Archive for July, 2011
Louisa Barama ’12 Shines at U.S. Collegiate Figure Skating Championships
Posted by: | July 29, 2011 | Comments
Last month, we told you about Louisa Barama ’12, a hard-working OU student who was looking to finish her figure skating season with a trip to the U.S. Collegiate Figure Skating Championships in Idaho. She’s back from the competition, and we’re proud to announce that she represented Oglethorpe remarkably, scoring 70.78 and placing seventh overall.
“I am proud of my accomplishment,” said Louisa, a physics major and rising senior. “This experience was amazing and I am so glad I finished well. This is a great competition and I really enjoyed every part of it.”
The U.S. Collegiate Figure Skating Championships is sanctioned by U.S. Figure Skating, and is the longest running collegiate ice skating program. Since most colleges don’t sponsor figure skating clubs or teams, solo skaters like Louisa represent their college at the event, competing for both individual and school pride. This year, Oglethorpe was the only college or university from the state of Georgia with an athlete at nationals, for both the junior and senior divisions of the championship.
Since returning from the championships, Louisa’s been featured in a number of online and print journals, including the Patch online newspapers and the Gwinnett Daily Post.
Congratulations, Louisa!
Photo: Louisa receives encouragement from her coach at the Atlanta Open during a past season showcase.
National Sports Authorities Recognize Oglethorpe’s Outstanding Scholar-Athletes
Posted by: | July 29, 2011 | CommentsThis week, the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) released its ITA Scholar-Athlete honors, and Oglethorpe’s Kayla Atkins ’11, Kate Siess ’14, Ethan Motz ’14 and Ross Beall ’11 were on that list.
Kate Siess '14 is one of only 35 women SCAC tennis players to be recognized by the ITA for excellence in the classroom.
The ITA is the governing body of college tennis, and oversees men’s and women’s varsity tennis across all three NCAA divisions as well as NAIA and Junior/Community College tennis. Each season, ITA recognizes outstanding varsity athletes in all divisions who maintain a cumulative GPA of 3.2.
A total of 35 female and 27 male student-athletes in the SCAC conference were named Division III Scholar-Athletes.
In golf news, the National Golf Coaches Association (NGCA)announced Oglethorpe rising sophomores Chelsea Gatterdam ’14 and Dona Kiosef ’14 as 2011 Divison III All-American Scholars.
Gatterdam and Kiosef made the cut after maintaining a minimum GPA of 3.50 and competing in more than 12 rounds of competitive golf with a stroke average of 95 or better.
The 2010-11 women’s golf lineup featured five freshmen producing an average score of 92.32 to create a relative strength number of 398.96. Golfstat.com‘s Freshman Impact analysis measures the impact of a team’s freshmen in their lineup, and ranks the Oglethorpe women in 9th place nationally.
Former Summer Camper Returns as OU Student
Posted by: | July 25, 2011 | Comments
Ben Hirsch is a rising freshman who recently graduated from Duluth High School near Atlanta.
Every summer Oglethorpe hosts hundreds of kid campers who are practicing their sport, perfecting their craft, or honing their music skills. But, it’s not every day that one of those campers becomes an OU student.
Ben Hirsch attended the Peter Howell Tennis Camp when he was just 12 years old—and this fall the rising freshman art major will return to Oglethorpe in his new role.
Initially, Ben didn’t expect Coach Howell, who heads up OU’s tennis teams, to still remember him from the camp six years ago on OU’s tennis courts. “I was surprised [because] I was one of a thousand kids [that are in] his summer camps each year. I didn’t expect him to remember me at all.”
Peter Howell, head coach of the tennis teams at Oglethorpe, leads the Peter Howell Tennis Camp, one of OU's annual sports camps. Coach Howell is a Georgia Tennis Hall of Famer and a member of the Georgia Professional Tennis Hall of Fame.
“I chose Oglethorpe first and foremost because the general atmosphere… is better than any of the other schools I applied for. [They] didn’t seem nearly as interesting as Oglethorpe… I [also] really wanted to play college tennis and Coach Howell seemed very interested in my playing for the team. Once I knew that I was going to have a spot on the tennis team I made up my mind to go to Oglethorpe.”
Ben played tennis all four years of high school, and he looks forward to improving his game with the Petrels and maybe even returning to the camp one day as an alum-coach.
By the end of July, Oglethorpe will have hosted 16 summer camps, giving young campers the opportunity to experience the Oglethorpe campus and work with professional instructors in many different sports, including lacrosse, basketball, soccer, volleyball, and football.
Pugh Goes Pro: OU Golf Standout Sets Next Course
Posted by: | July 21, 2011 | Comments
From playing for Petrel pride to playing for prize: Scott Pugh '11
In the world of golf, there are three major levels of play: junior, amateur, and pro. Only a select few college athletes who have both the talent and resources go pro—and Scott Pugh ’11 wants to join that club.
A four-time all conference player, Scott is one of three Petrels to become two-time All-Americans in the history of OU’s golf program. He’s had the lowest scoring average on the team for the last two years, and was a major player in the Petrels’ storied 2009 NCAA Division III National Championship win. Now, with his NCAA days behind him, he wants to focus on making it in the professional golf arena.
Scott says he’s wanted to go pro since he was a child—back in the days when he used a make-shift golf club that his grandfather pieced together to fit Scott’s four-year-old frame.
“Although the reasons for pursuing a professional golf career have changed through the different seasons of my life, I have always wanted to play golf on the professional level,” said Scott. “There was not a [specific] point in time [that] I realized I could play on the professional stage, but after looking back on my time as an amateur and seeing my success, [I knew] that I needed to advance to the next level—the professional level of golf.”
As part of his push to go pro, Scott’s family will host a golf tournament on July 31 to help defray the costs of his first year on tour, estimateed at $25,000. The tournament, to be held in Carlisle, Penn., is called the Scott Pugh Project. Scott plans to begin pro play this fall at the Peach State Professional Golf Tour, a major development tour for those at the entry level of pro golf. There, he hopes to have at least one top-3 finish, and advance to more competitive fields. His ultimate goal is to swing with the heavy-hitters in the famed PGA Tour, which he hopes to accomplish in one to three years.
In more than 30 years of coaching OU athletics, Coach Jim Owen said he’s had only five players attempt this route, and if anybody can make it, Scott can. Read More→
Will & Drive: One OU Student’s Comeback Story
Posted by: | July 20, 2011 | Comments
In this CNN video report, Will Carter ’12 demonstrates how an electronic device has enabled him to drive again after a brain injury.
Like many Oglethorpe students, Will Carter ’12 has found “his place” over the past three years, carving out his niche in theatre and slowly making a name for himself in Atlanta’s crowd of amateur stand-up comics. But unlike most others, Will has had to overcome remarkable odds to get here, a story that he tells with pride on the CNN Health blog this week.
The rising senior and award-winning playwright has always enjoyed the performing arts, and as a youngster he enjoyed watching comedians perform on stage.
“I have always been a kid who loves to make people laugh,” recalls Will. “I would watch a lot of stand-up when I was younger…when Toy Story first came out, I quoted it constantly just to make people laugh.”
But at age 17, Will was involved in a head-on car accident that left him with a severe brain injury and a long road to recovery ahead. The once highly confident high school student had become wheelchair bound, he’d lost his ability to drive, and tasks that once came easy to him, like studying, took more focus and concentration than ever before. Read More→