Keeping Up The Chase

Blog Note: Greg Chase is a senior on the men’s cross country team. When not running for the Stags, Greg is involved in numerous campus organizations and community service activities. You can keep up with him all season long on StagTracks.

Hey Stag Tracks Followers!

Today is the eve of the biggest day of my cross country career. Tomorrow we will be running the MAAC Cross Country Championship at 8am. What makes this one better than the last three years of conference championships? Well, BECAUSE WE ARE IN DISNEY WORLD!!!

So, we’ll be running in the morning at the ESPN Wide World of Sports which will also be on ESPN3! We not only want to perform well for the conference championship but also to look good for the University, since people can watch it from all over the nation.

Noting all of this, I just want to say that I’m so proud to be a senior in Fairfield’s Cross Country program. All five of the guys who joined me as the Class of 2013 four years ago are all still on the team. Disney, thus, becomes the greatest way to say goodbye to a program we’ve put so much heart, energy, and time into.

I really have to take the time to thank my parents for adopting me and bringing my twin brother and me into America and giving us not only an opportunity of a lifetime but really a second chance at life.

I also have to thank everyone at Fairfield for keeping faith in the cross country program over the long decades and helping us recruit better runners, attend more competitive meets, and help us fundraise. Obviously, a huge shout out to the fans. For those who do come out and support us, it is greatly appreciated. I also have to give a shout out to Athletic Directors Kelly McCarthy and Joe Klauder for helping us out with everything this weekend and of course, Coach Sags and Coach Maloney. Unfortunately, Coach Maloney can’t be with us this week and so we send him our hopes and prayers.

I can’t say how excited I am to be here in Disney right now as it is almost unreal trying to sit here and wrote this while still trying to soak it all in. I’m just so excited, so blessed, and so ready to put my best foot forward in tomorrow’s race.

Plan on writing again after Disney and can’t wait to fill you all in on our performance and our day in the park!

-Greg Chase

On Deck With Cacky & Meredith

Blog Note: Cacky Keating and Meredith LaBerge are teaming up to provide a look into Fairfield Swimming & Diving for Stag Tracks this season.

Hey Stags!

Last Saturday we had our third meet of the season against Manhattan and came out with a double win on both the men’s and women’s sides!

Our women’s team was favored going into the meet, so we had a little bit of a fun meet where we switched our events around, swimming some strokes we normally don’t swim. It was definitely fun and less stressful!

The men, on the other hand, had a tough meet that we knew was going to be close, but they pulled ahead the end! Besides the win, there were many records shattered on Saturday on the men’s side. Freshman Connor Daly broke the 200-meter IM and 100m fly records. Junior Cody Parker broke two very old and fast times in 200m free and 400m free. Senior Ryan Krebs won both the 1-meter and 3-meter diving events, which helped the men’s team earn numerous and important points.

A large tailgate followed the meet with all parents and alumni from our team. It was great getting to see our old teammates. The next day, Sunday, we hosted our final swim lesson session for the fall, which concludes our fundraising event for our annual training trip to Hawaii in January.

This week we began including weightlifting into our schedule, so some days we are working out three times, but the hard work will pay off! This Friday, October 26, we will be hosting Fordham at 5pm in the RecPlex for another tough meet! Hopefully we will be updating you next week with another win!

Go Stags!

Cacky and Meredith

On Deck With Cacky & Meredith

It’s great to be back in the water and racing again!! We had our first meet of the season last weekend against Boston College. It came down to a close finish between the two teams. Even though BC ended up pulling ahead, we were excited with how we all swam. We had some very exciting races that got us enthusiastic for the rest of our season. This coming weekend, we are heading up to Holy Cross for our second meet where we hope to have even more AMAZING races and get our first win under our belt!

Even though our meets have started, we are still continuing to do double practices every day and we are adding weightlifting into our schedule next week. But, when you swim well at the meets, it makes it a little easier to get up at 5:30am because you can see all of your hard work beginning to pay off!

Aside from swimming, the entire team has been active in the community as well. We are currently teaching swim lessons for three hours on Sundays every week. And, during the last weekend of September, our team participated in the JTB Heart Club Walk on campus. Just to give you a little background, the Club is a chapter of the John Taylor Babbitt Foundation, a non-profit established to prevent sudden cardiac death. The Foundation was named in honor John Taylor Babbitt who died at the age of 16 when his heart stopped during a basketball game at his church gym.

Anyway, the Walk began at noon and ended at 2pm, with a lunch and snacks. This leisurely walk was 2-miles around campus, passing all eight AEDs (automated external defibrillators) located here. More than 160 students participated and the Club raised about $2,000 dollars, which will help Fairfield purchase more AEDs for campus! The event was a great success and, hopefully, the Club will continue hosting this Walk every fall, raising more and more money to purchase AEDs for every building on campus. If you are interested in becoming a member of the Club, please contact me, Cacky Keating.

Well, that’s it for now! We hope to see you all at our next home meet, our MAAC opener against Manhattan College, on October 20th at 12pm!

On Deck With Cacky & Meredith

Blog Note: Cacky Keating and Meredith LaBerge are teaming up to provide a look into Fairfield Swimming & Diving for Stag Tracks this season.

Hey Stags Country!

My name is Cacky Keating and I am a senior and captain of the women’s swimming & diving team. Meredith LaBerge is a sophomore on the team as well and we will be writing to you throughout our season!

Cacky Keating

We began practices only three weeks ago but it seems like years already. We started our double practices last week, swimming both at 6am and 5pm, but this week it is already easier to get up in the morning. We are getting ready for our first meet at home on October 6 at 7pm against Boston College.

What some of you may or may not know is that although we score separately from the men’s swimming & diving team, we do everything together. Our men and women’s teams practice together in both the morning and night, and we aren’t separated by gender in the lanes either. In meets, we compete together, but, obviously during the meets, the men race the opposing men’s team, and the women race the women’s opposing team. We score separately, but each team trains and pushes each other to do their best.

Meredith LaBerge

We practice Monday through Friday, with doubles Monday through Thursday. Friday evening practices are from 4:30 to 7pm, a little longer than normal making up for not swimming in the morning.

Our head Coach is Bill Farley and he competed in the 1964 Tokyo, Japan Olympics placing fourth in the 1500-meter freestyle. Our assistant coach’s name is Jeremy Howard and he swam for the University of Kansas in his college years. We have a talented coaching staff who trains us from September to March, with our annual training trip in Hawaii every Christmas break.

This year we will be traveling to Hawaii from January 11-21, but we have to return back to school on the January 7 to train before our trip. To help pay for our trip, the Swim & Dive team teach swimming lessons to the greater Fairfield area and the funds pay for our trip.

That is all the background info we have for you now… Touch base next week!

Go Stags!
Cacky & Meredith

At The Net With Lindsay Weaver

The Fairfield Stags Volleyball team is headed to Siena and Iona this week to see if they can follow suit to their two wins over St. Peter’s and Manhattan last weekend. MAAC play has officially started and we are all so excited to get this part of the season underway. Last year, we came so incredibly close to winning our conference, and this year, that is our fuel to come out on top. Especially because we will be hosting this year’s MAAC Tournament at Fairfield!!

This week we are going to Siena on Wednesday night and Iona on Friday night. The road trips can get a little tiresome. For example, Siena is about two and a half hours away. To add to that, we have 12 people on our team, not including coaches, and we are a volleyball team, so the majority of us are above-average in height. Then you add two vans to the mix and our bodies get a little cramped. However, it is always well worth the trip to be able to play the sport we all love, and hopefully can come home with a win.

Like any team, there is always someone rehabbing from injury, myself included. I was just released to be able to play without a wrap around my leg, which was very exciting news. It’s always extremely difficult for an athlete to have to rehab an injury, especially when we aren’t cleared to play at all. No athlete wants to sit in a rehab room and ice for three hours while your teammates are practicing. But, almost all of us have been there and we do the best we can to come back as quick as possible.

Even when injury strikes, we strive to stay strong as a team and as players. There is nothing more that we want during season then to end up in the top four so that we can battle it out for conference champion.

Good luck to the rest of the fall athletes in their competitions for the next couple of weeks. GO STAGS!!!

Keeping Up The Chase

I’m happy to say that the team has just returned from a successful trip down to Van Cortlandt Park at the Iona Meet of Champions where junior teammate Howie Rosas set the school record with a time of 25:59.99 for the course’s 8k race.

My performance was sub-par for my standards, but the good thing about being on a team is that even with a bad personal performance, I was able to be happy for the team and the other members’ individual successes. I think that you can’t dwell on performances because it’s in the past. Good performance or bad, you have to keep working hard and looking to improve; which is exactly what I want to do!

Last year I had my first healthy cross country season as I have been battling serious and chronic groin injuries since my junior year of high school. But once the spring season came I found myself plagued yet again as I had a staph infection in my calf. Once again I moved forward with high hopes and determination and made sure I did what I could to stay in running-fit.

That’s what you realize as an athlete is that you have to take care of the little things and that’s what I will be doing all this week as we prepare for our first home meet – the Fr. Victor F. Leeber Invitational. It’s going to be a big meet for us because we are planning for a major student turn out as we have invited tons of friends through campus posters and, of course, social networking. But we also plan to have some faculty come to cheer us on as well as our families. Fellow teammate Kyle Short is going to be running in front of his parents who are making the trip all the way from the great state of Arizona.

Obviously, we want to make all of our friends and family proud but even more so because this year the Stags will be running in pink as a tribute to our dedication to support breast cancer research and to support those who have to battle the tragic disease every day. (Susan G. Komen Passionately Pink For the Cure® is the fundraiser, check out the Stags’ team page)

This race means a lot to me especially because it’s my senior year. And so, if two or three ice baths are needed to stay in top-shape then I guess I can freeze with a smile – or try to – because the Stags and I want to bring home the gold and racing at home makes it that more important for us to win for our friends and family.

If you want to come and support us, the Leeber Invitational starts at 11am this Saturday near the track at Lessing Field.

GO STAGS!!

Compliance Corner

Blog Note: Joe Klauder is the Associate Director of Athletics for Compliance.

Welcome Back Stags!

With the first week of school under our belts, the 2012-13 school year is off and running. This past week was a busy one, with all of our students moving back on campus, starting classes, seeing friends, and of course our Fall Compliance meetings.

Despite all of the preparation and paperwork that go into these meetings, they truly are one of my favorite things about the new year because I get to see all of my student-athletes in one day! We took a different approach to our meeting set up this year by allowing our student-athletes to complete their NCAA paperwork online. I was a little skeptical at first because I wasn’t sure how many student-athletes check their school emails during the summer. However, I was pleasantly surprised to see that before I started my meetings for the day, there were only six kids who had not done them. 416 out of 422 ain’t bad!!

As usual we held our meetings in the Dolan School of Business Dining Room so we could accommodate the large number of student-athletes we had for each meeting. We made our meetings more conversational this year, as our student-athletes were addressed by a number of athletic department reps. Athletics Director Gene Doris welcomed our students back by congratulating them on a successful 2011-12 that was capped off by winning the Commissioners Cup. Our Senior Woman Administrator Alison Sexton covered student-athlete welfare issues and tossed out her “free money” ploy to the Student Assistance Fund. Our Faculty Athletic Representative, Dr. Chris Huntley spoke to our students about his role and his continued involvement to be an advocate for student-athletes. He also talked about his idea of “bring your coach to class day,” which he feels would be a great opportunity to interact with the world of academia, but also continue to show our coaches the hard work these student-athletes give day in and day out.

Finally to round out the night, I spoke to our student-athletes about numerous Compliance topics. I also got to express to them the great opportunity they have at Fairfield University to get a great education and compete on the highest level. I commend our coaching staffs and student athletes for their patience and participation in these meetings. It’s the first step in the success we have in store for the year! GO STAGS!!