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(10/29/14 3:07am)
Regardless of his results, Elon University senior Luis Vargas is constantly striving to be the best he can be both on and off the cross country course. He is one of the fastest runners in the country, but it’s his trust in his coach and teammates that puts him ahead of the pack.
“Having the support from my team helps a lot,” Vargas said. “Having them cheer out there [on race days] and knowing that I have them to back me up is the driving force to not giving up during the race.”
Vargas has won all four events he’s competed in this year and has garnered four CAA Runner of the Week awards. He’s setting himself up for an All-American honor during his last year in a Phoenix uniform.
Vargas competed at the NCAA Pre-Nationals Oct. 18 and finished first with a time of 24:20.3 in the 8K men’s white run. Although his time was four seconds slower than his personal best, he held the eighth-fastest time among all men’s races at the tournament.
He also won the Elon Invitational Sept. 13, the Adidas Challenge Sept. 19 and the Notre Dame Invitational Oct. 3.
Head coach Nick Polk has been pleasantly surprised by how much Vargas has grown over the course of the past two months.
“Every week, I have my idea of what he’ll do at the national level, and it gets about 10 spots higher than I thought it was going to be the week before,” Polk said. “He continues to improve and impress everybody around the country.”
Vargas said he’s happy to receive CAA honors and recognition, but he is concentrated on the task at hand.
“My main focus is making sure our team does its best,” Vargas said.” After that, I’ll have my eyes set on Regionals, placing there and hopefully going to Nationals.”
As he prepares for the CAA Championships, which is scheduled to take place Nov. 1 in Boston, he inspires his teammates to follow in his footsteps.
“I say this at practice, ‘If you want to know how to be good, look at Luis,’” Polk said. “Luis loves Elon and runs as hard as he can for Elon, for me and for his teammates. That’s something that’s really hard to coach. It’s really a natural benefit that he has inside of him that makes him a better runner.”
While some players may focus purely on self-improvement, Vargas invests himself into a team mentality. After finishing a race, he’ll offer support to everybody else.
Off the track, Vargas can be found at the campus dining halls eating and talking with his teammates. On the weekends, he will occasionally play board games and watch movies at his teammates’ homes.
Senior teammate Ari Rothschild has had the opportunity to get to know Vargas over the course of his time at Elon and form a strong relationship with him.
“We’ve just become better and better friends on the course and off,” Rothschild said. “It’s been great to work with him these last four years.”
According to Vargas, his relationship-oriented approach to success stems from his family background. Because he is close to his parents, siblings and immediate family, he learned how to communicate well with loved ones. His genuine care for others transferred into his college running career.
“I’m out there every day with the guys,” Vargas said. “They’re my family. I’ve grown so close to them.”
Despite Vargas’ success thus far in the season, he often overworks himself. Since he constantly looks for areas that need improvement, Polk has to find the balance between pushing Vargas to be one of the best runners in the country and making time for him to rest.
“He always wants to do as much as possible, and my coaching of him is more so not letting him do all that he wants to do,” Polk said. “Finding that line between pushing Luis to be one of the top guys in the country, but not pushing him so hard that he ends up injured or sick [is the challenge].”
Vargas said it’s difficult to believe how fast his time at Elon has passed. Nevertheless, he has established goals that he’d like to accomplish after graduation.
After the season, Vargas plans to continue training with Polk in order to build on his achievements.
“Right now, I’m an accounting major, and hopefully I can go to grad school to get my master’s in accounting or business,” Vargas said.
(10/22/14 11:55am)
After working with IMLeagues last year to switch from a paper format to a new online system for students to register for intramurals, Campus Recreation initially saw a slight decrease in the number of participants. But after a year of educating students about the streamlined process, participation has rebounded.
IMLeagues is a website used by schools across the country to organize their intramural programs. Elon began using it last year.
“This year so far we’ve seen an increase in teams,” said Campus Rec assistant director Brandon MacCallum. “We educated all 120 Campus Rec employees and told them to please tell their friends [about IMLeagues].”
In order to create or join a team, a student must go to IMLeagues.com, create an account and click the register button. After filling out a registration form to create a team, the student will select a time preference, invite players to join and submit a $20 forfeit fee to the Campus Rec front desk.
To join a team, students simply select a sport, find a team and click the join button next to the selected team. After that, an email will be sent to the team captain to approve the request.
Senior and Campus Rec official Ben Koffel said he is excited about how the registration process has evolved over the course of his time at Elon University.
“At first, it was kind of a struggle [getting people to register through IMLeagues] because people were used to the paper format,” Koffel said. “I think now that we have the online format, it’s a lot easier for people to access their schedule and statistics.”
By registering through IMLeagues, team captains and players are able to easily see schedules, rosters, statistics and standings.
To increase the number of teams participating in intramurals, Campus Rec introduced a new sport this year: team handball. Team handball will be offered over Winter Term and have a similar structure to the Olympic sport.
“[The sport is] a cross between basketball, soccer and hockey, and is played indoors,” MacCallum said. “Our officials were the ones who wanted to try it out.”
In addition to starting an additional sport, Campus Rec wants to ensure that inclusivity is a top priority. According to Koffel, gender separation is an issue. In the fitness center, for example, guys tend to work out downstairs while the girls exercise upstairs.
One student that embraced inclusion was junior Eline Roillet, a co-ed flag football participant. Although her team failed to get a victory, they had fun and proved that sports are for all genders.
“Your gender shouldn’t define how you do in sports,” Roillet said. “Sports is not about being the best in the world — it’s about being the best you can be.”
(10/20/14 9:20pm)
After 18 months of preparation and fundraising, Elon University has announced plans for the construction of additional buildings for the School of Communications to begin in early 2016. In doing so, President Leo Lambert hopes to cement the school’s reputation as a national powerhouse while fulfilling the increased student interest in this area of study.
(10/19/14 2:23pm)
The Elon University volleyball team competed against the University of Delaware Blue Hens in search of its first win in Colonial Athletic Association play. Despite a tough effort in the opening sets, costly mistakes against a difficult opponent led them to a straight set (25-23, 29-27, 25-22) loss.
(09/18/14 12:41am)
The Elon University women’s tennis squad surprised many teams by capturing a Southern Conference title last year.
But the Phoenix now faces new challenges with a younger, inexperienced roster while entering the more challenging Colonial Athletic Association. Nevertheless, head coach Elizabeth Anderson is excited about her program’s future.
“I think [our freshmen] look very good,” Anderson said at Elon’s fall tournament Sept. 12-14. “They’re a very talented group and very hard-working. We’ve just got to continue getting them used to college tennis and college in general.”
In an effort to generate team bonding, assistant coach Bob Owens gave the freshmen a nickname: The Fab Five.
“I’ve been looking for a nickname for them, but it didn’t take us long to see that this was an extraordinary group of young ladies,” Owens said. “I’m hoping that [this nickname] helps with the camaraderie of the team and to identify with Elon tennis. They have high tennis IQ and are hard workers.”
Five freshmen, one junior and two seniors currently account for the team’s active roster. During the Elon Invitational, the team shined.
Erica Braschi, who was placed into the A-2 Singles Flight, won her first matches handily. She is from Puerto Rico and entered Elon with a 5-1 record against 4-star opponents, according to the Tennis Recruiting Network. Her one-handed backhand, wicked slice and strategic thinking make her a force to be reckoned with.
“I was very nervous before the first match and before the first doubles, but I think it went pretty well,” Braschi said. “Doing tennis before college is always so individual, and now it’s with a team.”
Freshman Olivia Lucas also asserted her dominance throughout the Elon Invitational in the A-3 Singles Flight. In the first day of the tournament, she outscored her opponents 24-6 in terms of games won. On the second day, she landed a spot in the finals.
“It feels great [to be playing well], and my confidence is getting so much better from this tournament,” Lucas said. “All the freshmen are really good this year, and we gel really well, so I think we’re going to have a great season.”
While the freshmen were impressive, returning players proved themselves capable of competing at a high level as well.
Senior Barbora Lazarova went 2-1 in singles play during the first two days of the tournament. Junior Taylor Casey was victorious in a decisive 6-1, 6-0 victory in the opening round of singles play.
Through three rounds of singles and one round of doubles play, the Phoenix posted a 13-5 overall record.
To improve during the course of the season, Elon will need to build on its success and prepare itself as best it can for conference play.
“We’re used to a lot of the teams [in the CAA] because we’ve played them for the past few years,” Anderson said. “We need to continue working on our strategy and just building points. That comes with experience and time.”
With the foundation laid last year and the freshmen that are making their mark, it’s not out of the realm to consider Elon a contender for the conference title once again.