What Vassar Athletics Needs Is A Slogan

By Shane Donahue, Sports Information Student Assistant

In high school, I never played a team contact sport like football, lacrosse, hockey, or even basketball so I missed out on the locker room experience. My only exposure to the moving team prayer or the fiery half time speech is from what I’ve seen in various clichéd sports movies so the locker room has a mythical quality for me. I dream of a chance to slap Jon Henderson in the face to pump him up, or to stare into Ray Lewis' eyes as he leads the famous “Game time” chant.

Because my athletic career, though long and diverse, lacks a true locker room experience, it’s something I yearn for. I came close to it at Vassar when coach took us to the locker room for a pre-game speech when we played indoors, but something was off. I didn’t feel like the guys in Miracle did after Kurt Russel’s speech, but that’s understandable because tennis requires a more cerebral approach anyway.

I think the problem was that there was no sign with a slogan to touch as we exited the locker room like in Rudy with Notre Dame’s hallowed “Play like a champion today” sign. To fulfill my dream of an authentic locker room experience, I need a sign with a good slogan that I can slap as I exit. It would be similar to the low, nearly record-setting branch of Vassar’s plane tree which I slap during midterms and finals because I heard it’s good luck.

During a hellish week of midterms, I posted a sign with Notre Dame’s famous slogan “Play like a champion today” in the stairwell of my TH so I could touch it whenever I went downstairs. Thanks in part to the sign, I knocked out 3 papers, a midterm, and a presentation.

Inspired by former NBA head coach and blogger extraordinaire Eric Musselman, here’s my categorized ideas for Vassar’s new locker room sign which will come to a vote in the coming weeks:

Coaching adages:

“Your greatest strength is the exploitation of your opponent’s weaknesses via your strengths.”

“Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character.” –Albert Einstein

“Reasons = Excuses” – My 6th grade music teacher

Rhetorical question:

“How does what YOU accomplish today influence your ambitions for tomorrow?”

“IDK what you’ve done lately, what will YOU do today?”

“What skills do YOU have?”

Motivational:

“DESIRE to set a goal. Dedication to pursue it. Determination to overcome the obstacles.” – Archie Griffin via Vassar alum Jim Citrin.

“It’s going down.”

“Whether you think you can or whether you think you can’t, you’re right.” – Henry Ford

“You can always try harder.” - My friend while coaching 12 year-olds at a tennis camp.

“Motivation is simple, you eliminate those who are not motivated.” – Lou Holtz

Performance-oriented:

“Imagine. Concentrate. Execute. Appreciate.”

“Play beautiful.”

“Smooth is fast. Fast is smooth.” – movie Shooter

School-related:

“You represent Vassar first, youself second.”

“Victory is relative.”

“I am… We are…”

“Vassar is a small, coeducational, highly selective liberal arts institution.”

Not a Bad Day for Vassar Athletics

By Chelsea Katzenberg, Assistant Sports Information Director

Saturday, October 17. Not a bad day for Vassar athletics. With many teams playing, and results pouring in throughout the day, I watched as the “W”’s and first-place finishes piled up.

Sophomore Johanna Spangler won the Seven Sisters Cross Country Championship, the first Vassar runner in 11 years to do so. Sophomore Alex Bello defended her medalist honors at the Ann S. Batchelder Invitational, capping an impressive fall season of top finishes.

The women’s tennis team put forth a dominating performance at the New York State Championships, sending players to Sunday’s title matches in five out of six singles flights, and advancing doubles teams to the semifinals of all three flights. On Sunday the Brewers will look to defend five of the titles they won last year, and perhaps add a couple more…

Women’s volleyball registered two wins, in a tri-match with Mt. St. Mary and Bard, to extend its winning streak to six. In a soccer doubleheader at Gordon Field, men’s soccer extended its own winning streak to three with a 3-0 shutout of Farmingdale State, and the women’s team followed that with a 3-2 win over Elmira.

Despite a depleted roster, women’s rugby put forth a gutsy effort in a 25-20 win over Dartmouth, keeping Vassar’s playoff hopes alive.

In an extremely competitive and fast race, featuring teams from Division I, II, and III, men’s cross country showed its speed, with four runners clocking in under 27 minutes.

It is an impressive list and it exemplifies the overall effort of Vassar athletics to continue to grow and improve. With the fall season winding down, it demonstrates how teams are working into peak form, putting all the little details together and eliminating mistakes. Remember the day. Saturday, October 17. A pretty darn good day for Vassar athletics.

McCowan & Me

By Robin Deutsch, Sports Information Director

For the past five years, I have had a long standing banter with Vassar men’s and women’s cross country coach James McCowan about my running prowess. Or what he deems as a lack thereof.

I like to regale James about running four Marathons. Three of them were in Boston, where each time I miscounted the number of hills in Heartbreak Hill. The other was New York, where I swore there were hills in Central Park. I was later informed that the trek through that portion of the race is essentially flat. So much for my topography prowess. I do know, however, that each marathon was 26.2 miles.

But ever since my running totals decreased to about .2 miles a week, James likes to refer to me as a “middle school” runner. I believe this has something to do with me complaining about his prescribed workouts and the fact that his routes take me places where my shoes get dirty.

I don’t particularly like my running togs caked in mud, yet several of James’ excursions have ruined two perfectly clean pair of Asics. Well, not exactly ruined them, they’re just not as pristine looking.

James and I started at Vassar at the same time, in the summer of 2004, and became fast friends. Working together to figure out how an obsolete, archaic-dos-based-program functioned to compile results for the annual VC Invitational brought on the type of comradeship that would have made Churchill and Stalin best buds. Many times during the painstaking process of toying with the 2 ½ x 2 ½ floppy discs, I wanted to beat them into a crumpled heap with a sledgehammer. James would laugh and say, “If we only had the manual.”

James actually had me beat at Vassar by five years. A 1999 grad, he was an All-America and NCAA Regional Champion. Understandably, you could imagine my trepidation when, in trying to explain a workout route he wanted me to run, James became exasperated and ran the course with me.

Since running has a significant amount of mental fortitude involved, I was scared s@#%less that he was going impose some serious psychological and physical punishment on me. But he didn’t (thank you to someone above). We ran easy and loose – at my pace – and he entertained tales of my running lore (I did churn out a 1:34 half marathon at the 2000 New Haven race thanks to a sparkling pair of silver Mizuno racing flats and six Power Gels). I was thrilled, albeit nervous, to run a few miles with an All-America and my friend.

The one time I do recall paying attention to coach McCowan’s workout instructions, I was sprinting up a series of steep hills on our old cross country course in 80 degree heat. It left me woozy, nauseas and in severe oxygen debt.

“I said to run the hills at 80 percent,” James corrected me. “Not on an 80 degree day.”

“You said sprint them,” I retorted.

“No, I didn’t.”

“I believe you did.”

“Middle school runner.”

James and I are forever asking things of each other. He likes to borrow photographs, proof sheets, the office color printer/scanner, my laptop computer. I like to hold those things hostage for a team sweatshirt. Begrudgingly, we both agree (insert big smile here) to part with our precious objects. We’ve never actually had to wrestle the goods away from each other, but I do believe upon our last exchange I heard James mumble something about the next time he takes me out running.

This space isn’t necessarily the place to analyze the intricacies of James’ coaching philosophy. For one thing, I don’t totally understand his rhetoric (somewhere between Phil Jackson and George Sheehan) and secondly, I don’t follow how an Anthropology major turns himself into a heckuva cross country and track coach.

Every now and again I meander down to the Atrium in the Athletics & Fitness Center to listen to James’ practice monologue. I am thinking it might inspire me to increase my weekly mileage from .2 to 1.2. One of my more recent visits found James in the midst of dispersing the season’s new training gear.

“You must have smelled the stuff from upstairs,” he said with a big grin growing across his face.

“Nah,” I replied. “You must have sensed that I haven’t updated anything on the Web that involves either cross country or track in weeks.”

The Fall Athletics season has a turbo-charged feel. Short and tight and intense and explosive and over in a snap.

McCowan & Me have been through 5 ½ years of them now. I believe I am speaking for both of us when I say we’re still having a blast. Together. Coach and Middle School Runner.