May 2014 Commodore Nation

May 2014

RECALLING 2004

A decade later, looking back at banner year ALSO INSIDE: David Williams talks paying student-athletes Hendrix spends rare free time serving others

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CONTENTS P.8

P.15

Calm and collected

Ready for the launch

Shortstop Vince Conde brings a calm demeanor and baseball-loving background to the diamond.

Administrators and staff prepare for the launch of the SEC Network in three months and what it will mean for fans.

P.11 SEC champs The Vanderbilt women’s golf team won the program’s second SEC championship, and Simin Feng won top medalist.

P.12

P.2 Compliance Corner

P.3

P.16 Scottish rule Scotland native Georgina Sellyn juggles a cognitive neuroscience major while rising to the top of Vanderbilt singles.

Recalling 2004

National Commodore Club

P.18

The winter and spring months of 2004 were monumental for the Commodores’ athletic department, which had been restructured in the fall of 2003.

P.7

Amidst the NLRB’s ruling that Northwestern football players are employees, athletic director David Williams discusses compensating student-athletes.

Inside McGugin

P.21

P.19

Coach’s Handbook

Service aplenty

Women’s bowling coach John Williamson

P.23 It’s my turn Rod Williamson’s monthly column

vucommodores.com

Paying student-athletes

Forward Kendra Hendrix of the women’s soccer team spends her free time serving others and plans to join the Peace Corps in August.

P.24 My Game Senior Alyssa Dunlap enjoys deep sea fishing when she’s not playing defense for the women’s lacrosse team.

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

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By The Numbers

Inside McGugin

Notes from the athletic department

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A

Consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances by the Vanderbilt women’s bowling team.

The Commodores have reached the national championship game three times, including twice in the past three years. They won the school’s first team national championship in 2007.

thletic director David Williams and football coach Derek Mason teamed up with the YWCA of Nashville and Middle Tennessee for its “A Call to Coaches” event at Montgomery Bell Academy on April 10. Williams and Mason spoke to coaches to address their role in developing young men of character and reducing violence against women and girls. Vanderbilt was a co-sponsor of the inaugural event.

l In April, the SEC named Vanderbilt professor Dr. Sandra Rosenthal a 2014 Faculty Achievement Award winner. Rosenthal, a Jack and Pamela Egan Professor of Chemistry, was one of 14 SEC faculty members honored.

JOHN RUSSELL

l In March and April, Vanderbilt’s varsity teams joined together to raise donations for the Special Olympics of Tennessee. The teams participated in Commodores Compete for a Cause, an annual Vanderbilt athletic event in which all the teams try to raise the most for a nonprofit organization. Fourteen Vanderbilt teams combined to raise more than $6,000.

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Vanderbilt football coach Derek Mason and athletic director David Williams

To be eligible for the SEC Faculty Achievement Award, a professor must be a teacher or scholar at an SEC university.

They must also have achieved the rank of full professor at an SEC university; have a record of extraordinary teaching; and a record of scholarship that is recognized nationally and/ or internationally. n

Combined number of conference regularseason and tournament championships won

by Vanderbilt teams since 2004. The most recent came in April as the women’s golf team captured its first SEC crown in 10 years.

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Pick in the WNBA Draft used by the Minnesota Lynx to select Vanderbilt guard Christina Foggie on April 14. Foggie was the 13th Commodore to be drafted and first since 2009. Foggie left Vanderbilt as the program’s all-time leader in 3-pointers and ranked seventh all-time in scoring.

Calendar

May Events May 9-11

May 15-17

NCAA Tennis Regional The Vanderbilt men’s and women’s tennis teams hope to be playing in the postseason. The women’s tennis team, ranked fifth in the country in early April, will make its 20th straight appearance in the NCAA Tournament. The men hope to make its 13th trip to the tournament.

Baseball wraps up regular season The Commodores end SEC and regular-season play at home at Hawkins Field with a three-game series against South Carolina, a consensus top-five ranked team in the country. Vanderbilt has won four in a row against the Gamecocks, including a two-game series last year.

May 6 Rematch with Louisville The Battle of the Barrel enters its third installment as the Vanderbilt baseball team hosts Louisville. The Commodores won the first two traveling trophies. But Louisville ended Vanderbilt’s season last year in a Super Regional at Hawkins Field to go to the College World Series.

vucommodores.com

May 15-18 SEC Track The women’s track team heads to Lexington, Ky., for the SEC Outdoor Track and Field Championships. Last year, the Commodores had their best score at the SEC meet since 2005 and set several top 10 marks in school history.

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

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Conde brings calm and collected approach Junior shortstop grew up in baseball crazed Puerto Rico

by Josh Kipnis

As he grew up in Guaynabo, Puerto Rico—10 minutes outside the capital city of San Juan— there isn’t a better word than “natural” to describe Vince Conde’s baseball past. In an area of the world where young boys practically grip their forks and knives like two-seam fastballs, baseball has long defined the way Conde lives his life. Staring into the concrete floor of the Vanderbilt dugout one afternoon, Conde can’t seem to place his finger on that one baseball memory that seems to stand out among the rest.

“I just remember the field where I used to play,” Conde said, a week prior to being named the Southeastern Conference’s Player of the Week. “I don’t remember exactly what I did, or how I played, but just the first field I think I played on. Just playing games.”

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May 2014

But, before the next question could even be asked, Conde excitedly launched into the story behind the blue Omaha TPX bat he used to love.

One of the biggest and best players in his league would always use it, Conde said. But when an adolescent Vince pleaded with his father to buy one, he was told that the bat was too heavy.

“Dad! I want it!” Conde said, raising the pitch of his voice, and laughing, as he reenacted his younger self.

Conde’s father understood it wasn’t the bat that his son used that mattered—it was who would see his son swing it that determined the teenage prospect’s future.

JOE HOWELL

A

s Vince Conde takes the field on an unpredictably chilly March evening, he jogs out to his position between second and third base and immediately buries his right hand into the depths of his hind-side pocket.

On a day when Nashville residents begrudgingly substitute sunshine for snowflakes, Hawkins Field hardly resembles the sweet, southern, Tennessee hospitality it is known for on an early spring day. For Conde, the Vanderbilt Commodores’ starting shortstop this season, aside from a long-sleeved, black shirt tightly hugging his forearms, there’s no escaping the uncomfortable conditions.

Standing on the edge of the infield artificial turf, Conde quickly begins swinging his legs like giant pendulums, raising his feet up toward his waist, then back down towards the ground in hopes of igniting a spark in his thighs and calves. After fielding a ground ball, just before the game gets underway, he begins tapping the ends of his toes against the thin, brown plastic of the infield “dirt.”

To an ordinary spectator, he may appear jittery—almost nervous. But Conde’s teammates know that couldn’t be further from the truth.

“Baseball’s one of those things he’s done his whole life,” fellow middle-infielder and starting second baseman Dansby Swanson said.

“Everything comes naturally to him. He knows he can do pretty much anything out there.”

Vanderbilt shortstop Vince Conde throws to first earlier this season. The junior was born in Puerto Rico and moved to Florida in the eighth grade. He’s been a staple in the Commodore infield since his freshman season and is among the team’s leaders in hits and RBI this season.

vucommodores.com

JOHN RUSSELL

“In Florida, the exposure for baseball is better than Puerto Rico, especially for people who want to go to college,” Conde said.

And so, in the eighth grade, having received a scholarship to Orangewood Christian High School in Oviedo, Fla., the Condes—along with several other Puerto Rican families in the area—moved to the United States in hopes of brightening their son’s career. Conde was 12 years old at the time. He said he hardly struggled with the transition.

“You know, I actually didn’t go through that many challenges, especially when I first moved,” Conde said. “A lot of my teammates from Puerto Rico—not a lot, but some—came with me, too. It was kind of normal.”

For what few challenges Conde did face, however, baseball served as an important measure in overcoming that sense of adversity.

“Athletes (who) aren’t Puerto Rican, you speak to them and get more comfortable around them,” he said. “And as you start getting more comfortable, you see them in school, you talk to their friends. What I remember is, kind of like college, you get into the team aspect of (baseball). I’ve always had that, ever since growing up. It’s just fun being with everyone. We were always really close.”

To this day, Conde takes tremendous pride in his role as a “supporter of the team.” He doesn’t see himself so much as the starting shortstop of a perennial power in the SEC, but instead as a guy who is simply trying to be as consistent a player as possible.

“I’m all for the team,” Conde said, tucking his hands into the front opening of his gray sweatshirt. “And I don’t want to sound cliché or anything, but it’s just, you know, we all want to win.

We all have the same goal as a team, and we just want to come together, be close with each other, have a good time, stay loose—even in tough situations. Even when we lose, I just try to be that normal guy who has fun with everyone else.”

For Swanson, having a teammate like Conde is what helps him stay calm in the raucous environments of Mississippi State, or the pressures of a home series against LSU. “He’s not the most vocal (leader),” Swanson said, “but he knows when to say things. Like, when he sees the team struggling, or everyone’s kind of playing too fast, he’s able to kind of calm everyone down, slow everyone down and get them all on the same page. It’s like a selective leadership thing with him.”

But, much more than any words of wisdom Conde may relay to his troops, above all else, the image of Conde that strikes his teammates most is the permanent smile across his cheeks and the laugh that never seems to stop.

Shortstop Vince Conde hails from Puerto Rico and moved to Florida when he was in the eighth grade to gain more exposure on the baseball diamond. Now a junior, Conde brings a calm and collected approach to the Commodores and is among the team’s leaders in hits and RBIs.

“He’s always been a happy-go-lucky, kind of goofball-type guy that you always love to have around,” Swanson said. “He always seems to be laughing, smiling or doing something that brightens everyone’s day. That’s his main goal—he just wants to have fun.”

Like a fifth-grader anxiously awaiting the final bell before summer, Conde’s constant movements on a baseball diamond resemble a nervous tic. But they serve as a mental mechanism, helping contain the child-like excitement that grows inside him with every new game.

“When we first take the field, I just try and focus and visualize what I want to do,” he said. “And also, just kind of take the chance and inhale everything that is happening right now, just try not to take it for granted, because it’s special to play for Vanderbilt and have that (starting shortstop) position that I have right now. I just try and breathe it in, and like I said, not take it for granted, because not everyone has this. It’s a special thing.”

In the bottom of the eighth of a 1-1 tie against Belmont, with one out and two runners in scoring position, the Commodores face their two most important at-bats of the night.

Awaiting his third and likely final plate appearance of the game, Conde takes a few cuts in the on-deck circle as he watches his teammate Zander Wiel try to knock in the go-ahead run. After timing the pitcher and swinging at a few imaginary strikes, all of a sudden Conde begins to abandon his natural swing. As he continues to wait on his at-bat— the pressure of the moment piling on heavier and heavier—Conde lifts his front leg high into the air and swings like Manny Ramirez with an exaggerated front step.

Then, before the next pitch to Wiel, Conde flips his bat over to his right shoulder, switching his hands as he turns in the opposite direction.

Is he swinging lefty now? At a time like this?

“Just do whatever comes naturally to you,” Conde said.

Calm and collected—that’s just the way he plays. n

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

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May 2014

’Dores double down on SEC crown Freshman cruises to top medalist honor to help ’Dores win second SEC title

by Jerome Boettcher

F

or the first time in a decade, the Vanderbilt women’s golf team hoisted the SEC crown.

On April 20, the Commodores capped off an outstanding three rounds in Birmingham, Ala., by winning the SEC championship by 11 strokes over South Carolina.

It was the program’s second conference title, and its first since 2004.

On top of it, freshman phenom Simin Feng won individual medalist honors. She shot a tournamentlow 66 on the final day and finished with a threeround total of 209 for the second-best SEC championship score in program history. She joined Marina Alexa (2010) and May Wood (2004) as Commodores to win the individual crown.

Sophomore Jenny Hahn placed ninth, and junior Irina Gabasa tied for 19th to help VU win its third tournament championship of the season. The Commodores eye bigger hardware as the NCAA Regional begins on May 8 with the NCAA Championship on May 20 in Tulsa, Okla.

“We played some phenomenal golf,” coach Greg Allen said. “All three days we got a great effort from all five young ladies, from top to bottom. Everybody produced. It was a great team effort. It was a great team win, and I’m really, really proud of them.” n

PHOTOS BY DEE MOORE

Freshman Simin Feng, center, gets doused by her teammates after she won the top medalist honors and helped her team win the SEC championship.

The 2014 SEC women’s golf champions (from left to right): top medalist Simin Feng, volunteer assistant coach Julie Bartholomew, Irina Gabasa, Antonia Scherer, Jenny Hahn, Kendall Martindale, head coach Greg Allen and assistant coach Holly Clark.

vucommodores.com

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

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Banner year in 2004 opened doors for ’Dores

PHOTOS BY NEIL BRAKE

by Jerome Boettcher

Former Vanderbilt standout Jenni Benningfield kisses the 2004 Southeastern Conference Tournament championship—the Commodores’ second in three years.

C

onfidence permeated the corridors of the McGugin Center.

Months after an unprecedented restructuring of the athletic department, a winning attitude replaced any sense of uncertainty.

Ten years later, 2004 remains a banner season in Vanderbilt athletics.

“To be able to walk around the hall and see that everyone felt like a winner was awesome,” lacrosse coach Cathy Swezey said. “It was the one year I remember where everybody was like, ‘We’re winners. We’re winners.’ You did feel a change in tone in this department at that point.

The expectations became ‘we should win’ instead of ‘we hope to win.’”

If the Commodores are in the golden era of Vanderbilt athletics, 2004 provided a jumpstart.

Trophies were hoisted, nets were cut down, postseason runs were ignited and firsts were accomplished. Eight teams made NCAA Tournaments and the women’s track team sent individuals to both the indoor and outdoor NCAA Championships.

Lacrosse, less than a decade old, reached the program’s first Final Four. Women’s tennis reached the Final Four for the second time in four years. Baseball, in just the second year under coach Tim Corbin, made a magical run to the first Super Regional in program history. Both basketball teams danced to the Sweet 16. Men’s tennis stormed to the quarterfinals.

In the past 10 years, Vanderbilt has won a combined 13 conference regular-season and tournament championships and one national title.

In 2004, the Commodores won four (women’s basketball, women’s golf, women’s lacrosse and women’s tennis). Five individual SEC crowns were captured in men’s tennis, women’s golf and women’s track and field.

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May 2014

The Vanderbilt baseball team celebrates during the 2004 season, which produced a then-school record 45 wins and the program’s first trip to a NCAA Super Regional.

In the standings for the Director’s Cup, which the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics presents every year to the athletic department with the most success, the Commodores finished a schoolbest 28th.

“What made it much more (special) was that everybody (outside of the department) basically thought it would be a bad year,” athletics director David Williams said. “In some degree we were overdue. It sent a message internally, not only in athletics but in the university, that we can actually compete with other people in this conference. And we didn’t have to sacrifice academics. I think that was the most positive thing.”

On Sept. 9, 2003, Gordon Gee, Vanderbilt’s chancellor at the time, dissolved the athletic department. By doing so, Gee intended to integrate the 300 student-athletes with the rest of the student body. Intercollegiate sports and recreational athletics fell under the same department—Division of Student Life and University Affairs.

He abolished the athletic director position and put Williams, who had been on campus as a vice chancellor since 2000, in charge of athletics in addition to his duties as the university’s general counsel and a fully tenured professor of law.

National media attention ensued. Critics claimed Vanderbilt’s coaches would flee and recruiting would take a hit. Williams even remembers some doubters believing the Commodores would eventually be relying on intramural students.

“It sort of gave you that edge in that everybody thinks we’re stupid, we’re crazy,” Williams said. “Maybe it was the way I grew up, those things sort of motivate you a little more. I think we were motivated.”

“That year told us we could be great.”

– Athletic director David Williams

vucommodores.com

MIKE STRASINGER

As soon as the calendar flipped to 2004, the Commodores were off and running.

Coach Kevin Stallings broke through in leading the men’s basketball team to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1997. Behind senior captain and All-American Matt Freije, Vanderbilt went two steps further. They upset No. 3 seed North Carolina State in dramatic fashion, erasing a 10-point deficit in the final 2:44. Corey Smith’s game-winning layup on a backdoor pass from Mario Moore with 21 seconds left catapulted the Commodores to their first Sweet 16 in 11 years.

The next day, the women’s basketball team followed suit by punching their ticket to the Sweet 16 with a dominant win over UT-Chattanooga. It was Vanderbilt’s third trip to the regional semifinals in four years but the first under coach Melanie Balcomb, who was only in her second season.

The Commodores, led by the high-low combination of Ashley Earley (now a VU assistant) and Jenni Benningfield, peaked at the right time.

They won 10 straight, including four in a row to win the Southeastern Conference Tournament crown. And they were a play away from reaching the Elite Eight until Stanford prevailed with a game-winning shot at the buzzer.

“That was probably, at the time, maybe the best team I’ve ever had here,” Balcomb said. “I was devastated when we lost on that buzzer shot to Stanford. That was one of those years where we had everything. Five starters (averaging) double figures (in scoring). We were very explosive on offense and had great leadership. I absolutely loved that team. If there was any year we should have got to the Elite Eight, that was it.

“I do think it legitimized the starting of my career here. We had really high expectations.”

From the hardwood to the track, the momentum carried over.

Josie Hahn (heptathlon) and Erika Schneble (5,000 meters) captured SEC championships. Both qualified for the NCAA outdoor championships, with Hahn finishing sixth in the heptathlon and Schneble taking eighth in the 5,000 meters.

Women’s tennis, under the direction of coach Geoff Macdonald, was three years removed from becoming the first Vanderbilt team— in any sport—to reach the NCAA championship game. The Commodores got back to the Final Four and also won the SEC regular-season championship.

The men’s team made a postseason run, too, reaching the quarterfinals. Zach Dailey and Chad Harris also accomplished a rare feat—sharing the SEC indoor singles championship. The teammates both reached the final but opted not to play each other, instead sharing the unique honor as co-champions.

“Both of these guys played so hard all week,” former Vanderbilt tennis coach Ken Flach said at the time. “I’m so proud of the way they played, and I think it is fitting to honor both of them.”

Both golf teams qualified for the NCAA Championships. The women’s golf team had arguably its best year. The Commodores won the SEC Tournament championship for the first time in program history, and May Wood collected the program’s first individual conference crown.

That team also won the NCAA East Regional title and notched its best finish at the championship. The Commodores placed fifth, and Sarah Jacobs tied for sixth.

While the ‘Dores were making unprecedented strides on the links, the lacrosse team was stunning the rest of the country.

From left to right: Assistant coach Dan Muller (now the head coach at Illinois State), Julian Terrell (now director of video operations at VU) and Matt Freije celebrate during the 2004 SEC Tournament. That season the Commodores reached the Sweet 16 in the NCAA Tournament.

Vanderbilt added lacrosse in 1996. Eight years later, the sport was still very much dominated by the Northeast.

But that changed in 2004 when, in just its second appearance in the NCAA Tournament, the Commodores reached the Final Four.

“Women’s lacrosse was not a sport they played in the South, and we made it to the Final Four,” Williams said.

Led by future Vanderbilt Hall of Famer Jess Roguski, a pair of AllAmerican transfers Michelle Allen and Lauren Peck and All-American defender Bridget Morris, the Commodores got on a roll.

It started with the last regular-season game of the season, when Vanderbilt knocked off Northwestern in overtime on the road to win the American Lacrosse Conference championship for the second time in three years. Swezey believed the win pushed the team off the NCAA Tournament bubble and into the 16-team field as the No. 13 seed.

“Once we were in the NCAAs, the attitude of the team was so awesome,” Swezey said. “They really believed they would win. They really did. The first team they played was the fourth seed (Loyola) in the country. Then we drive down to play the No. 6 seed (James Madison) in the country, and we beat them. Our road to the Final Four was a tough one, but we did what we had to do and our kids had the mentality that anything was possible.”

Corbin and the Commodores ended the school year with an exclamation point.

In his first season as Vanderbilt’s baseball coach in 2003, the team qualified for the SEC Tournament for the first time in seven years. The encore was far better than anyone had imagined. The 2004 team set a then-school record with 45 wins. They reached the SEC Tournament championship game for the first time in 10 years and made the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1980. But the Commodores weren’t happy with just being there—sweeping through George Mason, Princeton and Virginia for the program’s first regional championship and a trip to the Super Regional.

After 2004, doors opened for the ‘Dores.

Playing lacrosse at Vanderbilt became a “viable option,” according to Swezey, for Northeastern recruits. Women’s golf and men’s and women’s tennis have starred on the national stage for the past decade.

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

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MIKE STRASINGER

The 2004 run showed that women’s basketball would remain an SEC and NCAA Tournament contender under Balcomb. It was the first of six trips to March Madness over the next nine years and helped Stallings and his staff attract top-notch recruits like Shan Foster, Derrick Byars and Jermaine Beal. Baseball also drew the country’s best talent in David Price, Mike Minor and Pedro Alvarez as, starting in 2006, the Commodores made the next eight NCAA Tournaments (they hope the streak continues in a month).

All the success throughout his department showed Williams it wasn’t limited to one sport. As football struggled through a 2-9 season in the fall of 2004, Williams knew the bar had been set.

“I thought that first year was as an important year to what happened later in football,” he said. “All these of the other teams are doing it. I kept asking the question, ‘Why can’t we do it in football?’ It does give you an attitude. If you plan and work hard you can do it. I thought it was an important year. “(A) 9-4 (record) is not good enough for (the football players). And that’s good. I always say the biggest problem to being great is good. We get good, and you got to fight through the good. That year told us we could be great.” n

Lacrosse coach Cathy Swezey gets doused with Gatorade after the Commodores defeated James Madison to advance to the NCAA Final Four for the first time in program history. VU set a then-school record with 12 wins that year.

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May 2014

BANNER YEAR 2004 brought plenty of championships and monumental moments for the Commodores BASEBALL

• Super Regional

MEN’S BASKETBALL

• NCAA Sweet 16

WOMEN’S BASKETBALL • SEC Tournament championship

• NCAA Sweet 16 MEN’S GOLF

• NCAA Championship appearance

WOMEN’S GOLF

• SEC tournament championship • SEC individual championship (May Wood) • NCAA Central Regional championship • Fifth place at NCAA Championship

WOMEN’S LACROSSE

• American Lacrosse Conference championship • NCAA Final Four

MEN’S TENNIS

• SEC indoor singles co-champions (Zach Dailey and Chad Harris) • NCAA quarterfinals

WOMEN’S TENNIS

• SEC regular-season championship • NCAA Final Four

WOMEN’S TRACK & FIELD

• Two SEC individual championships (Josie Hahn, heptathlon; Erica Schneble 5,000 meters) • NCAA Indoor & Outdoor Championship appearance (Josie Hahn, heptathlon; Erica Schneble 5,000 meters

Vanderbilt gears up for launch of SEC Network

by Jerome Boettcher

vucommodores.com

JOHN RUSSELL

I

n less than four months, the much-anticipated SEC Network will launch.

On Aug. 14, a new era begins for the conference and its member institutions—and Vanderbilt is ready to reap the rewards.

While financially, the network will cause a boom, administrators and coaches are equally excited about the exposure its programs will receive—and not just football and men’s basketball.

Every women’s basketball game, baseball game, women’s soccer game and women’s lacrosse game also will be aired—either on the SEC’s linear network or on the digital network online.

“The potential for our Olympic sports to really start to grow from the network is really a tremendous upside,” director of sales and marketing Steve Walsh said. “That is the type of stuff that creates national brands.

In the last four or five years we’ve raised our brand profile, but this has an opportunity to really push it to the next level.”

The athletics department is investing $3.5 million into the SEC Network. A state-of-the-art control room is being revamped in Memorial Gymnasium. All TV productions—for every sport—will be headquartered out of this studio. Optical cable fiber is being installed to connect to the baseball stadium, outdoor track and lacrosse and soccer complex.

New equipment is being ordered. Every game will have up to four cameras to offer multiple replay angles. Director of video operations Steven Parks plans to hire additional staff—full-time and freelancers. Vanderbilt also will have to provide a play-by-play analyst and a color commentator for each broadcast.

“The idea of the digital network is to have the same quality broadcast you would see on the linear network,” said Parks, who has been at Vanderbilt since 2001. “It is hard to believe over the course of the last 10 years how much everything has grown. I think 10 years ago being able to put any kind of live video content on to a website was a dream.

Now looking at having full production with replays and graphics and everything and pushing all that content out, it is pretty amazing to see how far we’ve come.”

Vanderbilt must provide at least 40 games for the digital platform, which will be part of the package when subscribers order the SEC Network from their cable provider. Any non-conference or conference men’s and women’s home basketball games that don’t make a linear network— SEC, ESPN, CBS—will be broadcast digitally.

Expect more than 20 Vanderbilt baseball games to air on the SEC Network—either on the linear or digital network. And all eight home games for women’s soccer and women’s lacrosse—even though the SEC doesn’t have lacrosse—will be broadcast.

“It is going to benefit us a lot—in-house production as well as getting Vanderbilt’s brand out even more than we already have,” Parks said.

“Being able to leverage the power of ESPN and their networks to be able to reach out further than we have before.”

Athletic director David Williams doesn’t want to stop at games.

He knows the network will be searching for content to run on the network 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The SEC has organized a content committee to pitch ideas to the network, which will be based in Charlotte. Williams envisions coaches shows and more all-access profiles of the team. He also hopes the Commodores will be able to highlight their unique endeavors, such as foreign tour trips or service quests such as the one where 21 student-athletes went to Tanzania with Soles4Souls to donate shoes last summer.

“It will be a good fit for the fan base,” athletic director David Williams said. “The good thing for Vanderbilt, you have the opportunity to get a

The control room in Memorial Gymnasium is in the midst of receiving a major facelift in preparation for the SEC Network, which launches Aug. 14.

lot more of your teams on a vehicle people can see. I think it will help us get our story out.”

The financial benefit is not measurable at the moment.

Last summer, each of the 14 member institutions received $20.7 million from the SEC’s record $289.4 million in revenue. Williams guesses eventually schools will make 50 percent more a year thanks to the SEC Network and the new college football playoff.

Of course, that number depends on total subscribers. Vanderbilt and the league continue to push fans to ask their cable providers to supply the SEC Network (getsecnetwork.com). Currently, the DISH Network and AT&T U-verse are the only providers signed on to carry the SEC Network.

The network won’t just benefit fans at home. Those at games at Vanderbilt Stadium and Memorial Gymnasium will see a difference on the video boards, as well.

“From a fan experience standpoint, the investment doesn’t only help the SEC Network, but it helps the fan that is sitting in the stands,” Walsh said. “It will allow us some functionality we didn’t have before. We’ve talked about live look-ins at other games and additional replay angles we didn’t have access to.”

Williams, however, admits with the partnership with ESPN, SEC schools will have to be flexible at times.

Scheduling is already a concern. As the network tries to “fill inventory,” as Williams puts it, more weekday games for soccer and lacrosse will appear. Williams biggest concerns center around how much class time will be missed and how this will affect travel arrangements and costs. He pointed out that Tennessee’s football season opener against Utah State will be on a Sunday night—on the SEC Network.

By entering into the TV business, he said, schools become their own competitor. With every game being on TV or online, getting fans to buy tickets becomes harder.

But on Aug. 14, Vanderbilt and the SEC begin a new chapter all parties involved hopes delivers more pros than cons.

“I think a lot of us are thinking it’s not going to change that much; I think it will,” Williams said. “I think the whole college sports environment is going to change. We don’t have any idea what direction but one of them is if we continue to chase the dollar, which I guess we have to, you’re going to have to play (any time).” n

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Toughness, rising to challenges part of DNA for VU sophomore

by Jerome Boettcher

16

May 2014

JOE HOWELL

W

omen’s tennis coach Geoff Macdonald never saw Georgina Sellyn play tennis before he offered her a scholarship to play at Vanderbilt.

He didn’t need to. Her toughness spoke volumes.

With the death of his mother, Macdonald was not able to go to Bradenton, Fla., to watch Sellyn play. So, assistant coach Aleke Tsoubanos, whom Macdonald has “total trust” in, flew down to watch Sellyn.

Travel problems delayed Sellyn in getting in the night before. But she didn’t ask to push back her workout the next morning. She played in front of Tsoubanos on just four hours of sleep.

On top of it, she became ill and began to vomit.

But she didn’t tell Tsoubanos and kept playing.

“We were impressed with her toughness,” Macdonald said. “She washed out her mouth and came out and practiced another hour and a half. You look a lot for toughness. That was an extreme example of that. But we weren’t getting a lot of chances to get to know to her. So it was a very telling anecdote.”

Taking on challenges is nothing new for Sellyn, who rose to the No. 1 singles position as a sophomore this season before suffering an ankle injury on April 5.

On top of this, she recorded an impressive 3.9 GPA during the fall as a cognitive neuroscience major. Sellyn is entertaining thoughts of medical school—if playing professionally doesn’t work out.

“She’s not a genius, but she is pretty good at everything,” her mother, Yvette Sellyn, said, smiling. “As a young child whatever you gave her, she could do. She was like three years old and we asked do you want to do ballet? Yes. (Field) hockey? Yes. Ice skating? Yes. Swimming?

Yes. She sang in the choir—she had a terrible voice—for the Scottish Orchestra. She was doing everything.”

Tennis came on the scene late for Sellyn, who grew up in Glasgow, Scotland.

An avid swimmer, Sellyn spent hours in the pool perfecting the breaststroke. She picked up a racket when she was 10 but didn’t play competitively until 13. She became engrossed in the sport after spending hours at the tennis court at a summer camp near her house because her parents “wanted to get rid of me for one summer.”

One day, after seven years of swimming lessons, she decided she didn’t want to juggle two sports anymore. She quit swimming and put her

Georgina Sellyn, originally from Scotland, moved to Florida before her sophomore year of high school to grow her skills and enhance her opportunities in tennis. Now in her sophomore season at Vanderbilt, she rose to the No. 1 singles position while also juggling a demanding course load for her cognitive nueroscience major.

sole focus on tennis. She even used her pocket money to pay for a second tennis lesson.

“I was more mature when I came to start practicing than the girls that started at five and six,” she said. “I really enjoyed it, and that was a big part of it. I wanted to be there, and I wanted to practice. I didn’t mind putting in all the hours.”

At age 15, her parents decided to move to the United States, in part for her father, Johnny’s, job, but in large part to offer Georgina

more resources and better facilities to improve at tennis.

Her family moved to Bradenton, Fla., and the relocation paid off. She played in the Wimbledon juniors in July 2012, a month before arriving at Vanderbilt. Her backhand improved into what Macdonald called a great-looking shot. Her movement on the court also caught the eye of Macdonald and Tsoubanos.

“She never looks like she is hurrying, but she is covering an enormous amount of work,” Mac-

vucommodores.com

JOE HOWELL

donald said. “It is easy for her. Late bloomers do really well in college. They are really keen and still motivated to get better. We like late bloomers.”

She continues to blossom in college. As a freshman, Sellyn played anywhere from No. 4 to No. 6 in singles. But after finishing with a 23-10 record, including 12-1 at the No. 4 position, Sellyn elevated to the No. 1 singles this season.

“She is playing her role and understands what she has to do to play No. 1,” Macdonald said. “You have to be resilient, and you have to be process-oriented. You might play a great match and come up short. You have to look for the positives in that.”

Sellyn’s pursuit of excellence carries over into the classroom.

She was named to the SEC First-Year Academic Honor Roll in 2013. Undecided on a major when she came to college, she took a neuroscience course.

“I loved it,” she said. “I’ve also been interested in the body. When I was injured in the training room, I was questioning everyone.

‘What’s wrong with you? Why does it hurt?’

I was always interested in biology and what happens in the body. I find the brain really interesting. There is a lot going on and new developments all the time.”

Georgina Sellyn, a sophomore originally from Scotland, balances the demands of tennis with the challenges of her cognitive neuroscience major. Sellyn rose to the No. 1 singles position this season.

After college, Sellyn plans to stay in the states to pursue her post-grad endeavors, whether that is tennis or medical school. Her mother lives in Florida, along with some aunts and uncles. Her father stays in S cotland but comes to Florida frequently for work. In fact, her parents, her uncle from Kazikstan and her 83-year-old grandmother attended a home match last month.

Aside from being fearful her Scottish accent is fading, she is content at Vanderbilt and in America—even when challenges arise.

But tough situations seem to bring out the best in Sellyn.

“School is tough and it is tough to juggle but I’m so happy here,” she said. “I love the coaches and the team. I’m getting everything I could possibly need.”” n

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Williams: Effects of NLRB ruling uncertain Employee status could have been avoided, Vandy AD says

by Jerome Boettcher

18

May 2014

JOHN RUSSELL

D

avid Williams saw this brewing. And Vanderbilt’s athletic director wishes he and other administrators across the country hadn’t waited until it boiled over.

The National Labor Relations Board ruled in March that Northwestern University football players are employees of the university and can unionize. Members of the football team voted in late April as to whether they would want to unionize and be represented by the College Athletes Players Association (CAPA), who brought their case forward along with the United Steelworkers union.

Williams, a former general counsel at Vanderbilt and a law professor, believes this predicament could have been avoided. “(Universities across the country) have failed to be ready for this. We have never sat down and discussed this,” he said. “We were more tuned to where do we get the next dollar of revenue? How do we create channels? How do we get more money out of broadcast? Do we play eight (conference) games or nine games?

“And we missed the biggest thing out there—that this was coming down the pipe.”

The NLRB found, in the case of Northwestern’s football players, certain rules pertained to athletes but not the rest of the student population. Underclassmen on scholarship at Northwestern are required to live on campus.

Players have to wear suits to home games and team-issued travel sweats for away games.

They must remain within a six-hour radius of campus before games.

Williams pointed out that Vanderbilt has housed its football players at hotels in Nashville the night before home games.

“All of these things we have, which we think are good for our profession or good for our game, really seem to determine control,” he said. “What other scholarship that is given to a student at a university requires them to do eight to 10 hours of study hall a week? Only here. That’s control. We tell them to where to live, where to eat, when to play, what to take, where to stay, all of those add up to basically reach the common law definition of employer-employee.”

Athletic director David Williams believes tweaks should be made to aid the student-athlete experience.

Lessening control across the board in college athletics begins with upping scholarships, Williams said.

Currently, full athletic scholarships for Division I student-athletes consist of tuition, room and board, books and other fees. But at most institutions, including Vanderbilt, that doesn’t reach the school’s estimated cost of attendance. This includes personal expenses and transportation; i.e., compensating trips back home, study abroad. At Vanderbilt, personal expenses are listed at $2,730, and transportation costs vary.

Full scholarships for regular students pay for up to the cost of attendance, which Vanderbilt estimates is $62,320 for the 2014-15 school year.

But full scholarships for student-athletes don’t cover cost of attendance.

At most schools, the difference isn’t more than $2,000, which has led NCAA president Mark Emmert to lobby for a stipend.

“With all of the money coming in, why didn’t we bring that number up?” Williams said. “We

could have even said we are just going to raise the scholarship to cost of attendance. It didn’t have to be, ‘We will give you cash.’ It just had to be how do we create this to mirror what the cost of attendance is? We’ve known this for years, and we just didn’t do anything.”

Another arguing point in the Northwestern case was to include coverage of sports-related medical expenses for current and former student-athletes. CAPA wants reoccurring health problems linked to injuries during collegiate careers to be included in this coverage.

Williams suggests creating a pool trust fund from all the revenue from broadcast deals, which players could pull from for medical needs.

“I don’t think you should pay student-athletes to play,” Williams said. “I’m also a firm believer in… we would prefer the system to be structured in such a way that they are not employees.

There are things we can do to put us in a better light so they don’t look like employees.”

Fears have arisen that Title IX legislation and Olympic sports will suffer.

Williams refutes both, citing Title IX has a federal law institutions have to abide by. He also strongly believes “not a school in the country” will allow Olympic sports to go by the wayside.

The NLRB’s ruling was just for football players. If Northwestern’s football team does unionize, what does that mean for the soccer team and golf team if they’re not unionized? Will there be a divided student-athlete population?

“The ramifications on this are too numerous for us to even know right now,” he said.

He does warn, however, that changes need to be made, otherwise the NLRB’s ruling in favor of Northwestern is just the beginning.

“Do I believe this will change the way we approach college athletics? Absolutely,” Williams said. “But the essence of it is we need to be the change agent, not let somebody (in) from the outside. In many ways, we should have corrected this a long time ago. We could have done some of the things to make this endeavor very, very attractive.” n

Hendrix makes serving others her top priority

by Jerome Boettcher

vucommodores.com

STEVE GREEN

J

ust like everyone else, Kendra Hendrix has only 24 hours a day at her disposal.

During the fall, Vanderbilt soccer games and road trips filled

up her schedule on the weekends, and class, studying, practicing and weight lifting soaked up her days and nights during the week. Finding time to meet her weekly obligation of 15 hours of community service as a member of the Alpha Phi Omega service fraternity could be a difficult challenge sometimes.

But Hendrix made sure to make time.

“If that required me waking up a little bit earlier, that was something I was committed doing,” she said. “When you have something more than other people, it is just worth doing something to help them get where you are.”

Hendrix graduates in May with a degree in public policy, and she played in 48 games at forward for the Commodores the past three seasons. But the three-time SEC Academic Honor Roll recipient didn’t stop at being a student-athlete.

Over the last four years, she has extended her time into the community with a plethora of service opportunities. Whether she is leading activities as a troop leader for the Girl Scouts or repairing houses in New Orleans, Hendrix has been more than willing to serve others during her free time.

Her bevy of volunteer experiences, coupled with her 3.21 GPA, makes her the perfect Vanderbilt nominee for the SEC’s 2014 H. Boyd McWhorter Scholar Athlete of the Year. Senior fullback Fitz Lassing of the football team was Vanderbilt’s male nominee.

The SEC Male and Female Scholar Athletes of the Year shall each awarded a $15,000 scholarship. The SEC Postgraduate Scholarship Award recipients, given to the 26 other nominees not awarded athletes of the year, shall each receive a $7,500 scholarship.

Hendrix, a native of Little Rock, Ark., said her passion to give back was ignited by the vast cultural and economic differences in her own neighborhood.

She used to walk to school along gentrified city blocks. Then she would turn the corner and see impoverished streets.

“That’s really what drove me to get involved in the community” she said. “I never understood how you could be so prosperous on one street and so poor on another. Nobody was saying anything about it or doing anything to help. That was an inspiration for me to get involved in my community…. I always wanted to be a professional volunteer.”

Hendrix embarks on that journey in August when she heads to the Dominican Republic for two years to work for the Peace Corps. Though she has not received her exact job responsibilities, her area of focus will be in youth and community development.

“I’m super excited,” she said. “That has always been a dream since high school.”

She already has amassed a lengthy list of volunteer work.

She served as a summer intern for three years at Audubon Arkansas, a summer camp where she taught underprivileged youth about the importance of nature. She has been a dorm supervisor with Eco-Dores and a peer educator for Eco-Suds, helping students live in an environmentally sustainable way. She helped repair homes in New Orleans still damaged from Hurricane Katrina on an alternative winter break. More recently, she has been an active leader for a local Girl Scout troop.

“I never thought I was good with children,” she said. “My mom is a firstgrade teacher. I would go to her class sometimes and help with reading.

I realized I am actually pretty good with kids. Just doing Girl Scouts it is

Outgoing senior Kendra Hendrix is Vanderbilt’s nominee for the SEC’s Female Scholar Athlete of the Year thanks to her many service experiences in the community.

so much fun to see the fun they have and seeing us as college students giving back to these little girls, they really appreciate it. It was heartwarming—as cheesy as that sounds.”

After returning from the Peace Corps in 2016, Hendrix plans to attend graduate school at Vanderbilt for community development and action.

She eventually wants to either work for a nonprofit organization or start her own. She sees herself as a liaison between government and communities, entrenched in helping people in need of assistance.

“That’s the dream. We’ll see if I get there,” she said.

If the last four years are any indication, Hendrix will accomplish her goals. She says if it wasn’t for soccer, the opportunities at Vanderbilt wouldn’t have been open to her.

“Soccer gave me my starting point. Without it, I wouldn’t have been able to get the connections,” she said. “Without it, I wouldn’t have been able to make the friends I’ve made. I definitely want to attribute soccer and Vanderbilt. It is a great school. There are a lot of things you get involved in at this school. The few I took advantage of helped me a lot.

I’m really grateful for being here, being an athlete, being a student.” n

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

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20

May 2014

Coach’s Handbook: Women’s bowling coach John Williamson John Williamson is in his 10th season as Vanderbilt’s women’s bowling coach. The Franklin native has led the Commodores to nine straight NCAA Tournaments and the 2007 national championship. Before being tapped to run the program in 2004, Williamson was the director of operations for Tim Corbin and the baseball team and worked in the athletic development office. He lives with his wife, Melissa, and their five dogs, three of which the couple has rescued.

When we started I had aspirations of that or something like this. It is tough when you have transition year in and year out and kids graduating. We’ve done a really good job of keeping players through graduation. Every year you graduate people and you have new teams. Other teams are different. To do nine in a row is pretty good. I guess you always hope it would be like this, but you never really know.

When did you know you wanted to be a bowling coach?

That’s funny, because I really didn’t think about it until Brian Reese asked me if I was interested in doing it. I was working with the baseball team at the time, and I thought I wanted to get into fundraising. I worked with Coach Corbin for two years and was trying to figure out what my next step was. Vanderbilt started the program in the spring, and it was now late summer. I was sort of looking to see what I could do next. I was presented with this opportunity. Deep down I always wanted to be a head coach, and Coach Corbin helped me devise a plan of how I would sell the idea that although I never had any coaching experience on the collegiate level, that we could put a plan together that would get us to a championship level. He is one of my mentors. A lot of this is help from him. I never really dreamed of being a bowling coach. It just sort of happened.

How much do you enjoy it?

It is awesome. It is great. The satisfaction you get from getting a group of people to buy into a common theme or common direction. You go to an event, and you lay everything out there. Either you’re successful or you’re not. And then you regroup and you come back. Trying to teach them the life lessons of sometimes not everything goes your way. It is a unique, amazing experience. You see the kids grow up. You see them come in as freshmen and then see the enlightened, educated powerful women that they graduate. They can really do anything they want. Some part of me thinks I have some responsibility in that. Most of it is on them, but it is nice to think you can say you help a little bit.

What was it like when you won the national championship?

I guess I was so young and dumb and new to the sport, new to coaching, that I probably didn’t appreciate it for what it really was. It was so quick.

We had four sophomores and a freshman in our starting lineup. We had a sophomore and freshman on the bench. We had seven people who

vucommodores.com

TIM FULLER

Nine straight NCAA Tournaments. When you started, did you think this was possible?

Women’s bowling coach John Williamson just completed his 10th season. Under his direction, the Commodores have made the NCAA Tournament nine times.

were going to be there the next two or three years. I immediately started thinking about two, three (national championships) with this group, let alone my career. We were close in 2008. 2009 didn’t end very well. The championship in 2010 when we had our best roster and we went 1-2 in the tournament. I’ll never forget, they asked me, “What does it take to win the national championship?” I basically said I don’t know. In 2007, we won it with a team that in bowling terms wasn’t ready to win it. In 2010 we had a team that was seasoned, our best collective roster in terms of talent and didn’t win it. Looking back on it, I don’t think I appreciated it enough. I don’t think I took it for what it really was. So if we ever get that opportunity again I’m going to probably enjoy it a little bit more than I did.

Looking at it now, I can still remember shots, I can still remember moments that changed that tournament. Each of those moments stick out in my head. Looking back at 2007, that group on that weekend was probably the most selfless group we’ve ever had. I had a player the day of the national championship who struggled in (tournament) up until that point basically tell me she thought her teammate should play ahead of her. This girl was a third-team All-American… It meant enough to her.

When you are around group like that, good things happen.

You and your wife have five dogs (four German shorthaired pointers and a Yorkshire terrier)?

Most of our free time has four legs involved in some form or fashion.

We rescued one, and we’re fostering two. We own the other two. It is important to us that the ones we rescue we save from an untimely end because of owners’ lack of responsibility. It is important to us to foster the two because they’re brother and sister and they’re seniors. They’re 13. My wife is more of the soft one when it comes to the animals. But it was important to both of us. I guess I’m an animal lover and want them to have a good home. n

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THE VU From Here As far back as he can remember, Scott Deathridge went to Vanderbilt football and basketball games with his season-ticket holding parents.

For 15 years, his mother was the secretary for the men’s basketball coaches. Photos he took from the baseline of Memorial Gymnasium showed up in Vanderbilt game day programs.

So when Deathridge finished college at Middle Tennessee State, he knew he wanted to head back to Nashville and stay connected with Vanderbilt.

“When I graduated from college, I thought it would be fun to take tickets,” he said.

In 1982, Deathridge took his first Vanderbilt ticket as an usher at football games. Three decades later, he continues to staff the gates and aisles at Commodore sporting events.

Deathridge will begin his 33rd football season as an usher this fall.

The past 10 years he has headed up all Vanderbilt ushers as the supervisor of guest services.

“Being on the doors, you got to meet the fans and I love people,” Deathridge said. “There were certain fans you’d see every game. I loved talking to them, got to know them and I enjoyed doing it.”

Deathridge hasn’t missed a Vanderbilt football home game since 1984. Nearly a thousand men’s and women’s basketball games have been played at Memorial Gymnasium since 1982. Deathridge thinks he missed a “game here or there, but not many.” He also helps out at baseball games.

In addition, he owns season tickets to football, men’s basketball and baseball games. With his duties with guest services, he doesn’t use them much, often handing them out to friends or family. But it has become a family affair, as his wife, Ellen, whose dad and brother graduated from Vanderbilt, and children, Scott, Matt and Emily, also have worked for guest services.

He became enthralled with the Commodores when his mom began working at Memorial as a secretary for basketball coach Richard Schmidt in the late 1970s. She also worked for coaches C.M. Newton and Eddie Fogler up until Fogler’s retirement in 1993.

Deathridge, 56, recalls the ritual of the team coming over to his parents’ house for Sunday dinners. “(Vanderbilt) was even more a part of my life because I started to know the players personally,” he said. “I became friends with them.”

His mother, Dot, was so beloved that players lobbied for her to get the secretary job when it came open. She had previously worked in the English department and had helped several players organize their class schedules.

She died in December, but Deathridge said that as recently as a couple years ago, former players such as Al McKinney and Doug Weikert would drive her up to games.

22

May 2014

Scott Deathridge

“A lot of the players called her, ‘Mom,’” he said.

Scott Deathridge is becoming a VU staple in his own right.

A Nashville native who works in Franklin at Community Health Systems, he plays a huge role in the growth of Vanderbilt ushers. Deathridge heads up the hiring process, handles timesheets, sets up scheduling, oversees as many as seven supervisors during football season, fixes broken ticket scanners and is the go-to person when fan relations issues arise.

He has seen his lion’s share of great Vanderbilt moments—as both a fan and member of guest services.

He vividly recalls Phil Cox drawing a foul on a blocking call on Tennessee’s Tyrone Beaman with one second left and the Commodores trailing 68-67 on Feb. 24, 1983. Cox made both free throws to lift Vanderbilt to victory. He was bewildered by Shan Foster’s historic 42 points, including nine straight 3-pointers against Mississippi State in 2008.

“That guy was hitting everything he threw up there,” he said.

Barry Goheen’s buzzer-beating shots are etched in his memory, as is Vanderbilt’s win on the football field in 1982 over Tennessee—the Commodores’ last victory at home against UT until two seasons ago.

From an early age, he became an avid supporter of the Commodores. Half a century later, that passion hasn’t worn off.

“Vanderbilt became a part of my life,” he said. “I love the people there – the full-time staff, the fans. There is really no part of it I don’t enjoy.”

– Jerome Boettcher 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 Vanderbilt games. Whether you met your spouse in the student section, shared popcorn with your grandfather from the very top row of the endzone in Section L or truly believe that row 25 in your section was made for you and 24 friends, we want to hear your point of VU (pronounced “view”) of Commodore Football. In 150 words or less, send in your stories to ticket.office@ vanderbilt.edu. We will select some of our favorites to share with other Commodore fans. 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

It’s My Turn

By Rod Williamson

I

still remember my first college football game.

My dad somehow got tickets to the IowaSouthern Cal football game on Oct. 6, 1962.

Never mind that the seats were so high atop Kinnick Stadium that I couldn’t make out many details.

I have never forgotten the cardinal Trojan uniforms, the unusual way they did their jumping jacks, the Scottish Highlanders bagpipers and the sheer feel of being there.

A few years later, Dad and I would drive 20 minutes east to watch Norm Stewart’s State College of Iowa (later University of Northern Iowa) basketball team because our town’s former star played there. I can close my eyes today and feel the old Men’s Gym, envision the bleachers where we sat, hear the boom-boom-boom cadence of the pep band drummer that cued the cheerleaders.

There is something special about being “there.” How many times have you tried to recreate a funny story or impactful moment, only to give up and say I guess you had to be there? If you weren’t there it just isn’t as funny, as romantic, as memorable. It is lost in translation.

It’s the difference between eating fast food or dining at the Five Seasons— each has its place and purpose.

The television screen has tinkered with this phenomenon. Sure, the boob tube has allowed us to watch events that we otherwise would never have witnessed—a World Cup soccer game, a royal coronation, an army marching through a distant desert.

Consider, however, how many of your favorite movies you watched at the theater versus On Demand. Few, if any, were seen from your living room. The smell of popcorn, the ricocheting audio, the tradition, the sheer feel of the theatre enhance your enjoyment.

We share these common feelings. They are the electric moments of life, and very few occur sitting in front of a TV set or mini screen. It’s the difference between eating fast food or dining at the Five Seasons—each has its place and purpose.

I sometimes wonder if some of us are forgetting the upsides of being present in body AND spirit. In our fast-paced lives, it is much easier to just be there in spirit. Maybe we can multi-task and knock several things off of our to-do list. But we then sacrifice the richness of the experience; simpler is not always better.

Soon many of us will gather for the renewal of football season. The grills will be out in Vandyville, the smells of barbecue wafting through the breeze. Dads tossing Nerf balls to their little Commodores. Old friends meeting to laugh and reminisce.

Tradition reigns inside the stadium; the national anthem is sung, the band marches and the banners fly. There is a moment of anticipation as the teams exit their locker rooms and gather to swarm the field. Hearts beat fast, the old fight song plays and the mascot spies a little tyke and offers a high-five.

If those of us who have gotten so much from our experience with collegiate athletics are lucky, somewhere high in the crowd, a child has come to the game for the first time, marveling at the bright uniforms and the sheer feel of the grand spectacle. n

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

23

My Game

Alyssa Dunlap

A

lyssa Dunlap is a senior captain from Villanova, Pa., on the women’s lacrosse team. As of early April, she had started all 58 games of her career on the Commodore defense. She graduates in May with a degree in corporate leadership and plans to start a lacrosse club program. She enjoys deep-sea fishing and this summer will try to catch the big fish on a trip with her father, Bret, in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.

Commodore Nation: How did you get into deep-sea fishing being from Pennsylvania?

Alyssa Dunlap: Growing up we used to visit my grandparents in North Carolina frequently. My grandfather would take me and my dad to a pond or lake and just throw in a line. That’s kind of where it started. My dad, he and his brother, would go on fishing trips. That interest carried over. My dad did the same, took me on one trip and I had an absolute blast just being out in the ocean on the water.

CN: What do you enjoy the most about it?

Dunlap: I enjoy the surprise of it and not knowing exactly what you’re going to catch, then also the thrill of being able to reel something in and having it be a challenge almost.

CN: Fishing can call for a lot of patience. Are you patient person?

Dunlap: It is funny. I would say in some aspects of life I might not be patient, but in the sport of fishing I am patient because I have no other option. You have to be patient. Once something hits, that is where it is really exciting because you have been waiting and waiting and finally you have something.

CN: What is the biggest fish you have caught?

Dunlap: My dad and I, when we went out to Cabo a couple years ago, we caught a marlin but we weren’t able to bring it on the boat. We were able to see it, and then it popped off the line as soon as the fish got close to the boat. It kind of freaked out. The hope is when we go in August we will able to bring it on the boat and see it up close.

CN: After graduation, you want to start a club lacrosse team.

Possibly in California?

Dunlap: California intrigues me. I have only been out there when we go to Stanford pretty much. Every time I’m out there I love the weather. I love being around the mountains. The terrain out there—it’s green, it’s mountainous. The weather is perfect.

That is something I feel like I need to get out of my system.

Being able to start a club program would be a great opportunity—kind of an excuse to move out there. But we’ll see. I could be, who knows, somewhere else. It is exciting because I have the ability to do whatever I want when I graduate. Everything is at my fingertips. But it is daunting because there is so much out there I don’t know exactly what direction I want to go in.

CN: Have you enjoyed the whole Vanderbilt experience?

JOE HOWELL

Dunlap: It has been phenomenal. I’ve learned a lot, too—as an athlete, as a person, as a teammate, as a friend, in all aspects. It has been some good, some bad. But that’s part of it. That is part of life. It has definitely prepared me for the real world.

24

May 2014

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