are very needy and that’s why they were here early. They have time. They don’t have shoes.”

In Costa Rica, Solt set up the shoe distributions as CEDCAS has left their footprint on communities throughout the country, through offering health care and jobs, donating shoes and even helping kick start several micro-enterprises.

“They are literally helping people’s lives in terms of health and wellness,” Jumper said.

“Connecting people educationally. It is really inspiring to see all these amazing other people.

They don’t have to be here helping us but they love their country.”

Hoskins, travel manager for Soles4Souls, anchored the group with her positive attitude, smile and selfless leadership.

“Kelly did a great job leading us,” Valentine said. “She is funny and she is inspiring and it is really neat to see how she has such a good relationship with Lillian too. I’m so thankful for Soles4Souls, for Vanderbilt athletics, for Lilian and just this opportunity in general. It was truly, truly life-changing and I mean that in the most genuine way possible.”

The connections between the student-athletes and children were incredible to see unfold.

Despite broken Spanish, the students bonded with the children.

There was a 10-year-old boy Hector on the first day who ran home to get his yellow plastic soccer ball so everyone could play soccer on a nearby gravel parking lot with old shoes serving as goal posts. Hector’s smile and curiosity impacted everyone. He had everyone in the group’s name written down and wanted to know when the group would return.

JEROME BOET TCHER

Over four days, the group delivered shoes at seven sites.

These all differed in location—churches, schools, day cares and community center—and landscape–urban, rural, impoverished, working class. It was an eye-opening experience for all on the trip.

In some areas, trash littered the streets. Many of the shoes children came in wearing were dirty, tattered, torn, some with huge holes in the soles. The homes around CEDCAS were gated and cars were parked in backyards instead of on the street, to avoid theft. The houses varied but many were modest, one-floor homes. In one neighborhood, where Nicaraguan refugees lived, tin roofs and walls formed one-bedroom homes.

Hernandez-Blanco said in that neighborhood, many children share one bed with their parents and siblings and they bathe in a nearby creek with sewage runoff.

“My expectation of Costa Rica is probably everyone’s—pretty beaches, rainforest, which is great,” Hannah Jumper said. “But there is a huge part the world probably forgets about. I know I have before. I didn’t know the gravity or extent that people are living in poverty. It is so different from our poverty level we have in America. It is a different type. I don’t think it is something you can full understand until you experience it firsthand.”

Still, Costa Ricans are some of the happiest people in the world, living by the mantra of pura vida or pure life. They exude eternal optimism, happy with what they have.

“Even the parents, seeing how happy they are and how grateful they are for what they have is definitely a humbling experience,” Christiana Ogunsami said. “Just to appreciate what we have and see what we can give them definitely leaves impact on me. It definitely makes me more grateful for what I have back home.”

Before the first day of distributions, Solt asked the group how many knew how to speak Spanish. A couple of hands hesitantly went up. Then she asked another question: How many know how to smile in Spanish?

Smiles—or sonrisas in Spanish—trickled throughout the room.

“We were told on the first day to make sure we played with the kids and hung out with them because some of them don’t just need shoes,” Hudson said. “They’re starving for love.”

At each site, the distributions were broken into three stations—sizing, washing/fitting and decorating/drawing. A couple of students would use a Skecher’s shoe sizing mat to find the best fit for the children and then mark their hands with the size. The children would then have their feet washed and handed a pair of black Skecher BOBS shoes. Finally, they would head over to the drawing station, where the student-athletes

Baker Newman, front, washes the feet of a young girl. Newman, a freshman on the tennis team, was one of 13 Vanderbilt student-athletes who distributed shoes to children in Costa Rica in December with Soles4Souls.

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JEROME BOET THCER

Megan Huebner, a freshman on the cross country and track teams, washes the feet of a young girl. The studentathletes sized the children’s feet, then washed them before handing them a new pair of shoes to decorate.

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to really get to know all their peers outside of their teammates. Spending a week in a foreign country on a service trip changes that, though.

“This is the kind of thing that makes Vanderbilt such a great community,” Van Geffen said. “We can take people from many different lifestyles, many different social groups and come together and all gel so quickly. Within a few hours probably we were already all making jokes and getting along.”

Eight teams were represented on the trip. By the end of the week, the 13 students were easily one team. Every night in the dining hall of the clinic, the group played games varying from charades to telephone Pictionary to obscure card games. Hudson, Ogunsami and Nesi broke out their dance moves as Hudson led the way as an expert swing-dancing teacher.

JEROME BOET THCER

“He was a ball of energy and wanted to know everything about us,” Hudson said.

Little girls and boys brought flowers. Hugs were commonplace. Jill Doherty remembers a little boy who surprised her when he said hello.

“To have him speak English to me really brightened my day,” she said. “He came back about an hour after with his mom and they were just so excited. He brought me a piece of candy and I kept hugging him. It was really so sweet to see that and know that I made a difference at least for his day.”

There were the two young brothers who couldn’t stop giggling and tossing around a bouncy ball well after the distribution had ended. Coloring books sprawled across tables and floors. Bubbles were blown. The temporary tattoo station, manned by assistant athletic director of marketing Allison Frazee, always had a long line as Star Vs sprinkled on faces, arms, hands and shoes. The student-athletes and children played tic tac toe, Frisbee, and of course, soccer—in basketball gyms, on asphalt, in anklehigh grass with regular soccer balls along with plastic bottles and tin foil.

“It has been great to play with the kids, even some of the adults too,” Van Geffen said. “Just how good they are and how passionate they are for games where we are playing with a couple of cans or tin foil balls. Just seeing how much joy they take out of that.”

The trip also brought different members of different sports closer together.

“It has been indescribable,” Hudson said. “I’ve gotten to know these guys on a whole new level.

We get to broaden and deepen our relationship because of this whole experience.”

With busy class, practice and game schedules, it can be hard for Commodore student-athletes

Everyone showed off their soccer skills, playing daily pickup games community park.

Running every morning was routine for the members of the cross country and track teams but Hudson, who just finished his playing career on the football team, also went out and kept pace with the distance runners.

The group also got to experience new things together. One morning, they ventured high into a cloud forest and went flying through the trees and past water falls on a memorable and fun zip lining trip. They also hiked up to Volcán Poás, a picturesque volcano at 9,000 feet high. On that day, once the steam and clouds blew away, one could see a sparkling blue pool of water in the crater. Afterwards, the group went to a waterfall garden and animal reserve, where they held toucans, petted oxen and were sprayed by one of many waterfalls.

Then there was the singing. Spontaneous karaoke broke out on the bus rides around town thanks to Hudson’s endless collection of music and Newman’s speakers. Taylor Swift, Disney songs and the Beatles blasted throughout the bus. Of course, there was uncontrollable laughter—laughter that Doherty said was so much at times she felt she couldn’t breathe.

“That was honestly one of my favorite parts,” Doherty said of the camaraderie. “Every time I see someone that was on the trip you have this flood of happiness and emotions that run through you. I love that. It is like I have 13 new best friends, which is awesome.

“I don’t think that I could have picked a more perfect group or place or anything that would have been as meaningful and so fun. I’m really happy that I did it and honestly I would do it again in a heartbeat.” n

Matthew Cleveland of the men’s cross country team plays with a young girl in Costa Rica on the last day of the eightday trip. The 13 Vanderbilt student-athletes attended a Christmas party for local Nicaraguan refugee children.

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Freshman already playing

bigger than his size

by Jerome Boettcher

T

om LaChance walked onto the Marquette basketball team despite measuring in at just 5-foot-11inches. His wife, Linda, is only 5-4.

On both sides of their family, “vertically challenged” runs rampant.

So Tom looks at his oldest child and only son, Riley, in bewilderment.

“We have no tall relatives; I don’t know how he got to be 6-2,” Tom said. “It’s a blessing.”

Cracking 6-feet might be a big deal for the LaChance family but both Tom and Riley knew early on that Riley’s ticket to growing his basketball career wouldn’t be his height.

“That was one thing (his dad) always taught me from a young age that I’m not going to be 6-5, 6-6 and crazy athletic,” said Riley, the second-leading scorer for Vanderbilt. “So I’m going to have to shoot the ball and shoot the ball the right way. He is a real stickler on shooting the ball right away and with the right fundamentals.”

Riley, who has already earned two SEC Freshman of the Week honors, calls his father his biggest influence into basketball and it is easy to see why.

After two years of playing NAIA basketball ball, Tom transferred to Marquette and walked on under coach Kevin O’Neill.

Immediately after his playing career ended he jumped into coaching and has been working on the AAU circuit for 25 years. Riley was introduced to basketball before he even knew what a basketball was.

“I took him to practice before he was even walking,” Tom said. “He has had a basketball in his hands for a long time.”

With his father as his AAU coach, Riley learned the game and played some of the best talent in tournaments around the country.

Though Tom introduced Riley to the sport, he didn’t have to twist his son’s arm to improve his work ethic. Tom had a key to the gym at the church where their AAU team, Ray Allen Select Milwaukee, practiced. Often Riley could be found at the gym after AAU and high school games, shooting at 10:30 at night.

During a tournament the summer before his

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junior year, the team had a day off for Fourth of July. Tom and Riley were supposed to attend a family picnic, but they showed up a little late. Riley felt something was off with his shot so he spent more than an hour on Fourth of July shooting jumpers as his father rebounded for him.

“That’s just how he is. If something doesn’t feel just right he is going to be out there shooting or working on his game until he feels right,” Tom said. “I never had to push him to get in the gym. He was always there before I was. I was really hard on him as a coach. I think a coach is always hardest on his kid. I could tell he had the drive to be a good player.”

It was harder to win over college coaches at the start during the recruiting process. Though he was a unanimous first-team All-State selection as a senior and left as his school’s all-time leading scorer with more than 1,600 points, Riley received a bevy of offers from smaller programs before a major program offered him. Schools in his backyard, Wisconsin and Marquette, didn’t recruit him much.

“That turned out

to be a blessing because it just made him work harder,” Tom said. “It made him go to a school where he is a good fit at. He is a perfect fit for Coach (Kevin) Stallings and what they do down there and how they play.”

Certainly, so far, his first college season has been a fruitful one. Early in to SEC play in January, he was leading the team in 3-pointers, freethrow shooting percentage and was second on the team in scoring and assists.

What has impressed fans, teammates and coaches alike is his toughness. His stature and boyish looks might not make him an obvious threat but he has showed resiliency. He wears a form-fitted mask currently after breaking his nose against Yale.

“I think that is something I’ve always prided myself on is being aggressive, playing the way I know how and not trying to back down on anybody, not trying to be scared of anybody, playing aggressive and playing my game,” Riley said.

As much as he has been self-motivated and self-driven, Riley says he owes a lot to his father.

His father’s guidance, honesty and love have helped mold him into the player he is now.

“He was always there to motivate me if I needed it, to push me,” Riley said. “But, at the same time, there is a parent, there is a dad. I think that is something that was really big for me—just really having someone always there.

If you want to go shoot, if you want to just talk, whatever, he was always there to give me advice, help make me better and I can’t thank him enough for that.” n

Riley LaChance grew up attached to basketball thanks to his father, Tom, who has spent the last 25 years as an AAU coach. All those hours in the gym have paid off for Riley, a standout on the VU basketball team as a freshman.

Fall semester welcomes a record 13 ’Dores to 4.0 Club

by Jerome Boettcher

TIM CASEY

F

or graduate student and distance runner Liz Anderson, popping open the laptop on the sleeper bus while heading to a meet is the norm.

In order to stay on top of things in the classroom, Anderson and her fellow Vanderbilt student-athletes have to sacrifice the free time and put in the extra work. Maybe that’s one reason 4.0 GPAs were at an all-time high last semester for the Commodores.

“On bus rides to meets, we’ll always bring out my homework,” said Anderson, who received her undergraduate degree in communication and philosophy last May. “Some of my friends who run at other SEC schools are like, ‘Wait, you do homework on the bus? Why?’ It is one of those things where you’re so thankful that you go to Vandy because it prepares you for everything. I think the fact that Vandy students can still get 4.0s and compete the way they do… is an awesome thing.”

This past fall, a record 13 student-athletes joined the elite 4.0 Club after notching a perfect 4.0 GPA during the fall semester. Starting about three years ago, Vanderbilt academic counselors began to keep track of the feat every semester. Proudly displayed in the academic support center on the first floor of the McGugin Center are pictures of the 13 student-athletes with their major and their sport.

This year’s list includes: Anderson (cross country/track), Claire Anderson (soccer), Skyler Carpenter (track), Nicole Chanin (bowling), Nick

Cross country/track standout Liz Anderson was one of 13 VU student-athletes to earn a 4.0 GPA in the fall.

French (cross country), Nikos Gkotsis (cross country), Katie Rose Higgins (golf), Taylor Hudson (football), Lauren Johnson (golf), Amira Joseph (cross country), Nicole Mosesso (bowling), Mallory Schonk (lacrosse) and Ashley Vega (soccer).

“It is really exciting and rewarding to see so many people achieve that,” academic counselor Ashley Vogl said. “I think it is something student-athletes strive for and very proud of when they do achieve that. Putting it on display in the academic center reinforces it. It is nice to

walk by that every day and know that is something they achieved.”

The fall semester list also displays an impressive amount of variety. Eight different sports were represented. The 11 undergraduate students are pursuing 10 different majors.

Liz Anderson and Higgins are both enrolled in graduate school at Peabody College in the Leadership and Organizational Performance program.

Hudson and Joseph are pursuing Interdisciplinary Studies majors in the field of neuroscience. Carpenter and Mosesso are Medicine, Health and Society majors. French (electrical/ biomedical engineering) and Johnson (mathematics/sociology) are double majors.

Higgins has made the 4.0 Club all three semesters at Vanderbilt since transferring after receiving her undergraduate degree in accounting from South Carolina. Hudson, who plans to attend medical school after he graduates in May, has earned 4.0 GPAs the last two semesters.

“It is something I strive for every semester and I’m glad it has worked out this past couple,” Hudson said. “You really have to be on top of everything both school and sports wise to know when everything is due and know when you are going to be busy with sports. School picks up and to really find that balance is difficult. ““I think the Vanderbilt student-athlete really embodies both of those hemispheres. With the kind of people we have around here we should expect even more (4.0s) in the future. ” n

2014 Fall Semester 4.0 GPA Club Name

Major

Sport

Claire Anderson

Economics

Soccer

Liz Anderson

Graduate Student (Peabody College)

Cross Country/Track

Skyler Carpenter

Medicine, Health and Society

Track

Nicole Chanin

Sociology

Bowling

Nick French

Electrical/Biomedical Engineering

Cross Country

Nikos Gkotsis

Mechanical Engineering

Cross Country

Katie Rose Higgins

Graduate Student (Peabody College)

Golf

Taylor Hudson

Neuroscience

Football

Lauren Johnson

Mathematics/Sociology

Golf

Amira Joseph

Neuroscience

Cross Country

Nicole Mosesso

Medicine, Health and Society

Bowling

Mallory Schonk

Cognitive and Linguistic Development

Lacrosse

Ashley Vega

Law and Deviant Behavior

Soccer

vucommodores.com

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Coach’s Handbook: Asst. swimming coach Angie Nicolletta Since she was a young child, Angie Nicolletta has been enamored with swimming. The Marietta, Ga., native swam four years at Louisville, where she set the school record in the 200-butterfly and contributed to three relay records. After college, she immediately got into coaching at the club level with the Lakeside Seahawks in Louisville and then returned home to become the Head Site Coach for the Marietta Stingrays. After a year as a volunteer assistant coach at the Air Force Academy, she came to Vanderbilt and is in her third season.

Was there any particular reason you started swimming?

I actually asked my mom over Thanksgiving, how did you know? She said, ‘When you were a baby, when we put you in the water, the first thing you did was the dolphin (kick) under the water—immediately. You were just a natural at it.’ I’m surprised they didn’t put me in more sports but I think they just wanted to concentrate on one or two…. In the south, summer league is kind of a big deal. In Georgia, it’s huge. So every neighborhood that has a pool you have a summer league team. That was the thing to do growing up in the summer, everyone swam summer league. I think my first year was when I was 6.

Though you’re taller, you never played basketball?

No. I always shot around with my dad and my brothers. My dad played in college. My brother played up until high school. My dad’s cousin played up at Xavier in Cincinnati. Basketball was definitely in the family. Basketball was always a thing but my dad was like, ‘She likes swimming. She’s good at it.

We’re going to stick with it.’ I never had the urge to want to. I loved swimming and I loved tennis too. I love team sports. But I guess I didn’t have that itch. I’m glad that my dad didn’t push me into more sports, honestly. I was coordinated but that doesn’t mean I need to do every sport… My dad, he is so funny. The older I got the less strict he was with swimming. In middle school

and high school, my dad wouldn’t let me go bowling because he was afraid I would throw my shoulder out. So I would tell my parents we were going to go play putt-putt and we would go bowling. We loved to bowl. I’m not going to throw my shoulder out bowling.

How was your college experience at Louisville?

I wouldn’t take it back for the world.

If I had ever quit, I would have regretted it so bad. I loved every aspect. You go through college, you’re learning, you’re becoming an adult so there are a lot of lessons learned through college. I wouldn’t regret anything I did. There are so many lessons learned when you’re an athlete and you’re competing and you’re going to school. You grow up so much. I loved it. I would do it over and over again. I enjoyed the whole team aspect. It was very much my family. I still talk to all the kids I swam with.

Talk about your coaching experience on the club level, learning from coaches Mike DeBoor (Lakeside Seahawks) and Ian Goss (Marietta Stingrays).

They are two of mentors. I can always go to them about anything. When I moved back home (with the Marietta Stingrays), I was with Ian. I was Head Site Coach. It was a developing pool. I had a real small group of kids. I was on my own but not on my own. So it was nice. I grew up. I for sure learned a lot.

Having to deal with parents on my own. But Ian was awesome. For me it was the next step. Then I got the chance to coach with Casey Converse. Being at the Air Force Academy was amazing. Getting a lot of information, learning about all aspects of the military, I liked that kind of stuff. I liked knowing about our military and learning about the stuff. The academy was insane. The fact that they’re athletes and in school and at the academy, it is just a pile on pile of stuff they have to do. It takes your breath away. You have so much respect for these people.

How has your coaching experience been at Vanderbilt?

I’ve learned a lot, definitely. It is so much different than club swimming and I was a part of college swimming but learning all the new rules. I love it.

The girls that are here just keep getting better and better every year. So it is exciting, breaking records every year. Not just a few—a lot. They have already broken a few so far this season. I’m really excited to see what we can do this year in SECs. And hopefully we’ll get a girl to go to NCAAs this year (for the first time). We have great girls coming in and they’re doing amazing jobs. The team is meshing.

JOE HOWELL

How do you like to spend your free time?

Angie Nicolletta is in her third season as an assistant coach on the swimming team.

The Marietta, Ga., native swam at Louisville before delving into a coaching career with stops on the club level and at the Air Force Academy.

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I try and get outside as much as I can. I love hiking. I’ve got two Huskies (Loki and Sky) so I have to be very active but I also love being active. I love dogs. So I take them hiking as much as I can. They go to the lake in the summer. I do yoga and cross fit here and there. I got into paddle boarding over the summer. n

C O M M O D O R E N AT I O N

19

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1/23/15 3:01 PM

THE VU From Here

Bob Frech

by Jerome Boettcher She turned on the radio to provide a distraction. But what started as a diversion formed into a passionate fan hood for Bob Frech.

More than half a century ago, Frech got his first introduction to the Vanderbilt Commodores as a young 5-year-old. His parents were season ticket holders to men’s basketball games and they dropped off their son with his grandmother while they headed to Memorial Gym. Anxious for his parents’ return, young Bob kept asking his grandma when his parents would be back. Finally, trying to keep him from crying, she decided to plop Bob at the kitchen table of her East Nashville home, turn on the radio to the Commodore broadcast and told him when the game ended his parents would be back.

“That would pacify me for a while,” Bob recalls, laughing. “I got to listening and they were at the Vanderbilt game so that’s who I was for. I learned players’ names. Then, all of a sudden, I was hoping we’d win and I was a fan.”

Five decades later, Bob’s passion for the Commodores remains strong. Bob, an Inglewood native and government teacher at Station Camp High School, and his wife, Sharon, rarely a miss a Vanderbilt sporting event with season tickets in baseball, football and men’s and women’s basketball.

His first trip to Memorial Gym came when he was seven and his mother telling him he could pick one game to go to with his father.

He chose the regular-season finale against Mississippi State—Clyde Lee’s last game. In 1969, when Memorial Gym expanded, he purchased season tickets in Section 3L. He’s been a season-ticket holder ever since, except for when he was off to college at Tennessee Tech. In 1980, he moved up to the first row of Section 2L, where he still sits today.

“Memorial Gym is a cathedral. It is a holy place for basketball,” Bob said. “It is special.

It is just something I look forward to. So many special memories. I believe in Memorial Magic.”

He can remember going to football games with his father back in the late 1960s and one

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Bob and his wife, Sharon, pictured here at the College World Series after the Commodores won the national championship last June, hold Vanderbilt season tickets in four sports.

of his first memories was heckling Ole Miss quarterback Archie Manning with chants of “Archie Who?” from the top row of the bleachers near the North end zone. Now his family sits in the South end zone, just in the middle of the goalposts. He can remember having as many as 76 family and friends filling up that section for games during coach Watson Brown’s first year in 1986.

In the early 1990s, Bob and Sharon bought season tickets for women’s basketball games and position themselves right under the basket in the first row of Section F. And for the better part of the last decade, the couple has sat in the second row, right above the Vanderbilt dugout at Hawkins Field, rooting on coach Tim Corbin and the baseball Commodores. In fact, Bob and Sharon were in Omaha for the team’s entire run through the College World Series and to the national championship.

“We were rooting hard and hoped they’d win and then they’d win and I’d say, ‘Boy, getting into my wallet again, get the hotel room for another night,’” Bob said, laughing. “It was all worth it, of course. Just tears. Stunned and numb and just an incredible rush of disbelief.

I didn’t know what to do. It was something for sure.”

For Bob, like many longtime Vanderbilt fans, the national championship was a culmination. Bob also coaches cross country and track at Station Camp, so his free time is valuable. And he can’t imagine spending it anywhere else.

“People ask me, ‘Why aren’t you a Predators fan?’ And that’s all I need is one more hobby.

I can’t handle what I’ve got right now,” he said. “I enjoy the college game tremendously.

Vanderbilt does it right in terms of the student-athlete. I know these kids have to go to school too. If you’re a student-athlete, you are a student-athlete, not just an athlete.

That’s why I am proud to be a Vandy fan.”

We Want Your Ticket Stories The ticket office has long been a place to hear some of the best examples of the love affair between Vanderbilt fans and their seats for games. Whether you met your spouse in the student section or shared popcorn with your grandfather from the very top row of the endzone in Section L, we want to hear your point of VU (pronounced “view”) of Commodore Football.

Send in your stories to ticket.office@vanderbilt. edu. If your “VU From Here” story is selected, we will give you two tickets to a home game this season, in the hope that you will pay them forward to attract new fans to Vanderbilt Stadium. n

C O M M O D O R E N AT I O N

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Former ’Dores Ditty, Elder named SEC Legends

Former Vanderbilt tennis standout Julie Ditty has been named a SEC Women’s Legend and will be honored at the SEC Women’s Basketball Tournament in March.

A

pair of former Vanderbilt standouts have been chosen as the school’s SEC Legends and will be honored at the SEC Men’s and Women’s Basketball Tournaments in March.

Tennis ace Julie Ditty, a three-time All-American for the Commodores, and men’s basketball forward Bruce Elder were selected as the school’s SEC Legends.

Ditty, who graduated in 2002 with a degree in early childhood education, finished with the second-most singles wins in school history. She also helped lead the Commodores to the NCAA national championship match in 2001. In 2009, she was the first member of the tennis team to be inducted into the Vanderbilt Athletics Hall of Fame.

Professionally, she earned a Top-100 ranking in singles and doubles and won nine ITF singles titles and 30 doubles championships.

She was also selected to the U.S. Fed Cup Team in 2009 and won the USTA Southern U.S. Open National Playoff qualifying singles tournament last summer.

Elder was a co-captain on Vanderbilt’s 1993 SEC championship team that reached as high as No. 5 in the Associated Press poll. He earned AllSEC honors and was college basketball’s Academic Player of the Year that same season. Elder finished his Vanderbilt career with 1,086 points. n

Looking for an intern? ’Dores want to help

C

alling all interested local businesses and non-profit organizations: if you need an intern this summer please let the Vanderbilt athletic department know.

We’re looking to pair up interested current Vanderbilt studentathletes with local companies for an internship program. We want to expand summer opportunities for our student-athletes, especially those who are already on campus taking summer classes. The student-athletes would work as unpaid interns.

If you are interested in please contact Senior Associate Athletic Director for Internal Affairs Candice Lee at (615) 322-7992. n

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It’s My Turn

By Rod Williamson

I

n 1964 Bob Dylan wrote and sang “The Times They are a Changing”, an anthem about revolution. The country was transitioning from its Ozzie and Harriett days into a new world of the Vietnam War, civil rights, social challenges and the unknown.

Campus administrators could do well by dusting off that classic in the weeks and months ahead for in collegiate athletics, the times they are a changin’, too. And just like 1964, the atmosphere is both exhilarating and scary.

Conference and school leaders discuss changes on a daily basis after last month’s NCAA Convention that took significant steps to modify how collegiate athletics will work in the future. While all conventions make a mark, this one was historic.

Why should you care? That’s a fair question as hopefully the fan in the stands won’t notice much, if any, difference on game day. We already knew that there will be a “Power 5” conference arrangement with members of those conferences—SEC, Big 12, Big 10, ACC and Pac-12—allowed to operate under some different rules than other NCAA members.

And there-in lies the rub.

Will some of these new policies push Power 5 leagues to further redefine the term amateurism or will schools such as Vanderbilt that have long embraced academics-first philosophies manage to steer discussion to more sane waters?

Under the umbrella of student welfare, the NCAA expanded financial aid to the “cost of attendance”, a complicated figure to ascertain but certainly one beyond the long accepted books, board and tuition. The cost of attendance is determined by each school’s administration and refers to all students, not just student-athletes. Power 5 members are wrestling with how to afford expanded meal plans so that no studentathlete would ever go to bed hungry. (This writer has never noticed signs of malnutrition among college athletes.)

We have an arms race over various issues that could impact recruiting, the meal plan being one example. Escalating salaries appear mindboggling to the average fan but they are essential to keeping top staff.

Network television has dictated when games begin for years. Oh the times they are a changin’.

When I began in athletics, the times were also changin’ but I didn’t know any different. It all felt spectacular to me. Women’s athletics were phasing out the old AIAW organization and moving to the NCAA model, much to the dismay of long-time AIAW proponents who feared women’s sports were about to become just like men’s sports. (They did.) There were veteran athletic administrators—all male and all white by the way—that were set in their ways and to make headway, young turks had to work around them. They seemed like dinosaurs, clinging to outdated policies and procedures.

I think about those long-ago times, when I vowed never to fear change or be the old codger worried about tomorrow. So it is with that spirit that I look optimistically at the future of collegiate athletics, believing that its bedrock values of academics, competition and fair play will remain the cornerstone of its brave new world. n

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My Game

Jennifer Edobi

B

arely into her second semester at Vanderbilt, freshman Jennifer Edobi has already shown flashes of brilliance on the track. She ranks second on the school’s all-time indoor track performers list in the 400 meters and third on the 4x400 relay. The medicine, health and society major also plays the guitar and sings at her church back home in Union, N.J. She has dual citizenship in Nigeria, where both her parents were born. In 2003, when she was seven, she and her three brothers went to Nigeria and lived with their aunt for four years.

CN: How was your experience of living in Nigeria for four years?

Jennifer Edobi: It was fun. It is different because we went when we were younger so we appreciated it more. We had large families, lot of cousins.

It felt like home. We really didn’t miss that much. This was the first time (in Nigeria). We cried the first day and then we just got used it. It was like, ‘OK. This is normal.’ It was fun.

CN: Do you have a lot of family over in Nigeria?

Jennifer Edobi: Yeah, definitely. A lot of them stayed in Lagos. A lot of them stayed in the village (Egbuoma, where her parents are from). A lot of them stayed in Warri. My aunt had three kids and then my aunts and uncles also stayed with us. We were basically 13 in one house. It was a big family.

CN: You’re a medicine, health and society major. Any particular reason why?

Jennifer Edobi: My dad is a nurse and my mom is a nurse, too. I’ve always wanted to be a doctor since I was little because I love math and science. I wanted to help people and make a difference.

CN: You play the guitar and sing with your brother, Kris (14), at your church back home?

Jennifer Edobi: My brother is too shy so he only sings and plays with me at home. Then I’d sing special numbers at church. But then he would only sing with me when I’m at home in our room if we’re bored. Hopefully he gets brave enough to sing. He can sing. He has a nice voice. Whenever I sing, I feel like I’m filled with (the Lord’s) presence so I just love to sing. It is a feeling you only get when you praise God. CN: When did you start playing the guitar and how did you pick you it up?

When I was 14. Someone in our church group literally gave me his guitar and started teaching me how to play. He made me keep his guitar. I learned it in a month or so and that is how I started playing. Even though I don’t play it a lot here at school I feel like I can jump right in when I go back home. It is part of me now. n

CN: Being there for four years, what did you learn about Nigerian culture?

Jennifer Edobi: My brothers and I got to learn the language (Edo) because they spoke it to us and we picked up on it. We learned how to eat a lot of Nigerian food. We got used to it and brought it back here, too, and continue to eat here in America (including garri, a mash made from an African shrub). We learned a lot of norms—how they dress, how they eat, how they talk.

CN: So it was a pretty eye-opening experience?

Jennifer Edobi: Yeah, I’m definitely glad I went. I wouldn’t have known a lot about Nigeria if I didn’t go. What is a better way to know about it unless you go over there? I think it made me more grounded. I’m not quiet but I’m just calm. We went to church a lot with my family back in Nigeria and that introduced me to knowing about Jesus and God. And knowing a lot more about where I came from just makes me want to be grounded with where I am and not forget where I started. Knowing where I came from is something I’m proud of that I got to know.

CN: This past summer you had a chance to represent your African heritage, by running in the 800 and 4x400 relay for Nigeria in the IAAF World Junior Championships in Eugene, Ore., this past summer. What was that experience like for you?

Jennifer Edobi: Hanging out with people from your country was like a taste of home again. We were there for 10 days. It was really fun. They became your family after a couple days. It was life-changing. It was a new experience and a lot of talent out there. The fact they wanted us on their team was just surprising and amazing at the same time. I’m glad I did it. It was a taste of reality (with all the talent at the meet). It made me want to work even harder to be just as good or even better.

Januar y/Febr uar y 2015

JOE HOWELL

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