Storm the dorms!

Ah there’s nothing better than the smell of a fresh baked pizza – especially when it’s free! The Pioneer student athletes had a productive night, hustling around campus and storming into all the dorms to hand out free Papa Johns pizza, schedule cards and pizza coupons. They came, the saw and they conquered several new Pioneer fans! The athletes pulled together to welcome the student body back to school and generate some buzz about the exciting year of Pioneer athletics that we have ahead of us.

If you missed the pizza party – don’t be distraught! We’re sure there will be plenty of opportunities to get some free food and other goodies at our upcoming home games (hint, hint – means you should show up and see what happens, cause one never knows what might go down).

We do apologize to all those students who were studying or sleeping while we were rolling through, but we’re just excited about this season and we wanted to share our enthusiasm!

A Lesson From Student Financial Services

Members of the Student Financial Services staff, Diana Meyer and Karen Fobert joined Director, Glendi Gattis who presented a “Need Analysis 101” seminar to the coaching staff.  Coaches are usually the primary contact during the recruiting process, and can be faced with a multitude of questions from potential student-athletes and their families regarding financial aid.  This seminar provided a great deal of valuable information so the coaching staff could be better equipped to provide some basic  information as well as know where to appropriately direct specific inquiries to Student Financial Services.  It most definitely gave the coaching staff a glimpse into the effort and hard work that Glendi and her staff put in!

Pumping Up Pamplin Tours

Athletics Director Clark Yeager and student-athletes and SAAC members David Berman and Lindsay Nixon, met with the student tour guides from the Admissions Office to provide them with interesting data about the athletics and physical education department to better engage and inform prospective students and their parents during their regular stop at the Pamplin Sports Center.  Information ranged broadly from the fact that 75% of Lewis & Clark graduates take more than the required two physical education activity courses and that the only Rhodes scholar selected from L& C was a student-athlete. The student tour guides asked very good questions and collected a great deal of information.  Lindsay and David added more personal detail and insight into the life of a student-athlete in more intimate breakout sessions following the information session.

Earlier in the day the entire physical education and athletic staff met with John Schneider from the Counseling Center, Bess Austin from the Health Center and Melissa Osmond from Health and Wellness to discuss how we could all best collaborate to help our students cope with common issues of stress, anxiety, eating disorders and abuse of alcohol and other drugs.  It was very evident that these friends of students were very aware and knowledgeable of the many issues that face student-athletes and very respectful of the role coaches play in their lives.  It was an inspiring and productive collaboration of professionals with the real beneficiary being L & C students.

Dig Pink

On Friday, October 17, the Pioneer volleyball team sponsored Dig Pink night, a breast cancer awareness event and fundraiser. Pioneer fans were given the opportunity to donate spare change for Breast Cancer research and program development. The most obvious, and most fun, part of the night was that BOTH teams donned pink jerseys. Whitman wore a light pink, with the Pioneers in a dark pink. The Pioneer coaching staff draped themselves in pink feather boas, which led to a fantastic moment when Head Coach Lori Jepsen was “pointing out” to the down official something that the other team was doing wrong at the net where he should have been calling a foul. Her adamant and demonstrative explanation of what he might have missed while calling the match was very surreal when she was doing so while still wearing the feather boa.

Both the Whitman Missionaries and the Pioneers were Digging Pink

The Pioneer volleyball team is currently tied for first place in the NWC. This was their fifth match victory in a row (they went on to win #6 on Saturday when they swept the Whitowrth Pirates). I love that a team that is having their best season in 17 years can still be loose enough to don pink and pink feather boas, have some fun, and help raise breast cancer awareness. It was a great night!

Our 20th Sport

2007 L&C Halloween Challenge Winners

As any true Pioneer fan knows, L&C athletics officially sponsors 19 varsity sports, but there is one competitive sport that may be “unofficial” in nature, but really is the one that some of us work the hardest at winning. That sport: Halloween. The annual Halloween Costume Contest, sponsored and administered by the Provost’s office, is a tradition here at L&C that some members of the athletics department (ok ME) take VERY seriously. Ever since we discovered there is a trophy involved and no cash prize whatsoever, it became a goal to win this thing.

Coach Fulks and I came very close to victory in 2006. Heck, I stole someone’s child and shoved it in a flying monkey suit to accesorize our Witches of Wicked (Glenda the Good witch and the Wicked Witch of the West) motif, and we still came in “a close second”. Those words haunted me in the offseason. I spent months and months studying demographics and trends to try to find that perfect costume that would give us the coveted trophy in ‘07.

2006 One of the Witches and her flying monkey

Daphne and Velma in 2005

It is not an exaggeration to say that I spent three solid months building our costumes for last year. While designing and painting SpongeBob (and wiring him so it would play the theme song on an incessant loop) and hand sewing the Pineapple (spongebob) Lives in Under the Sea suit for Coach Fulks (a sewing machine would have been amazing during this process) and then adding the four foot Squidward and Patrick props, sometime during all those hours of work, I decided we were in it to win it 07 and would be retiring from competitive Halloweening after that season: win lose or draw. So I had to win. Which we did. In a “landslide”.

The Wicked Witches of Pamplin

I am keeping my word. I am not going for the repeat in 2008. However, it is not in my nature to not do something for Halloween. Given the number of people who have asked me what I am going to be this year, I just thought I would blog a reply to one and all. Yes, I do have an idea for a costume now. Yes, it will again be unbelievable. But no, I am not going to repeat as Halloween champ. The trophy is officially up for grabs. But, make sure you stop by my office on the 31st, because you are going to want to see what is in store for this year.

Still need to convice Coach Fulks that she wants to do this with me again this year, because, trust me Fulks, once again, it’s gonna be AAAAAWESOME!