As Our Year Draws To A Close
As our year draws to a close, it is time to reflect on our accomplishments and to look forward to what the future holds. We began the year with 22 new faces, nine of which were members of the basketball team. We made it through the fall season with a new volleyball coach, a first-time visit to the NCAA Regional Meet by our cross-country team, a winning season by our volleyball team and a much improved season for our soccer team. In addition to the busy fall season, our athletes participated in two fundraising projects and read to elementary school students.
We quickly changed gears and moved into basketball season. Although it was a disappointing season, the “mostly freshman” team made great strides and showed what they are capable of in their performance against Presbyterian College at our “Jam the Gym” night. The future looks bright for the nine returnees next year. Tennis season followed with a nearly .500 season which was one of the better seasons we have had and it was especially rewarding since the team did this in spite of the departure of their #1 player, Marcela Caceres, in February.
The culmination of the year came with two major fundraising projects in April, which netted approximately $10,000. This will enable our athletes to travel on buses next year to the more distant matches. To date, the Booster Club has raised approximately $20,000. Next year, we hope to improve on the auction, which will be our major fundraiser. In addition to these efforts, President Gray, Coach Coil and Margaret Moore went on a whirlwind trip to al the CVAC schools in North Carolina to try and persuade these schools as well as the South Carolina members that Converse would be in a contributing addition to the conference. The conference will meet this month and we hope that they will schedule a site visit in the fall and we can persuade them that we have a lot to offer them.
Although the year is almost over, we are already planning for the return of our fall sport athletes on August 9th and we look forward to the arrival of our 19 new athletes next fall. Our coaches continue to recruit and we hope to add a few more athletes to our rosters by August.
Our staff is excited about the future but we will be losing our very energetic assistant soccer coach, Tatum Clowney, to Charleston Southern. She has been a force to be reckoned with and the entire athletic department has benefited from her enthusiasm and expertise. We will see some new faces next year. Katie Boyd ’04 will be joining the department as an assistant volleyball coach and Kelly Daniels ’04 will assume the duties as cheerleading coach for one year.
Next year should be an exciting year and we hope you will follow us on our journey.