May 2015 Commodore Nation

May 2015

FIGHT DORES! Commodores capture first women’s tennis national title

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CONTENTS P.8

P.16

P.18

National champs

’Dores go global

Coach’s Handbook

For the first time in program history, the Vanderbilt women’s tennis team won the NCAA National Championship.

This summer, more than 20 student-athletes are traveling the world through study abroad programs or service trips.

New soccer coach Darren Ambrose has a history of balancing both academics and athletics at the highest level.

P.2 Compliance Corner

P.3 National Commodore Club

P.7 P.12 Spring in their step After sitting out last season, the Commodores’ Philip Pfeifer, Matthias Schwab and Astra Sharma have bounced back to lead their teams this year.

Inside McGugin

P.21 VU From Here

P.24 My Game Vanderbilt outfielder Rhett Wiseman has flexed his muscle this year at the plate, but when not on the diamond the junior enjoys deep sea fishing.

Fontelle Sutherland

P.23 SEC Professor of the Year Isabel Gauthier

P.23 It’s my turn

Rod Williamson’s monthly column

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COMPLIANCE

Publisher: Vanderbilt University Editor-in-Chief: Jerome Boettcher

Designer: Keith Wood Director of Communications: Rod Williamson

Photography:

Daniel Dubois Steve Green Joe Howell Anne Rayner John Russell Susan Urmy Bob Stowell

Contributors: Brandon Barca Andy Boggs Frederick Breedon David Dawson Larry Leathers George Midgett Kyle Parkinson Emily Sane Ryan Schulz

Administrative

CORNER

Compliance requires constant vigilance on the part of all of us who are associated with Vanderbilt University, and knowledge is the first step toward being compliant. We are proud to have your loyal support, dedication and enthusiasm for Vanderbilt athletics. As we strive for continued excellence, we will always seek the highest standard of ethical conduct.

With your assistance, we are confident we can continue to meet this goal.

Remember, compliance is everyone’s responsibility.

Anchor Down, David Williams, II Athletic Director

Chancellor: Nicholas S. Zeppos

Director of Athletics: David Williams II

Vice Chancellor for Public Affairs: Beth Fortune

Vanderbilt University Student Athletics’ Mission Statement We prepare student-athletes to become leaders and champions in life by placing the highest values on integrity, character, sportsmanship and victory.

Vanderbilt University is an equal-opportunity, affirmative-action university.

ON THE COVER: Astra Sharma is congratulated by her teammates after winning 2015 NCAA Women’s Tennis National Championship (Photo by Brendan Maloney) POSTMASTER: Please send address changes to National Commodore Club, 2601 Jess Neely Drive, Nashville, TN 37212.

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Compliance questions? Please contact: Candice Lee Director of Compliance 615/322-7992 candice.lee@vanderbilt.edu John Peach Assistant Director of Compliance 615/343-1060 john.w.peach@vanderbilt.edu George Midgett Assistant Director of Compliance 615/322-2083 george.d.midgett@vanderbilt.edu

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Inside McGugin

By The Numbers

Notes from the athletic department

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Number of consecutive rounds senior golfer and SEC player of the Year Hunter Stewart played par or better heading into the NCAA Regional.

T

hree Vanderbilt upperclassmen collected the league’s highest honor in their respective sports after superb final collegiate seasons. On the tennis court, Gonzales “AJ” Austin was named the SEC Player of the Year. Less than a month later, men’s golfer Hunter Stewart was also named the SEC Player of the Year. And Vanderbilt ace Carson Fulmer was named SEC Pitcher of the Year. Austin and Stewart are the first SEC Player of the Year tandem for the Commodores since Derrick Byars (basketball) and David Price (baseball) in 2007. l Seniors John Ewing (cross country) and Chrissy Oberg (swimming) were nominated for the H. Boyd McWhorter Scholar-Athlete Post-Graduate Scholarship. The scholarship has been presented by the Southeastern Conference since 1986 to the league’s top male and female scholar-athletes.

Ewing, a chemical engineering major, will attend Vanderbilt School of Medicine in the fall. Oberg is a double major in American History and Political Science and plans to attend the University of Virginia Law School.

27 Vanderbilt senior Chrrisy Oberg was nominated for the H. Boyd McWhorter Scholar-Athlete Post-Graduate Scholarship in April.

l Seniors James Siakam (basketball) and Irina Gabasa (golf) were Vanderbilt’s recipients of the Brad Davis SEC Award. The SEC Community Service Post Graduate Scholarship is named after former SEC associate commissioner Brad Davis, who died of cancer in 2006. Siakam and Gabasa will each receive $5,000 post-graduate scholarships provided by the SEC. Gabasa and Siakam were also named to the SEC Community Service teams in their respective sports, along with Carson Jacobs. n

Number of Vanderbilt student-athletes named to the 2014–15 Winter SEC Academic Honor Roll, with men’s basketball, women’s basketball, bowling and swimming represented.

Calendar

May/June Events

June 13–24 Battling for Omaha The defending national champs will try to get back to the College World Series in Omaha, Neb., for the second straight year and third time in five years.

May 29–June 3 Golf shoots high at NCAA Championships The fifth-ranked men’s golf team will try to reach its second straight NCAA Men’s Golf Championship in Bradenton, Fla., and just the fifth in program history. The Commodores tied for second at the SEC Championships—their highest finish ever.

June 10–13 Jumping high at nationals The women’s track team hopes to send several student-athletes to the NCAA Outdoor Track & Field Championships in Eugene, Ore., for the second straight year. Sophomore Simone Charley finished ninth in the triple jump last year, earning Second Team All-American honors.

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GOLDEN CROWN Commodores win first women’s tennis national championship

by Jerome Boettcher

The 2015 NCAA Women’s Tennis National Champions (from left to right): Marie Casares, Ellie Yates, Georgina Sellyn, Maggie Leavell, Astra Sharma, Frances Altick, Ashleigh Antal, Sydney Cambell and Courtney Colton. Not pictured: Payton Robinette. The 10-member team won its last 10 matches to win the program’s first national championship.

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BRENDAN MALONEY

BRENDAN MALONEY

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n 2001, the women’s tennis team reached the national championship match for the first time. It was unchartered territory for not only the women’s tennis team but for any Vanderbilt athletic program. In 110 years of athletics, no Commodore team had played for a national championship.

Looking back, head coach Geoff Macdonald called it a “Magical Mystery Tour” as his team was thrilled to be playing on that stage, ultimately falling to powerhouse Stanford.

Fourteen years later, Macdonald believed his current Commodore squad was more prepared for the bright lights. They had played two of the top three teams in the country in the regular season, knocked off No. 5 Florida three times and won the SEC Tournament championship for the first time in program history.

So when they were back in the final match on May 19, 2015, the Commodores delivered with a 4-2 victory over UCLA in Waco, Texas to win the program’s first national championship. It is Vanderbilt’s second national championship in as many years and third overall, with all three coming in the last decade as they join bowling (2007) and baseball (2015).

“I’m rarely at a loss for words, but I am right now. It is a dream come true,” said Macdonald, the

longest tenured coach at Vanderbilt. “It is such an elusive, difficult thing to accomplish… The great thing in this job is the relationships you form with just incredible young people. I’m just privileged to be with them and drive them around in a van.”

The 10-member team that spans four continents and five states brought back another trophy to West End, and Macdonald sealed his legacy as one of the best coaches in Commodore history. In 21 years, he has led the team to all 21 NCAA Tournaments in program history, reached 15 Sweet

16s, one Elite Eight, three Final Fours, two title matches and one national championship.

Macdonald was named the ITA National Coach of the Year and the SEC Coach of the Year, and associate head coach and former VU standout Aleke Tsoubanos was named the ITA National Assistant Coach of the Year.

A team that was 4-4 on Feb. 15, hit its stride come SEC play, winning 21 of their last 23 matches. They knocked off perennial powers Florida and Georgia to win the SEC Tournament

and didn’t lose a match in the NCAA Tournament until the Elite Eight, where they rallied to beat Florida for a third time.

They then upset No. 1 USC in straight sets and fended off defending champ UCLA in a grueling and well-played national championship match.

Australian Astra Sharma, who was named the MVP of both the SEC and NCAA Tournament, clinched the winning point for the third straight match and let out an emphatic yell and fist pump as she was mobbed by her teammates. ■

BRENDAN MALONEY

Frances Altick, center, jumps into the arms of Astra Sharma after Vanderbilt clinched the winning point to claim the 2015 NCAA Women’s Tennis Championship for the program’s first national title.

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Comeback ’Dores: Trio returns after year off

by Jerome Boettcher

P

hilip Pfeifer didn’t pick up a baseball for a year. Matthias Schwab nearly went that long without swinging a club. Watching tennis put Astra Sharma into tears.

The 2013–14 school year was physically and emotionally painful for three Commodores as they had to sit out while their teammates played on.

But all three displayed tremendous self-drive and were aided by multiple coaches and support systems around them to bounce back even stronger.

As the women’s tennis, men’s golf and baseball teams make deep runs into the NCAA postseason, all three players have returned and played essential roles in their teams’ success.

BRENDAN MALONEY

Watching from sidelines motivates Sharma Raw and undercooked.

That’s how Astra Sharma felt watching from the sidelines, a year away from the sport she had been playing since she began running around in her nappies (Australian for diapers) with a racquet.

She felt rust building up—along with concern.

She was supposed to be out there on the hard courts, racquet in hand, helping her teammates battle the toughest teams in the Southeastern Conference and make deep runs in the NCAA Tournament.

Instead, her first year on a college campus featured just one doubles match and a couple singles matches. After one set, it became visibly apparent she was still far off from complete recovery when the swelling “looked like I shoved a tennis ball in my wrist.”

She took a redshirt year and watched as her

teammates celebrated a trip to the Sweet 16.

She wondered if she would be able to experience that feeling, worried she might not be able to crack the lineup for the Commodores.

“I knew how hard everyone was training here,” she said. “I’m so raw and undercooked.

Even if I did come back, they are good players.

How could I ever get my match sharpness back?

How could I hope to be in the lineup? They’ve been doing this for so long. All this doubt was always there.”

Geoff Macdonald was less concerned.

Vanderbilt’s longtime women’s tennis coach has seen his share of injuries—along with a variety of ways players have responded. What pained Sharma so much, Macdonald actually believes aided her: she grew by watching.

She watched her teammates, charted their matches, set up cameras, analyzed video of their play. Macdonald would ask why her teammates won or lost matches, what did she pick up from that doubles match? He’d give her articles or books to read and then have a “real conversation” about the material.

Though Sharma hardly played her freshman year, Macdonald was confident enough in what he had seen from recruiting the Australia native that her physical game didn’t worry him. He grew extremely encouraged as he got to work with Sharma during her year off. Her respect for the mental game and her grasp of techniques and tactics impressed him. He said it was rare for someone that young to be that in tune mentally.

“I had faith that things would work out,” Mac-

Astra Sharma played just three matches during the 2013-14 season due to a wrist injury that led to “pain and tears.”

A year later she was mobbed by her teammates as she clinched the 2014 NCAA Women’s Tennis Championship.

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donald said. “I think she learned a lot last year by watching. You can be hurt, mope around, feel sorry for yourself and shot down or you can say what is the single best thing I can do here?

And that’s learn. Watch what goes on in a match from an observer’s point of view, which is hard to do when you’re playing. I think it helped her see tennis in a new light.

“It was extraordinary. It made me think, ‘OK, as soon as she’s healthy she is going to be fine.’”

Self-confidence has replaced doubt for Sharma, who has risen all the way to No. 2 singles on the team and thrived during her redshirt freshman season.

Last month, she played no small part in the Commodores winning their first Southeastern Conference Tournament championship in program history.

Sharma went undefeated in singles and doubles play in the tournament, earning SEC Tournament MVP honors along with First Team All-SEC accolades. She locked up Vanderbilt’s spot in the title game against Georgia after delivering the game-winning point in the semifinals against Florida’s Josie Kuhlman, ranked 10th in the country.

“When we won SECs, I could not stop smiling all of Monday,” Sharma said. “I literally walked to class with a grin on my face, eating lunch with a grin on my face. My cheeks are hurting because I’ve been smiling so much. I had to use my hands to massage down my face.”

Stark contrast from a year ago when tears rolled downs her cheeks.

Overuse was the culprit for Sharma’s injured wrist. Two years ago, just months before she arrived at Vanderbilt, she spent a couple hours a day back home training in Perth, Australia, hitting back and forth against a wall. The constant repetition caused a torn ligament in her wrist.

Once the ligament healed, tendonitis crept in and when one muscle healed another ached.

The injury wasn’t severe enough to warrant surgery so Sharma played the waiting game, which lasted nearly a year, much longer than she imagined.

“I’m pretty dependent on playing tennis,” she said. “It is such a big part of my life, to be sidetracked for a whole year and not knowing how long it was going to take… No one actually gave us a timeline. It is going to be three months. Wait and see, wait and see, wait and see until the pain stops. It was so frustrating.”

Throwing in the towel, calling it quits and heading back home was tempting for Sharma.

She often found herself sobbing during

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trained really, really hard. Whenever there was an opportunity to come out for individuals, I would be on it… as well as for myself but also to pay back Coach for how much he has done for me—his patience and belief in me. I wanted to do this. I wasn’t thinking I want to play No. 1 or I want to play No. 2 but I was almost like, ‘I want to get better. I want to show myself I can do this and I deserve to be here.’”

JOE HOWELL

phone conversations to her parents thousands of miles away back home in Perth, Australia.

One day, volunteer assistant coach David Thornton asked her about her wrist and, much to her surprise, she spent the next three hours crying.

“No one, not even myself, knew how painful it was until David actually said that,” she said. “I had been balling it up the entire year.”

She started meeting with Thornton every week just to talk. Macdonald and associate head coach Aleke Tsoubanos kept her involved with the team, made sure the mental aspect stayed sharp. Her parents offered words of encouragement from afar, sent prayers her way. Her teammates stayed supportive, but Sharma admits it was bittersweet watching them.

Then Macdonald sent Sharma and teammate Frances Altick over to France for some summer tennis. Sharma competed in several tournaments, open to just about anyone, regardless of skill level. World-class talent one day, someone you’d see at a city park the next.

The results varied for Sharma. She started off slow, losing to one stalky lady who, “hit the slice and made me look ridiculous.” But by the end, she was improving even if the results weren’t completely there.

“It is definitely good to get all the bad stuff out of the way and come into this season a bit more seasoned,” she said.

In the fall, Macdonald saw steady improvement as Sharma worked her way into the lineup. She impressed her head coach with a defiant work ethic and she showed promise at No. 5 singles.

Then came the Miami Invitational, which both agreed was a turning point. Sharma lost in straight sets to a player from Miami in a match both coach and pupil thought was a poor outing. Macdonald saw some signs that Sharma was reverting back to her old ways, symptoms she showed earlier in the year and in the summer. Not 10 minutes after the match ended, Sharma approached Macdonald and said she knew what she did wrong and planned to make adjustments.

“From then on she really hasn’t looked back,” he said. “She got a lot of confidence at national team indoors. She had a lot of confidence going out to California. She beat good players at USC and Stanford. She is a joy to watch. She is certainly a joy to catch. She has been a real key to our success this year.”

Then she made her SEC debut against Mississippi State at the No. 1 singles spot, filling in for injured teammate Sydney Campbell. She won in straight sets and helped the Commodores win their league opener 4-3.

Redshirt freshman Astra Sharma returned after missing her first season on campus due to a wrist injury. The Australian native was named the SEC Tournament MVP and helped the team win a national championship.

She gained even more confidence by beating Florida’s Kuhlman in the regular season (she would defeat her again in the SEC Tournament).

She clinched the victory for the Commodores, handing No. 8 Florida its first SEC loss.

Four weeks after the historic SEC Tournament win, the Commodores were again celebrating —this time after winning the program’s first national championship. And Sharma wasn’t an observer, she was in the middle of it all as NCAA Tournament MVP. She clinched the winning points of the team’s last three matches, including a 4-2 win over defending champ UCLA to claim the crown.

“It was just that feeling of being on a team, it spurred me to do well,” she said. “I just

Pfeifer climbs back on the mound The visits were never long.

Philip Pfeifer would pop in, plop in the chair, catch up and within minutes he’d say goodbye and be on his way.

Vanderbilt baseball coach Tim Corbin loved the impromptu conversations. He appreciated that Pfeifer, even though he had been dismissed from the team for the 2014 season due to violating team rules, still swung by to check in.

One particular visit really stuck out to Corbin, though. It was after the Commodores had returned from Omaha with a national championship. Before Pfeifer left Corbin’s office, he turned to his coach and gave him an update.

“He said, ‘I just want you to know I’m in a really good place right now, doing well academically and I’m going to finish (school),’” Corbin recalled. “‘I’d love to play baseball again, but I’m not going to ask you to play baseball again.

I know that if you feel that it is right, you’ll approach me.’ And I said, ‘Yes, sir. I will.’ I left it at that. Thank goodness it all worked out for he and our team.”

Pfeifer graduated with a degree in philosophy this semester. The quirky, left-handed pitcher also stepped back onto the mound in a Commodores’ uniform for the first time since the NCAA Regional in 2013. By the end of April, the team leader in saves was thrust into the starting rotation.

But if baseball hadn’t been stripped from him, he’s not sure if he would have reached this point.

“Spending time away from the game was probably the biggest thing for me,” Pfeifer said.

“Corbs told me last year to just use my time to straighten myself out and get school right and become comfortable in my own skin. Not having my vice (baseball) or at least the thing that made me think it was all OK—not having that was the wakeup call, the motivation, I suppose.”

Early in the fall of 2013, Corbin dismissed

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“You don’t want to cut a kid off of an opportunity or kill his spirit because of a mistake,” Corbin said. “I think it is what they do after the mistake that counts. They can make a couple mistakes as long as they’re not life-threatening. You can try to work through it and live through it. That’s what we did. Phil’s mistakes were more detrimental to himself more than anything else.

“I just want to see him through those and help him first in his life as much as I could from my mentorship or my position. My position is that of a teacher and a coach. My goal was just to help him out personally. Whether baseball

JOHN RUSSELL

Pfeifer from the team. Though heartbroken, Pfeifer accepted his coach’s decision.

“I put myself in various positions where it was incredibly unhealthy for me,” he said of why he was dismissed. “It was about strike three. Corbs decided to work with me. I was fortunate enough to have a coach who cared.”

The recovery process wasn’t easy.

Pfeifer didn’t touch a baseball for 12 months.

He still went to games to root on his teammates.

He even drove up to Omaha for a game during the College World Series. But being back in Nashville, watching his teammates celebrate winning a national championship without him was obviously bittersweet.

“Talk about winning a national championship and not being part of that year—that was tough,” he said. “Guys from my draft class that ended up leaving and I wasn’t able to spend their last season with them. That was probably my biggest disappointment was not being able to be there with them.”

In the meantime, Pfeifer was determined to get his life back on track.

While he focused on his classes—he was named to the 2014 SEC Spring Academic Honor Roll—he also felt overwhelming support from those around him. His parents, Phil and Janet, drove down I-40 from Farragut, Tenn., every other weekend to visit.

“Having two parents that supported me like they did was huge,” he said. “I don’t think I would be here without them.”

Pfeifer also met with the athletic department’s sports psychologist, Vicki Woosley, once a week. He first met Woosley his freshman year when he started to fall into trouble. But back then, just a 19-year-old kid, he wasn’t that receptive to what she had to say.

He began to listen last year, and found that she was all ears, too.

“Just having somebody older to talk to— those people have experience,” he said. “If you can learn from other people’s experiences then you can save yourself a lot of trouble. She kind of helped guide me and helped me deal with my frustrations with not being able to play. I was frustrated. I won’t lie. I was pretty frustrated. I really missed it. But she helped me stay patient.”

Then there was Corbin.

Pfeifer might not have been on the team, but by no means did that mean he was out of the family. Corbin and his wife, Maggie, met with Pfeifer several times throughout the year for dinner.

They wanted to know he was doing OK. This was way bigger than baseball.

Philip Pfeifer missed the 2014 season due to a violation of team rules. But thanks to help from his parents, coach Tim Corbin and sports psychologist Vicki Woosley he is back on the baseball team and graduated in May.

or academics at that point at Vanderbilt were going to happen again I didn’t know that. But I at least wanted to make sure we helped him move along.”

Today, Corbin sees a different Philip Pfeifer. He sees a bright-eyed, intelligent, mature 22-yearold who has his life in order and is comfortable in his own skin.

He also sees an experienced pitcher who is capitalizing on his second chance.

“I have a better heartbeat on the field,” Pfeifer admits. “I’m a little bit more in the moment. And I’m not taking it for granted, man. This whole year has been a year of free baseball for me so I’m trying to take advantage of it. (But) it’s not all about baseball. Yeah, my play on the field has probably received some benefit. But I’m a better son today. I’m a better student. I’m a better teammate. I take pride in being able to show up every day, being the same person I was the day before.”

Summer free sparks Schwab For the first time in memory, the golf course was off limits for Matthias Schwab.

So with unprecedented free time, Schwab took advantage of the summer months before his sophomore year at Vanderbilt.

He went hiking with his brother, and there were plenty of trails to trot, with the Austrian Alps mountain range surrounding the Schwabs’ home in Rohrmoos, Austria. He hung out with friends he normally doesn’t see in the summer as he often is playing golf throughout Europe. Instead, he took in the sights and went on vacation in Italy.

“It was a different summer for me,” Schwab said. “It was nice to be able to step away and spend the summer doing basically what I wanted to do. (But) I would have rather played golf.”

Two stress fractures in his lumbar vertebrae in his back kept him away from the links for 11 months. His freshman season was cut short, his sophomore campaign started late and the summer off in between just served as motivation.

“I wouldn’t say there was doubt,” Schwab said.

“At some points, I was thinking to myself, ‘What if I’m not able to fully recover?’ But I always knew and I always had the confidence that if somehow I’m getting back to play that I’ll come back better than I was before.”

Schwab has lived up to his promise.

He returned to the course in February, and has gradually improved each time out. In four of his last five tournaments, he finished in the top five. He tied for medalist honors with teammate Hunter Stewart at the Mason Rudolph Championship, helping the Commodores win their home invitational for the second straight year.

A month later, he led the charge at an NCAA Regional by tying for second as the team placed fourth—earning a spot in the NCAA Champion-

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STEVEN COLQUIT T

ships for the second straight year. Two weeks before being named to the All-SEC First Team (he earned All-SEC Freshman honors in 2014), he was selected to play for the European team in the Palmer Cup in June. Similar to the Ryder Cup, the Palmer Cup pits the top 10 American collegiate golfers (which includes Stewart) against the top 10 European collegiate golfers.

“It definitely feels good,” Schwab said of his comeback. “In the fall, when I was out I was a little separated from the team. I wasn’t really able to play or even practice with them. It is really cool to be back, spend more time with my teammates on the course and in practice. It is really nice to be part of it.”

Three years ago, Schwab wasn’t sure how he fit into the Commodores’ plans.

He had committed to golf at Vanderbilt but that was while he was being recruited by previous coach Tom Shaw.

Schwab was ranked sixth in the World Amateur Golf rankings and the second-highest European. But he was concerned he’d have to win over a new coach. Instead, coach Scott Limbaugh won him over.

He flew across the ocean, watched Schwab play in the Austrian Open and then spent three days at the Schwabs’ home in Austria. He got to know Matthias, his parents, his brother, his swing coach, his therapist, his trainer. They hiked up the mountain together.

“That was a really nice experience for me and really nice to see that this guy really cares about me coming a part of the Vandy golf team,” Schwab said. “That meant a lot to me for sure.

When he came over, I was really encouraged after meeting him. He is a really nice guy, really energetic. I liked him from the starting point.”

That relationship only grew stronger last year when Schwab’s season was cut short.

Last summer, when Schwab stayed at home in Austria, Limbaugh constantly texted, emailed and even video chatted over Skype to check in and see how Schwab was feeling.

“He has been a big part of the whole recovery and my whole comeback,” he said. “He is my biggest supporter here in the states I would say.

Thanks to him, I’m still here.”

After the Querrencia Cabo Intercollegiate in Los Cabos, Mexico on March 4, 2014, Schwab felt extreme discomfort in his back. His freshman season abruptly came to an end, with stress fractures in his L-4 and L-5 vertebraes. He had suffered a back injury in 2009 that put him out for four months, and now the aches and pain had crept back in.

As he grew older and delved into more competitive golf circuits in Europe, the amount of rounds he played mounted. Schwab believes overuse and poor core and back strength led

Matthias Schwab’s freshman season ended prematurely after he suffered stress fractures in his back. After nearly 11 months away from golf, he has returned to help lead the Commodores into the NCAA Championship. He was named First Team All-SEC and tied for second at the NCAA Regional.

to injury. The rest of his freshman semester, he rested up, choosing to avoid surgery. In the summer months, he underwent therapy and used daily exercises to help his core muscles. But the progress was slow and tedious.

“It got boring,” he said. “At points, it was frustrating, too, because sometimes I just wasn’t making progress.”

When Schwab returned to Nashville for his sophomore year, Limbaugh was waiting for him with a plan. Limbaugh had talked to Ben Crane, a veteran golfer on the PGA Tour who has experienced back issues throughout his career.

Crane recommended Schwab see his physical therapist Tom Boers, who has worked with the likes of Phil Mickelson, Davis Love III, Fred Couples and Greg Norman.

Limbaugh and Schwab hopped in the car and drove two and half hours south to Boers’s office in Dalton, Ga. This was the first of six trips to visit Boers with Limbaugh or assistant coach Dusty Smith. One time, Boers just spent an afternoon on the golf course observing Schwab and watching his swing. Boers suggested exercises for Schwab to strengthen his back. He offered tips to better his posture. He noticed bad habits Schwab fell into. He recommended Schwab use a push cart instead of carrying his clubs over his shoulder.

“The way I was standing and the way I was addressing the ball wasn’t very protective for my back,” Schwab said. “He helped me with the

whole deal. Not only exercises for my swing— even normal, everyday movements you make, he helped me to protect my back better. He played a big role in getting me back on the course.”

Schwab took it easy in the fall. When the team worked out in the weight room at 6 a.m. on Mondays and Wednesdays, he rode the stationary bike. He did minimal chipping and putting work.

He was cleared to play in his first tournament—the Gator Invitational in February. The first day would provide a good test for his back—36 holes. He trudged through 54 holes in two days and tied for 29th for the second-highest finish on the team. His first tournament back proved to be a huge step in the right direction.

“I think the point that was really encouraging was when I was able to hit full swings without having to think about my back,” he said. “I feel like the first tournament was the turning point. It showed me I’m basically back without any issues.”

Schwab has showed his competition he is back, too. Heading into the NCAA Championships, he ranked second on the team with top 10 finishes and stroke average.

And that’s just in three months of work.

Schwab’s eager about the future, especially since he is back in the full swing of things.

“I still think I have a lot of potential,” he said.

“There are still some times on the course where I don’t feel super comfortable, probably because I’m still a little rusty. I’m definitely getting back and I’m feeling really good about my game.” ■

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’Dores to span globe this summer Study abroad, service trip provides opportunity to travel, give back

by Jerome Boettcher

B

Hannah Jumper of the cross country team, right, and Gabby Nesi, middle, of the lacrosse team, size a young child for a pair of shoes while on a service trip in Costa Rica with Soles4Souls in December.

JEROME BOET TCHER

etween a service trip with Soles4Souls and Vanderbilt’s study abroad program, more than 20 student-athletes will be partaking in international experiences.

For the third time, Vanderbilt is partnering up with Nashville-based Soles4Souls for an international service trip. This time, 10 students from the bowling, lacrosse, men’s cross country, soccer, swimming and women’s tennis teams will head to Cuba in July to deliver shoes to those in need. Thirteen Commodores ventured to Costa Rica in December and 21 students went on the athletic department’s first international service trip to Tanzania in July 2013.

More than a dozen student-athletes will participate in Vanderbilt’s study abroad program. Athletes from the football, lacrosse, men’s cross country, men’s tennis, soccer, swimming, women’s basketball and women’s tennis teams will travel to Australia, Ireland, London, New Zealand, Sicily and South Africa.

In addition, the women’s golf team will tour Ireland for eight days this June, learning Irish history and seeing famous sights while also playing some of the world’s finest courses and competing against Ireland’s national team. ■

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Coach’s Handbook: Women’s soccer coach Darren Ambrose With the spring season under his belt, new Vanderbilt soccer coach Darren Ambrose is settling into his new city and preparing for his first season with the Commodores.

Born in Sheffield, England, Ambrose spent the last 15 years at the University of Pennsylvania, where he coached the Quakers to three Ivy League championships and NCAA Tournaments and was the all-time winningest coach in program history. His wife, Sherry, and daughters, Madison (15) and Ainsley (11) are making the move from Philadelphia and joining him in Nashville in June.

Commodore Nation: How was the transition when you left England to come over to play soccer?

Darren Ambrose: Growing up as a kid, I always wanted to come to the U.S. Back in the early 80s the vision of the U.S. was the Promised Land. All those things you hear about the U.S. outside of the U.S. I got a little bit of a fascination with it… I was a really good player in England for my age and was playing at a pretty good level. Like every kid I had aspirations to be a professional but also my academics were really crucial to me. I found, through various contacts, the opportunity to go to the U.S., go to college and play soccer. It meshed all three things that were important to me. So I jumped at the opportunity when it presented itself to come over. I’ll never forget the day I left Heathrow Airport, leaving my family for the first time.

I had just turned 18. It was a moment in my life I’ll never forget for all the good reasons and all the sad reasons. It was something I wanted to do and I was really excited about the opportunity.

CN: Soccer was ingrained in you right away?

Ambrose: Soccer was something that was in the culture. It is like every kid who goes out and plays basketball here. There is a hoop everywhere.

It is the same thing in England. You had a ball at every break at school.

We played every sport as a kid. I think that is another thing different here now. Kids specialize at nine years old. I was still playing cricket, soccer and

Darren Ambrose begins his first season as Vanderbilt’s head soccer coach this August after he spent the last 15 years at the University of Pennsylvania.

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May 2015

rugby all the way through until I was 16 years old. I played all three sports pretty much all the way through high school. Soccer was the one that was obviously my first love. But I actually gave it up for a year and just played rugby. I felt a little bit of a pressure. It was getting to the end of the tenure with Sheffield United and the decision was coming whether to try to turn professional or not. I wanted school, and I didn’t feel like it was a good fit. I kind of moved away from it for a little while—from the higher level.

I played pub football on Sunday, which is really a bunch of old guys getting together. But that reignited the passion in me and I got back into it.

I played for fun. We talk about it with the kids all the time—it’s got to be fun. I played for fun and really ignited it in me again.

CN: You were the Division II National Player of the Year at USC-Spartanburg and an Academic All-American in the same year. That balance of athletics and academics is very important to you and something you stress to your players?

Ambrose: I brought it up to the team in February (at the first team meeting) not to elevate myself but to show that it can be done. It requires an incredible commitment but you can’t use one as an excuse for performance in another. There are enough hours in a week to be great in all things. You can be an A student, you can focus on your studying, you can get your group work done, you can write papers. Athletically, you’re required to compete and there is a lot demanded of you. It also relates to sleep, eating right, all those things that are more and more important now. The kids that do that are the ones who are able to do both at the highest level. At the end of the day, the game is going to leave you at some point. You’re going to have what we all call a ‘real job.’ Education is something that can never be taken from you. My wife is a teacher. She has an influence on my view of that, too. There is a quote that I absolutely believe in—You will be the same person in five years as you are today except for the people you meet and the books you read. Essentially what they’re saying is surround yourself with good people and read a lot. That is the way you’ll continue to further your growth.

CN: That philosophy is why you’re here at Vanderbilt and why you spent 15 years at a prestigious institution such as Penn?

Ambrose: Exactly right. I saw the benefits of it at Penn. Like-minded people want to be around like-minded people. Those people affect each other. I just think when you’ve got people that want academics to be important in their life, and are motivated to be successful, it is good to be around people with a similar mindset. I think here is place where you can do that. You don’t have to sacrifice anything. You don’t have to be on a weaker athletic program. That goes back to what I said, If you can be great at both why not?

CN: The success you sustained at Penn (zero losing seasons in 15 years, almost 10 wins a year) you believe you can do that here at Vanderbilt?

Ambrose: Absolutely, I do. I think we can go a little further than we could at Penn with the (scholarship) restrictions in the Ivy League that we had.

Again, (Vanderbilt students have) got that academic focus, they’re good students and the family supports the academic drive their students have and sees the value of it, then, yeah, we can recruit those kids here and give them the experience athletically they’re looking for. So when their four years of athletic competition is over, that they have a degree in their back pocket. It is not just the degree; it is how the degree works. It is not just the knowledge. It is the link to alumni, to the like-minded people. ■

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May 2015

THE VU From Here

by Jerome Boettcher “Through and through Commodores.”

That’s how Dr. James Threlkel describes he and his wife, Eleanor Walker Threlkel. And it’s hard to disagree with that assessment.

The couple met at Vanderbilt and graduated from the school in 1960. James graduated from Vanderbilt School of Medicine in 1963 and then returned as a surgical resident, finishing up in 1972.

In fact, James and Eleanor Threlkel’s wedding on June 4, 1960 is believed to be the first in historic Benton Chapel on campus. Their children were brought up around Vanderbilt.

“Ellie and I are truly of Vanderbilt,” James said. “We are through and through Commodores.”

That’s extended to the athletic realm.

“The only entertainment we could afford was Vandy student and then faculty athletic tickets,” he said. “We yelled through years of Memorial Magic… and years and years of tears at Dudley Field.”

They rooted on the Commodores as they defeated three stalwart foes from the same state—North Carolina, Davidson and Duke—in one week at Memorial Gym. They ventured to Lexington, Ky., and nearly witnessed Clyde Lee and the Commodores nearly knock off Cazzie Russell and Michigan in the Mideast Regional Finals of the 1965 NCAA Tournament.

James and Eleanor Threlkel The Commodores upset No. 8 Florida 24-10 and some of the Gator fans in the group started to head for the buses early in the fourth quarter.

“The two of us stayed, cheered, relished the ‘Commode Bowl Flush’ and made them wait on the bus until the game was over,” James said. “We flew to Atlanta that night for a Falcons game. The opening line in the Atlanta Journal Constitution the next morning was ‘Things were so quiet in the Gator dressing room you could hear a dream drop.’ It should have said a dream flushed. For Commodores, it was a dream come true.”

Speaking of dreams coming true, on the top of their list of all-time Commodore memories is last year’s national championship run by the Vanderbilt baseball team. The Threlkels have season tickets at Hawkins Field and live farther away than any Vanderbilt baseball season ticket holder. In addition, since 1998, they’ve attended every College World Series. Last year’s was their 17th and obviously their most special.

“The Commodores winning the CWS and their first major national championship is the greatest Commodore experience of our 59 years as dedicated ’Dores,” James said. ■

HARPETH HALL 2015 SUMMER PROGRAMS

Big-time college sports fans—they’ve only missed four Final Fours since 1988—the Threlkels put their Commodore experiences above all else.

Early in the 1970s, the couple moved to Florida. In 1974, they returned to Vanderbilt to watch the Commodores take on the Gators. This time, though, they journeyed up with the enemy. James and another Commodore fan joined the Florida Touchdown Club, which every year would go to a Florida game on Saturday and a pro game the following Sunday. They were two Commodore fans and 78 Gators on the flight.

“We listened to them chant, ‘We are going to the Commode Bowl to flush the Commodores,’” James recalled. “It went on for the entire flight and into the evening.”

James remembers the game beginning in an odd way. For some reason, the Commodores didn’t take the field right away and were whistled twice for delay of game, pushing them back 10 yards.

The Gator fans in their section loved this and started chanting, “Flushed! Flushed!”

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Then, all of a sudden, the Commodores rushed out of the locker room, lined up, placed the ball on the tee and kicked off. And as James put it, “proceeded to kick Gator butt for the rest of the afternoon.”

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May 2015

VU’s Gauthier named SEC Professor of the Year

By David Salisbury

I

sabel Gauthier, David K. Wilson Professor of Psychology and professor of radiology and radiological sciences at Vanderbilt, has been selected as the Southeastern Conference’s Professor of the Year.

Her work at Vanderbilt has been exemplary, and she has distinguished herself as one of the most sought-after professors for Vanderbilt students of all levels.

“Dr. Isabel Gauthier is a teacher, researcher and mentor who embodies the most desirable qualities we seek in the professoriate,” Chancellor Nicholas S. Zeppos said. “She has engaged in high-quality, high-impact research and attained an international reputation for her expertise in object recognition. Her work at Vanderbilt has been exemplary, and she has distinguished herself as one of the most sought-after professors for Vanderbilt students of all levels. I am thrilled she has been named the 2015 SEC Professor of the Year.”

Zeppos is the current chair of the SEC’s presidents and chancellors.

Each year, the SEC recognizes one faculty member from each of its 14 member universities who has excelled in teaching, research and scholarship with the Faculty Achievement Award. Each award winner receives a $5,000 honorarium from the SEC. To be eligible for the award, a professor must be a teacher or scholar at an SEC university; have achieved the rank of full professor; have a record of extraordinary teaching; and have a record of scholarship that is recognized nationally and/or internationally.

“The SEC is pleased to bestow the 2015 SEC Professor of the Year award on Dr. Isabel Gauthier,” said SEC Commissioner Mike Slive.

“Her commitment to her students, to her research and to her field are virtually unmatched, and I congratulate Dr. Gauthier on this tremendous honor.”

The SEC Professor of the Year is selected from SEC Faculty Achievement Award winners, receives an additional $15,000 honorarium and is recognized at the SEC Awards Dinner in May and the SEC Symposium in September.

Gauthier’s research interests include the behavioral and neural study of visual object recognition, especially in domains of perceptual expertise such as faces, letters, musical notation, with implications for disorders likes autism and congenital face blindness. Her dissertation research demonstrated for the first time that the behavioral and neural underpinnings of perceptual expertise could be studied in the laboratory using short-term training protocols. Her work has demonstrated that the brain area which many experts thought specialized in face recognition also responds to other object categories, such as birds, planes or cars, in people who have expertise with these categories. ■

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It’s My Turn

By Rod Williamson

A

s we compose this, the 2014–15 year has been over for several weeks for many collegiate athletic programs. Plans are being made for next fall; folks are heading for the beach.

2014–15 is history.

That’s not the case for Vanderbilt, whereas our women’s tennis team just won the NCAA National Championship, the men’s golf team is preparing for the NCAA Championship and our defending national and current SEC East champion baseball team is fine tuning its game for another tournament run.

It’s been a good year for the Commodores. Let me emphasize that to those readers who get much of their information from the local sports page or talk radio and find that a surprising assessment. The media is not equipped to cover or even be particularly knowledgeable about Olympic sports, which are the vast majority of every college program.

To complete the capsule thought on those three programs—the women’s tennis team won the national championship, sweeping three foes and beating Florida for the third time. Men’s golf ended the year rated No. 5 heading into the NCAA’s with the league’s Player of the Year (Hunter Stewart). And most of you know the baseball Cliff’s Notes where Carson Fulmer and Company have been fun to watch.

To this writer, these stories reflect the essence of collegiate sports, yet with the media’s obsession on football one might think that’s the alpha and omega on a campus. Not so! That pigskin is important, of course, but over the years, its emphasis has gone over the top. Fortunes have been made by analyzing recruiting, NFL Draft scenarios and other such fluff.

The focus of the college sports world has gotten blurred.

Putting things in focus, student-athletes are first and foremost students. Did you hear at Vanderbilt student-athletes posted their all-time highest grade point average this spring at 3.16 and that no individual team was lower than a 2.95? Consider that for a moment.

Four graduating Commodores are heading into the Vanderbilt School of Medicine’s entering class, nearly 5 percent of the 88 scholars chosen from near and far. Others are going to graduate schools or quality jobs.

Of course we want to win the games because you can’t win “both ways” if you are unsuccessful in either. While we have had some years where we earned more trophies, this year we won conference titles in women’s tennis and bowling and baseball’s SEC East. We also had nationally ranked men’s tennis, women’s golf and women’s cross country teams. Many of our other sport programs showed vast improvement and promise for next year.

So we reiterate, it has been a good year for Vanderbilt athletics if one is properly grading on a college curve. One of the challenges collegiate athletics has in its near future is to get its messaging back on that scale.

We’ve had enough conversation about which school has the most expensive arena, which coach signed a massive new contract or which star athlete (not student-athlete) landed in trouble.

Roy Kramer, our former athletic director and SEC Commissioner, once said—correctly—that putting integrity into the term student-athlete would eliminate 90 percent of college athletics’ problems. It’s high time the Power 5 Conferences address that challenge. Wouldn’t that be refreshing! ■

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

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My Game

Rhett Wiseman

By Jerome Boettcher

L

at-bats, too. I’ve seen a lot of pitchers, I’ve seen a lot of pitches, had a lot of plate appearances and maturity kind of being a third-year guy. Being fortunate enough to be playing all three years it all kind of comes together.

ast year, right fielder Rhett Wiseman made arguably one of the biggest catches in Vanderbilt baseball history by robbing an extra-base hit in extra innings of an elimination game against Texas in the College World Series. This year, the junior leads the team with 12 home runs—after just three total the previous two years—and ranks second with 31 extra-base hits heading into the SEC Tournament. When not on the diamond, the Interdisciplinary Studies major from Mansfield, Mass., native, loves to head back to the Cape for deep-sea fishing.

CN: That’s how you’ve always seen yourself, right, as a power hitter?

Wiseman: Yeah, it has been there and it is frustrating being able to do it in batting practice and not bringing it out in a game. It is something I’ve been waiting to unlock. It is a guy I used to be in high school but the transition wasn’t as easy for me coming to college. Now that I’ve found it , it definitely has benefits for the team.

Commodore Nation: What was your greatest moment from last year’s College World Series and run to the national championship?

CN: What hobbies do you enjoy when you step away from baseball?

Rhett Wiseman: I think the biggest takeaway from that was that game against Texas that sent us to the national championship. The Tyler Campbell walk-off (infield single that scored Wiseman) right there at the end. It was about Tyler getting the hit. Sharing the excitement with all the other guys was so much more fulfilling than anything that one person could have done for themselves. The inner joy we felt for him was so much greater than anything else I’ve ever experienced. It was incredible.

Wiseman: I love to be outside. I like to fish. I don’t like to sit around and play video games.

I love going to restaurants, going to concerts all the time, and just getting out there and doing different stuff.

CN: Have you fished your whole life?

CN: How often have you gone back and watched your catch against Texas?

Wiseman: Not that often. The things we remember are the feelings we had. Going to Omaha is like going to Candy Land. It is pretty crazy.

But you can’t think about it too much. We are just focused on today. If you even start looking at the future today gets away from you and then you never end up getting there.

CN: With the catch, in that moment, did you sense how big of play that was?

CN: This year your numbers have been up. How do you explain the power surge?

Wiseman: I think it is maturity at the plate and adjustments in the offseason to incorporate more of my lower half in my swing and using the strong base God gave me. I’ve had a lot of college

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May 2015

JOH N RUS SEL L

Wiseman: No, I just think I was letting the body take over. You get to the point in the season you are just so mentally locked in that you’re just out there doing it. You’re not thinking about anything, you’re just reacting. It’s all reaction at that point. I think that is why we were so good. Mentally we were so prepared to be in that situation and no one’s mind was ever speeding up on them. We were totally relaxed the whole time and we just let our bodies take over and play.

Wiseman: Yep. We had a boat out on the Cape down in Onset Bay. It has been tough getting away from that. The guys from down here are, ‘Let’s go fishing.’ This isn’t fishing. You go to a pond and catch a bass this big (fingers barely apart) they think it is the coolest thing.

But I miss it. Down here it is a type of fishing. I tried fishing a lot in the Cape (while also playing baseball in the summer in the Cape Cod Baseball League) but the schedule is so tight. That is more my thing, fishing off the beach than a pond.

CN: Your mom (Stephanie) owns a dance studio and is a professional choreographer. Has she been doing that for a while?

Wiseman: Oh yeah. She has been doing that since way before I was born. She is a sick athlete, a freak athlete. She danced her whole life and she still does. She is in 10 times better shape than I am. She is a freak.

CN: So what are your dance moves like?

Wiseman: They’re terrible. I’m sorry to admit that they’re really bad.

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