The freshman convocation for the graduating class of 2020 featured Ellen Forney, the illustrator who worked in partnership with Sherman Alexie to bring life into his book, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian. Upon entering, general consensus exhibited a mass of fatigued, stressed out, nearly lifeless bodies serving as an audience.
When Ms. Forney walked on stage, however, the usual dull lull of conversation halted. She looked interesting – very different from other presenters. Forney wasn’t dressed in business casual attire, and she did not sport a look of stern, condescending all-knowingness. Rather, she wore jeans, and she boasted an expression of appreciative wonder. She immediately became more relatable than every other presenter we’d seen so far. The second she opened her mouth to speak, she was no longer an adult that we were being forced to listen to. She morphed instantaneously into a fellow victim of pain, stress, and life in general. This was the person we wanted to listen to.
Forney talked about her struggles with bipolar disorder, and she poured her heart out on stage in the best way possible. She gave the entire freshman student body insight into her mind, and the life of Ellen Forney suddenly became a life we related to. Her success story became one we wanted to emulate. Forney unknowingly lifted thousands of tons off the shoulders of unsuspecting college students.
So, my fellow honors students, the freshman convocation is NOT as awful as you all may at first perceive. When dragging yourself out of your Netflix-induced stupor and trudging out your bedroom door to go to your honors event, hope you are lucky enough to hear from someone like Ellen Forney.

Surprise, surprise – it’s another sports-related article!
When you attend a sporting event at a large school (i.e. Rutgers, LSU, UDel) there’s a large likelihood that a good portion of the spectator population was attracted by things other than the love of the game. T-shirt cannons, scantily clad cheerleaders, free merchandise at the entrance – there are countless outliers that draw in crowds at games. However, that fact almost guarantees the absence of actual attention paid to the competition at hand. The fact of the matter is, larger schools draw in less athletic fans and more merchandise fans.
Stockton University’s men’s soccer team has accomplished great things so far this season. They have worked with determination at every practice and game. However, we are a small school, void of confetti machines and t-shirt cannons at every game. Therefore, the stands are rarely filled during game days. One particular evening, the men’s team played a game in the frigid rain. The game went as any other soccer game would. The boys played hard, and they acted as if the rain and slowly dropping temperature were no different than a sunny 65 degree day. The fans, however, are what caught my eye.
As I sat in the front row of the fan section, which was sparse enough for me to turn around and see most of the bleachers, the cheers and screeches rose from behind me. When the temperature dropped, no one moved. When it started drizzling, Stockton spectators only budged to pull up their hoods and continue cheering. We cheered loudly for the boys, and up rose the occasional hiss at the opposing team.
This particular crowd is one I’ll never forget. I knew almost none of their names, but I knew they were present out of love – for the game or for the school, I couldn’t tell. Their unwavering support was true, unmotivated by bribery with merchandise or shivering dancers on the field. We spectators sat in the frigid rain, on a Wednesday night, without music or shiny trinkets as a reward, just purely out of support for the boys. Now, this is in no way surpassing the effort the boys put forth to actually play in the rain rather than sit through it, but it was pretty beautiful to watch a bond form between forty some-odd strangers who really loved Stockton.

On October 18th, 2016, I was a spectator at a Stockton University women’s volleyball game. This isn’t going to be a sports narrative about how many kills a player has, or about the history of the Stockton Ospreys in volleyball, or even about the results of the game. This blog post is about how beautiful athletes are when they are doing what they do best.
Let me start by saying that I know nothing about volleyball, so my sheer enjoyment was due only to my love for athletics as a whole, not to any attachment I have to the game. That being said, this post will be written using my limited – and by limited I mean nonexistent – knowledge about volleyball. As lost as I was to how the game works, I had nothing but the purest admiration for the way the athletes moved, swiftly and knowingly. It was like an ocean that had purpose in its waves, the way the women’s team covered each other. When one girl moved toward the front line to execute a play, the athletes behind her fell into line, knowing exactly where they had to be to support her.
It’s moments like those that I can reflect on and relate teams to families and their undying support systems. Families put issues, quarrels, and grudges aside when one of their own is at risk, as did this team. If there had been a dispute between teammates at any point this season leading up to this game, I would never have been able to tell. These ladies worked with precision and effervescent words of encouragement. After every well-executed play, they quickly circled up and tapped each other on the backs, both congratulating and encouraging each other with as many words as one can cram into two seconds. This was to be expected after a successful play. However, these ladies culminated quickly in this exact same manor, even after bad plays were made.
The athletic ability of these women was outstanding. The women on the front line soared high in the air in preparation to spike the ball, as if her fluorescent Nike sneakers had wings. It’s incredible that their time in the air could be solely accredited to the power in their long legs. The player who served the ball moved her body with such precision, knowing exactly where she wanted the ball to go and marking that spot with her eyes before swiftly sending it sailing over the net. Athletes had to rotate between setting their teammates up for a spike and being the person to execute such a play, and this beautiful volatility is what makes athletics both an art form and comparable to being on the front line. You never really know what your next move will be, because you can’t predict how the opposing party will act, but you know for sure that you have to make your counter attack effective. An effective counter attack is, in many cases, a beautifully executed one, especially to another fellow athlete.
There is such beauty in how both the body and mind of an athlete works. I’m not going to reveal the outcome of this game, because truthfully, my opinion of these young women wouldn’t change no matter the score. They played with clear determination and genuine adoration for the sport, and is that not the goal of collegiate athletics? If you ever want to see beauty in its truest form, go watch the Stockton women’s volleyball team play.

How To Survive Cross Country Preseason

My name is Destiny Foster, and I am a Cross Country preseason camp survivor.
Okay, so it wasn’t bad enough to actually kill me, but let me explain something to you. There are two things I genuinely dislike and sometimes even fear: clowns and cross country. I know exactly what you’re going to say, and I’ll respond in the phrase that I have a feeling will get me through college all in itself. “Why do you do cross country if you don’t like it?” My answer: “I don’t know; I’m crazy.” That being said, I can only hope that many other lunatics like myself partake in the hellish 9 days that is preseason camp. This is how to survive preseason.
You’re going to move into the on campus apartments, with your parents nipping at your heels and acting one of two ways: as if you’re moving away for good, completely ignoring the fact that you’ll be home in a week and a half, or as if they can’t wait to get rid of you. When you get into your room, there’s going to be another athlete who you’re going to size up by the looks of her leg muscles – don’t hesitate to tell her you’ve already stalked her Milesplit.com stats and that you know what she ran on May 26th, 2014. You’ll also notice upon your walk to your room that the average person on the team probably weighs about 110 pounds soaking wet. Keep walking, lie to yourself by saying you’re going to have a salad for dinner, and move on.
Your first unofficial practice will be the sketchiest thing you’ll ever take part in. You’ll have to spread out in small, insignificant-looking groups to hide from the athletic department, because you’re technically not supposed to start inflicting massive amounts of pain on your body until Monday. Find out who the fastest girls on your team are, and do not, I repeat DO NOT run with them on this day, or any day during preseason. As friendly as they are, and believe me they are sweethearts, the worst possible thing you could do is go for a 5 mile run at the same pace as the NJAC Rookie of the Year title holder. You’re going to look up mid-run and think to yourself: “Why does it feel like I’m having a heart attack?” Keep running, and cherish this first run, because it’ll be the easiest one of your whole preseason.
You’ll meet a couple of your coaches, but not all of them. Coach Curll will most likely be stranded in another state because his RV gave him trouble. Your first impression of coach Resch, which will definitely be a good one, will uphold itself forever – he is as friendly, sarcastic, and inwardly tough as he seems. You’ll receive your first of many motivational speeches from coach Parker, and you’ll immediately feel as if you can easily bench press a medium-sized car the second she finishes. Her words will get you through every workout, every meet, and every mile.
You’re going to sit through seemingly endless seminars about topics ranging from the importance of drinking excessive amounts of water to a thousand reasons why salt is a good thing. You’re going to register yourself as an official NCAA athlete, and you’re going to feel an unexplainable sense of entitlement while doing so. However, this process entails writing your name so many times that it looks like it’s spelled wrong after a while. Keep writing; it’ll be over soon. On the bright side, your privileges as an athlete include waving off the front desk workers at Big Blue when they ask for your ID because, “I’m with Cross Country,” is code for, “I’m not just a sporadic gymgoer.”
There will come a day when you have to do “bowl repeats” at Holmdel. If you don’t know what the Holmdel bowl is, try to visualize a right angle covered in rocks and dirt. Now, imagine running up that right angle multiple times in one morning. If you’re not scared yet, you should know that you’re about 87% more likely to twist your ankle running on this course than you are at any other time. That being said, the Holmdel workout will be one of the best ones of your life. You’re going to leave with pain in muscles you weren’t even aware you had, but you’re going to limp away with a sense of accomplishment and knowledge that you, my sweaty friend, have just dominated the bowl. No worries, the Osprey bus is air conditioned. However, do the others around you a favor and always have deodorant in your bag. No amount of central air can remedy the damage 40 plus runners post-workout will do to your nostrils.
You’re also going to partake in a lip sync battle. Do what I did: dress up as Lil Wayne (cornrows, grills, and a permanent snarling lip) and rap explicit material in front of your coaches and their children. This, by the way, will be the first time coach Curll will see you, in all your pretentious thug-looking glory, and he will never forget you henceforth.
You will discover random little things about yourself that you either didn’t previously know or didn’t care to find out. For example, you actually do enjoy high socks with sarcastic phrases or woodland creatures embroidered on them. You’re going to be physically and emotionally exhausted by 7 PM every evening, and there is no more effective way to reach your social limit for the day than to spend 18 hours straight with people just as extroverted as yourself – or better yet, trying to coax the introverted out of their shells. You’ll have at least twelve missed messages by the end of every day, and you’re going to be way too exhausted to answer these people. Unless they gave birth to you, do not answer them. Enjoy the company of those physically within proximity of your aching body.
Finally, on the last day of preseason, you’re going to be subjected to possible death by time trial. Coach Resch will have made up his mind 16 different times about the length and location of this course. There will be whispers of the top 18 making the team, and talk of cutting the unfortunate stragglers. Just run your race, and enjoy the free bagels afterwards.
Preseason was both a challenge and an adventure. The idea of subjecting young adults to a certain amount of pain daily to ween out the weakest seems like an initial step toward genocide, but I guarantee the pain is worth the memories you’ll make. My apologies for the cliché. You’re going to be stronger, faster, and significantly more exhausted upon leaving camp than you were when you first walked in. More importantly, you’re going to leave with 40 more friends than you had before, even if you don’t realize it right then. The team is there to help you and provide dry humor in times of need. Take advantage of their constant availability to you – not everybody gets to call these people their teammates. You will survive preseason if you follow all of my advice. Happy running!

Destiny Foster