Hope College Celebrates Its Student-Athletes
as Part of NCAA Division III Initiative

Hope College has been a member of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) since 1956 and Division III since its founding in 1973. The NCAA in 2010 launched an initiative in Division III that highlights its student-athletes as they excel on the athletic field, pursue their chosen field of study in the classroom, and participate in the life of their college and surrounding community. The MIAA and its member institutions are recognizing students, coaches and teams who exemplify that model.

Hope College students, teams and coaches are featured based on each of the six initiatives - Proportion, Comprehensive Learning, Passion, Responsibility, Sportsmanship and Citizenship.

Read Postings from 2010-11 School Year

RESPONSIBILITY

"Being a student-athlete at Hope College is more than just playing the game; it is a privilege, and in order to use its full potential, it is our responsibility to give back to the community," says Hope College senior basketball captain Allie Cerone of Wheaton, Ill.

Special Olympics has been a part of the Hope College women's basketball program for 14 years, gong before it became a nationwide focus in NCAA Division III.

In recent weeks the Flying Dutch sponsored a basketball skills workshop for over 100 Special Olympians. Later this season the team will host a tournament for Special Olympians. Morehouse and men's coaching colleague Matt Neil will for the second year take "The Polar Plunge" into the ice-cold water of nearly Lake Macatawa in support of of Special Olympics fundraiser.

"It's been a great opportunity to serve while providing teachable moments about our responsibility to the community," said coach Brian Morehouse. "After our workshop experience I pulled our team together for an impromptu conversation on the responsibility to serve not just in college, but beyond. I admitted to not always understanding this in my post-college career until about age 26. It was at this age I discovered the absolute joy in looking beyond my own busyness to find ways to serve others.

"Our recent Special Olympics event was time well spent because it was exhilarating and helped me better appreciate being part of a community that reaches far beyond a single basketball team," Cerone said.

"Being a student-athlete at Hope teaches students how to accept responsibility, whether it is in the classroom or on the court," added junior teammate Liz Ellis. "Having this responsibility should be seen as a privilege and with it comes the task of doing things outside of ourselves and helping to serve others."

CITIZENSHIP

For athletes at every MIAA member college, participating in Division III sport goes beyond just playing the game.

For example, this past fall there were abundant opportunities for Hope College soccer players to interact with elementary-age students. A custom at home Hope soccer games is the participation of youth soccer players in the pre-game activities. The youth players accompany players from both teams on to the field for the introductions and playing of the National Anthem.

"In every game where we had the opportunity to walk out with a youth team, it was extremely rewarding," said senior Danielle Petzak of Zeeland, Mich. "Our team gets very excited about home games to begin with, but to see even more smiles from the kids really made things special. It's awesome to see how much they enjoy being able to walk next to us, and it's even better to hear from some of them how much they want to play at Hope when they grow up. I know I speak for both the women's and men's teams in saying that we can't thank the community enough for how much support we've been given!"

Involvement extended beyond game day. More than 50 players from the Hope women's and men's programs participated in the fall festival carnival sponsored by the Great Lakes elementary school in Holland. The players helped coordinate games such as bucket toss, bowling, hockey shoot-out and sucker pull. Their efforts helped the school raise more than $3,200.

"It is great to be able to be part of a soccer program that has so much support from the surrounding community," said senior David Whitaker. "Helping out at the Great Lakes Fall Festival was a great opportunity to give back and it was also a lot of fun."

"The fall festival was definitely an event the players in both of our soccer programs enjoyed," said assistant men's coach Lee Schopp. "I heard many positive comments from young children, parents and PTO volunteers about how awesome the players were, and how well they interacted and helped the younger students with each of the games."

COMPREHENSIVE LEARNING

Hope College senior Jacqueline (Jackie) Canonaco (#12 in photo) of Arlington Heights, Ill. has been described by one of her professors as "a dream student -- always prepared, always engaged, contributing above expectations". Her volleyball coach considers her to be "the inspiration behind our team". Co-captain of the volleyball team, she has never started a varsity match. A psychology major with minors in neuroscience and creative writing, she is an accomplished poet and writer and her collaborative research in the behavioral sciences has been accepted at top professional conferences.

After playing two years on Hope's jayvee volleyball team, Jackie earned a spot on the varsity and has made an impact every day, according to coach Becky Schmidt. "She is a tireless worker and a servant leader. One of the most profound ways she influences the team is through her words; she has a way of saying what everyone thinks and feels but struggles to communicate."

For a team exercise, coach Schmidt asked each player to write a short essay describing the impact that playing volleyball has had on them. Jackie turned to poetry, a consistent outlet for her inspiration. The poem has been accepted for publication in the journal of the American Volleyball Coaches Association. (see below)

"Jackie consistently strives for excellence in her academic and research pursuits," says faculty mentor Dr. Sonja Trent-Brown. She has presented her research to conferences in Las Vegas and Montreal. "She has high standards, a great ear, and a sense of verbal play and intricacy that is unusual and fresh," English professor Heather Sellers says of a student who can write in Italian or English.

Jacqueline (Jackie) Canonaco -- the epitome of the Division III Scholar-Athlete.

This I Believe...

We play.
Constantly amending who we are,
pulsing at three beats per measure,
echoing each other in celebration
until we begin to move as one.

We laugh.
In the back of the bus,
on a long ride home from victory,
as we drift through the dark of night
that stole the colors off the autumn trees.

We learn.
The happy things, like how the joy within us can rise
as quickly as the flurry of orange in the stands.
And how to hold each other’s secrets
in hushed whispers and muffled laughter.

We learn.
The hard things, like how to fail,
sweaty and exhausted on the wood floor.
How growth often comes through adversity, and that to get better, we must first combat our own weakness.

We fight.
For each other, long after we have given up
fighting for ourselves. With a hope that is anchored so deeply within our soul, that we have no other drive but to get better with every day.

We grow.
Into roles left behind, into what our teammates need.
Into women with lofty goals and seasoned work ethics, no longer questioning what is possible,
knowing what it means to be successful.

We become.
Each other’s constant embrace.
Tightly knit at heart,
as we stand shoulder to shoulder, arms linked
offering praise and petition before the game.

We love.
An agape love that sacrifices the self
to empower another.
Pushing forward, but always ready
to catch the broken pieces if they fall.

We trust.
In the struggle that tests our tenacity,
and in the women beside us. In the dedication
that it takes to earn our success, and in the call
that has brought us here together.

We choose.
To do the little things that make a big difference,
to invest more than we take. To hold our heads high
even when they’re heavy. And to sacrifice our wants
for the good of the team.

We give.
Until we don’t know what else we can do.
Investing ourselves, our time, our lives
until there is nothing left. Because when each of us
is emptied, together we are fulfilled.

We will leave.
With grateful hearts and a home to return to,
confident that if we help even just one teammate,
challenge her, motivate her, push her ‘til she becomes more rooted in who she is, then we will leave our legacy.

SPORTSMANSHIP

Tennis is one of only a handful of sports that has sportsmanship written directly into the rules of the game. This list of ethical rules of behavior is called “The Code”. No other sport requires the competitor to give a point that he/she has won back to an opponent because the player recognized that there has been a mistake in judgment. That is the essence of true character and sportsmanship.

Hope College men's tennis coach Steve Gorno has had the good fortune to coach 11 MIAA Sportsmanship Award winners over the last 19 seasons. During that same time, he has coached dozens of other student-athletes that were equally deserving of winning this award.

"As a coach, I am tremendously proud and eternally grateful for each one of my players who has lived their lives so well to allow me to be able to say that," Gorno says.

"Our team believes in “The Code.” We believe that character and integrity are as much a part of the game as the competition itself. To help us live up to our own high expectations, we have certain guiding principles that govern how we behave, how we manage our emotions, and how we treat others -- not just while we are on the court competing, but whenever we are out in the public eye. The most important of these guiding principles is simple - Always treat others with respect. It is the foundation upon which every other guiding principle is built. We talk about these guiding principles frequently and we hold ourselves and each other accountable for not just following, but truly living out these principles in our every day lives. This includes the players holding the coach accountable to living up to the same standards of behavior. None of us are perfect. But we believe that if we work together, we can get a little closer to perfection.

"By documenting what we believe in and then holding each other accountable to live by those rules every day, we have woven character and integrity directly into the fabric of Hope College men’s tennis culture. This has been a long, arduous process similar to hand-knitting a full length quilt. We all know that one weak thread or one bad stitch can unravel all of our previous work so we are vigilant about protecting and honoring the contributions of all the players that have come before. And through targeted recruitment we make sure that every player that comes after is equally committed to finishing a great work of art that is singularly unique and something that we can all be proud of.

"I believe that the foundation of great sportsmanship is always great love; a love of others that transcends the desire for victory and compels you to always do what is right even in the face of defeat; a love for your team and your school that won’t allow you to tarnish their reputation by making even one poor ethical choice for as long as you represent them; and a love for the sport that compels you to honor “The Code” which, if followed, allows you to compete with intensity without compromising your integrity. This is how I coach. This is what I coach. And this is what defines me as a coach."