46 items found for your search. If no results were found please broaden your search.
(09/22/15 7:15pm)
Nearly three-quarters of the public think that religion is losing influence in American life. According to a recent poll by Pew Research Center that number rose 5 percentage points since 2010, and the majority of people see that as a bad thing.
(03/24/15 8:40pm)
The human face of homelessness
(01/25/15 2:58am)
When Miles Williams joined the Elon University football team out of high school, he was told players should not study abroad until their eligibility is up. But he chose to take advantage of Elon’s Winter Term his junior year and study abroad in Ghana, which challenged his position on the team when a new coaching staff came in.
(11/05/14 7:10pm)
Maddie McCallie grew up surrounded by basketballs and hoops. She developed a passion for the game at an early age, thanks to her mother, Joanne P. McCallie, who’s the head women’s basketball coach at Duke University.
(11/01/14 10:44pm)
Senior Luis Vargas of the men’s cross country team became Elon University’s first-ever champion in the Colonial Athletic Association when he crossed the finish line on Saturday, Nov. 1. With a school record-breaking time at the CAA Cross Country Championships at Franklin Park, Vargas claimed the first place finish and etched his name in school history.
(10/19/14 2:18pm)
Elon University senior Luis Vargas won his fourth consecutive race of the season at the NCAA Pre-Nationals on Saturday, Oct. 18. He along with select members of the Elon men’s and women’s cross country team competed at the La Vern Gibson Championship Course in Terre Haute, Ind.
(10/09/14 8:46pm)
BURLINGTON, N.C. — There was a not-so-ceremonial police escort through the neighborhoods leading up to Harvey Newlin Elementary. Six squad cars lined up outside the school. Armed officers, some with both hands glued to the right side of their hip, rushed out of their cars towards what looked like an abandoned home. Across the street from this heated scene some 800 elementary school kids were sitting on reading carpets, practicing cursive, or working on fractions in their classrooms just like any other weekday.
(10/08/14 2:30am)
Men’s soccer standout Nathan Diehl’s road to Elon University wasn’t simply a drive on the well-paved I-40 from Tar Heel Country in Chapel Hill. His journey started on more of a gravel road off the highway detailed with potholes and kicked up dirt. He followed it, determined to find a program where he could make an impact.
(09/22/14 6:44pm)
Two Elon University pairs of running shoes crossed the grassy finish line in record-breaking times at the Adidas Cross Country Challenge on Friday, Sept. 19 at WakeMed Soccer Park. Elon unior Elyse Bierut and senior Luis Vargas put their names in the books when they each set records in the women’s and men’s 5K races.
(09/17/14 6:09pm)
Both of the Elon University golf teams found the top of the leaderboard in their fall tournaments this past weekend. The women grabbed a title and the men rallied for a fourth-place finish.
(08/29/14 3:01am)
The Elon University cross country team recently experienced some major changes in the program, but the men’s team hasn’t lost its focus.
“The important thing is that we’re all still together,” said senior Ari Rothschild. “It’s different, but our goal is going to be the same. We want to progress as athletes and individuals on the course and off.”
The expectation is the same: the best finish in Elon history. With three seniors who know the program and have developed in it, the team is relying on their leadership this season, especially with head coach Nick Polk being hired so late in the summer.
“Coming in as a freshman, you’re already overwhelmed with the changes of college and then not having a coach that you had that relationship with,” said freshman Will Leopold. “But the senior guys will guide us in the right direction.”
Not having that established relationship with a coach could be a detriment to any team, but the trust between Polk and his runners is what’s going to maintain a good environment.
“We have to give it 100 percent. He’s so passionate about what he does, and we’re really excited to be working with him,” Rothschild said of Polk.
Cross country is an individual sport, although when it comes to designing workouts that involve up to 12 miles of running and aerobic fitness, guidance from the coach is essential.
“We wouldn’t be in the shape that we’re in without the work of the coach and how he trains us,” Rothschild said. “And that’s a huge part of our sport. We’re only racing for a small part of the season. It’s mostly training.”
For Rothschild, the coach’s role is invaluable come race day.
“You talk about strategy and certain splits in the race, but at the end of the day, it’s just you, the runner out there,” he said. “The coach is big on motivation before the race.”
It may just be the individual runner on the course, but coming up on mile 5 on race day, there’s also an incentive to keep going for others.
“The relationship with the coach is important because if you’re not happy or don’t have a good connection, you’re not going to run fast for them,” Leopold said.
Another source of motivation for these athletes to go the extra mile is their teammates running next to them.
“If you feel close to your teammates, you’re going to want to fight harder in meets and run the extra miles in practice,” Rothschild said. “It makes us want to work harder to reach our personal goals and help everyone else reach their goals as well. It’s a crucial part of cross country.”
In a sport like cross country, one single misstep could ruin a potentially personal-best time.
This team is going to need this strong camaraderie to make an impact in the Colonial Athletic Association this season.
“There’s a lot of big meets that we haven’t been to yet,” said Rothschild. “We haven’t raced in ones at that caliber, and I’m excited to see what our team can do against that competition.”
The Division I collegiate stage is a big one for incoming freshmen. The races are longer, the other runners are faster and the pressure is greater, but that doesn’t scare Leopold.
“I’m really excited to be racing again, not knowing anyone’s times or who you’re racing against,” Leopold said. “We’re racing against the clock and for the best place possible. I just want to help the team any way I can.”
It’ll be a change for the entire Phoenix cross country team running against new opponents, but what matters most is that the sweat-stained maroon and gold jerseys surrounding them are still there kicking up dirt.
“It doesn’t seem like it’s affecting anything when I’m just out there running with my teammates,” Rothschild said. “We’re only going up from here.”
(08/29/14 3:01am)
The Elon University women’s cross country team had its best season in program history last year with a ninth place finish at the NCAA Southeast Regional Championships, its highest ever.
The team is looking to improve on that ranking and make an immediate impact in the Colonial Athletic Association. One challenge these runners face is new competition without last year’s top runner, Allyson Oram.
“I think it’s more exciting because you’re going into something, and you have to prove yourself,” said senior captain Haylee Dawe. “No one is putting an expectation on you. You are coming and surprising people.”
A lone runner taking the lead isn’t going to meet that challenge for the women’s team this year.
“We don’t want to replace one. We want to move our whole pack up a little bit,” Dawe said.
According to head coach Nick Polk, on paper there isn’t a clear No. 1 runner, and the workouts will show who rises to the top, but the pack has to be strong as a whole.
“It’s going to be some of the older girls mixed in with the freshmen to create a higher-level requirement this year,” Polk said. “Leading some of those freshmen into the front pack, that’s how we’re going to do damage the first year in the CAA.”
The runners know they can’t just show up and expect somebody else to step up. With most of the top eight runners returning this season, they have to compete together.
“You can’t hope one runner is going to fill that spot,” said sophomore Kimberly Johansen. “As a team, we have to focus on being there together and being as close as possible because that’s more important than having one person out in first place.”
Going through training and racing in practices, it’s important to learn who does what well.
“Everybody’s mileage might be different,” Johansen said. “You can read what they would do in a race and learn how everyone else will perform.”
What drives Johansen forward is seeing her teammates’ jerseys in front of her and knowing they’ve gotten through the race together.
“When you’re running you have to have that bit of ‘they’re doing this, this is what I have to do,’” Johansen said. “You have to hold yourself accountable because you know your teammates are expecting certain things.”
There are few races throughout the season — only 10 meets on the schedule — and the runners said they want to have good performances at each of them, but they don’t have to run their best until competition.
“We’ve always had mindset that conference and regionals are what matter most,” Dawe said. “The whole time we’re thinking about those meets. That’s when you have to prove that you deserved those rankings.”
For runners like Johansen, the thrill of running a 6k and the success both of the individual and the team, is what makes the miles worth it.
“You only have so many opportunities to see it all come together,” Johansen said. “When you do, you are so much more happy with it because of all the physical work. We know each other on such a personal, deep level, that you know you weren’t randomly placed and just ended up having a good race. There’s so much more there.”
Despite the many changes this team has been through, the culture and drive that enables each runner to go the extra mile remains the same.
“As a program we fuel off of each other,” Dawe said. “And our success comes off of our relationship with each other which hasn’t changed.”
(08/27/14 1:57am)
The philosophy of new Elon University cross country coach Nick Polk is deep, but simple.
“A culture of confidence: knowing and believing in your training so that when you get to your starting line, you know exactly what you need to do,” he said.
Polk was hired the same day the athletes’ reported back to campus for preseason.
Just days before preseason training was scheduled to begin, the Elon cross country team lost head coach Christine Engel when she left for a head coaching job at Duke University. The runners were left not knowing if they would have a coach when they returned to campus.
“We were all shocked,” said sophomore Kimberly Johansen. “It was like, ‘what are we supposed to do now?’ It made us think more about how we go about things and our program values. We see that and pass that down to our freshmen. That dynamic and culture doesn’t change.”
Heading into preseason, the team didn’t know what was to come or who would fill in that gap, but the team captains knew they had to step up and address the team.
“We went from knowing what to expect all the time to not even knowing if we had a coach and we had to think, ‘how are we going to approach this season?” said junior captain Elyse Bierut. “We were going to carry on with a positive attitude no matter how much unknown was there.”
The team recognized this was a great opportunity for Engel, but hearing the news didn’t come without some concern.
“It was really unexpected knowing her all these years, and I was really saddened by the news,” said senior Luis Vargas. “After the announcement it was definitely hard to gather our thoughts. I was nervous coming in, but Elon always looks after us.”
The process to hire a new coach moved quickly, and just a week after Engel’s official resignation, Elon hired Polk.
“The potential on the roster is very high. The incoming guys and girls on paper should take the program to the next level,” Polk said. “And this was a chance for me to become a head coach, so I wanted to take on that challenge as well.”
As a three-time All-American runner and national champion at Grand Valley State University in Allendale, Michigan and assistant cross country and track and field coach at Grand Valley State for the last three seasons, Polk has experience. He was also a competitive runner for ZAP Fitness, a professional running team in North Carolina.
Polk said running at an advanced level and the experience of competing for a national championship has prepared him for the opportunity.
“[The opportunity is] being able to coach developmental runners and top-tier runners at the same time,” he said.
MORE: Elon releases 2014 cross country schedule
With any new coach, a new style of coaching is inevitable.
“We have to be open-minded for what our new coach is going to bring to the team,” Johansen said. “We all have to learn.”
When Polk met with the runners for the first time, he brought up one point that stood out to Vargas — trust.
“As upperclassmen, we have to trust him with his workouts and training, but he’s putting his trust in us and finding out where we are,” Vargas said. “We are his guide coming into Elon and we have to be able to maintain our environment from the past and integrate with him as well.”
Polk is bringing in some new training techniques that he said he hopes will take the team to the next level as a nationally competitive Division I program.
“I am coaching them looking at the whole picture and their all-around fitness,” Polk said. “From strength, to core, to stretching, to the biggest part, which is running.”
Polk said his changes will include more aerobic-based workouts with longer distances and more intensity.
“The biggest change is doing more drills involving dynamic movement and aerobic strength,” Polk said. “And that’s what we have to focus on to get us ready for the end of the season, the most important part.”
According to Polk, the Colonial Athletic Association — which Elon joined this summer — is a strong cross country conference dominated by the College of William & Mary, but his goal for the season is to chip away at that lead and take Elon runners to the next level with an intense training environment. For Polk, the key is creating a pack of good upfront runners.
“Every athlete is different, so I have to specialize the training and individualize to their needs,” Polk said. “I want to challenge them to do new things that they haven’t done in the past and maybe change some of the old ways of doing things.”
Polk described his style of coaching as laid-back most of the time, so he and the team can enjoy their experiences together but stressed the importance of maintaining a competitive atmosphere.
“I want a culture that’s committed to everything we do,” said Polk, who wants his runners to be locked into the sport 100 percent of the time. “The whole runner lifestyle: training, sleeping, eating well, everything outside of running that makes you successful.”
Luckily for Polk, that environment shouldn’t be difficult to foster in the Elon cross country program, which was built on that standard and is enforced by the athletes.
“We value the same things,” Bierut said. “Coach Engel helped build that culture and facilitated that atmosphere of the positive culture that we have, but we built the culture so we still hold each other and ourselves to high standards. It’s really up to us as returning athletes and it’s already clear that our new coach is going to help facilitate that.”
Being flexible is a huge part of the 2014 season for the Phoenix. There are two new coaches — volunteer assistant Wil Zahorodny also joins the staff — new training and coaching styles, 35 percent of the team’s runners are new this year and it’s a new conference to compete in. Things are rapidly changing for the cross country program, but its goals are the same and the new coaches are prepared to take the team over the bumps along the way as long.
“Things might not always go as planned, but we have to be flexible to get us to where we want to be at the end of the season,” Polk said.
(05/03/14 4:23pm)
The second-seeded Elon University women’s lacrosse team finished out its season May 2 with a 15-11 loss to third-seeded University of Detroit Mercy in the semifinals of the Atlantic Sun Tournament.
(05/01/14 3:47am)
Coming off a winning record and claiming the No. 2 seed in the Atlantic Sun Conference Tournament, the Elon University women’s lacrosse team is on the hunt for a conference tournament title that would send them to the NCAA tournament.
“Anyone is beatable on any day, and the beauty of tournaments is that sometimes it’s not the No. 1 seed or the perceived best team that always wins it,” Elon head coach Josh Hexter said. “I do think we can win it.”
Although he said anything is possible, Coach Hexter isn’t trying to predict an outcome. Knowing success could bring a trip to the NCAA Tournament, the coaches are sticking to what has been their goal all season — getting better every day.
“We’re trying to stay with the focus of trying to improve,” Hexter said. “[The NCAA Tournament] is a fun motivator for the staff and the girls, but if you focus on that too much then you lose track of the little things that get you there.”
The little things are what the team needs to focus on to win the A-Sun Tournament, and that is preached at practice.
“We’re entering the exciting time,” assistant coach Virginia Crotty said. “I didn’t know what was going to come of this year, but because they focus on getting better and better and not taking those big losses as a huge hit, they used every challenge like that to grow as individual players and as a unit. And that to me is success.”
The opposition
The No. 1 seed Jacksonville University is the reigning A-Sun Conference champion and has been a powerful force in the A-Sun since it joined the league in 2010. In a single elimination tournament such as this one, every game matters, and any team is beatable, but the Dolphins are going to be the toughest opponent the Phoenix will have to overcome.
“Tactically, we’re going up against a really fast, aggressive Jacksonville team that likes to score off the break,” Hexter said. “They put a lot of pressure on you on the ride and get shots and opportunities off of causing turnovers. We have to handle their pressure and be poised.”
Luckily, the Phoenix won’t be completely shell-shocked by this fast-paced style of play, as the team had experience playing against Atlantic Coast Conference teams early in the season.
“They’re not going to be as fast as Duke [University] or [University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill], and that’s why we play those ACC teams, to try to simulate where we want to be,” Hexter said. “Hopefully when conference tournament comes around we’re ready to go.”
How Elon can win
According to Crotty, who has experience on the field at Duke University with this kind of pressure, the key is sticking to the game plan and believing they belong there.
“If you focus on the little things, the big plays will come,” Crotty said. “If you get back to the basics, the fundamentals, trust your instincts, trust what [you’ve] been through all year to propel you forward, [you] should be confident being on the big stage.”
The team isn’t changing how it plays, and without having the experience of tournament play, they need to stay focused and consistent throughout the game in order to win.
“The biggest thing will be handling the tournament pressure experience,” Hexter said. “A lot of the girls have won state championships and been through that kind of process, but there’s a difference to how conference tournaments are run.”
As a former player who has been on the big stage, Crotty offered advice to her players.
“If you’re nervous, embrace it,” she said. “It’s the first step in conquering nerves. Start with communication and backing each other up. The game might be messy, but you have to think about what you want that team saying about you when you walk off the field, and all that is based on what you yourself can contribute.”
Impact on the team
This young team has earned some bragging rights in its inaugural season with an undefeated record at home, a 4-1 record in conference and 8-8 season overall headed into the tournament. A trip to the NCAA tournament for a first-year program is almost unheard of, but the team has a shot at making history for Elon.
“There’s nothing like the NCAA [Tournament]. It would be such a great accomplishment in our first year to be even included in the tournament,” Crotty said. “It’s quite a stage with the most elite teams in the country. It would be the experience of a lifetime, but obviously, we need to focus and not get ahead of ourselves. If we do that, we have a really good shot at making it.”
Having to overcome major challenges and work to play catch up as a first-year team hasn’t set the Phoenix back, and the team is ready to get after it in the A-Sun Tournament with a championship in sight.
“[A championship] would be incredible,” Hexter said. “There are so many challenges along the way but I’m lucky. I really do have a phenomenal bunch of girls on this team who work hard and are selfless and just give all of themselves for the team. At the end of the day, if we are able to hold that trophy at the end of the season, the looks on my players faces will be the coolest thing for me.”
(04/29/14 4:53pm)
The National Women’s Soccer League, which opened up regular season play three weeks ago, is currently in its second year running. This league is U.S. soccer’s third attempt at building a women’s professional soccer league since 1999.
(04/28/14 2:46am)
The Elon University women’s lacrosse team was hit with a momentum-killing 17-4 loss to Jacksonville University today, April 27.
(04/26/14 5:34pm)
The Elon University women’s lacrosse team remained unbeaten in Atlantic Sun Conference play with its 18-6 victory over Stetson University April 25. This win gives the Phoenix an automatic top seed headed into the conference tournament and improves the team to 8-7 overall and 4-0 in the conference.
(04/19/14 9:20pm)
The Elon University women’s lacrosse team continued its unbeaten streak in Atlantic Sun Conference play with a 19-7 win over Howard University April 19 in Greene Stadium.
(04/14/14 2:57am)
Northwestern University football players have filed a petition to form labor union and are fighting for the right to be paid as employees of the university. “Employees” of the university? Since when does getting the chance to play a game you love every single day constitute as a job?