There was just one word to describe my first official week of my freshman year—overwhelming! I do not mean that in a bad way at all, it was just so different and took some getting used to. Sure I was here for six weeks this summer but during that time there were hardly the number of students on campus as there are now. I have to make sure I am early to every class to get a good seat.
Move-in weekend was a mad-house. Thousands of freshmen like me unpacked their loaded down vehicles, scurried through the parking lots, and made their way to their new dorm rooms. Meanwhile many upperclassmen filled the streets, sitting on their front porches in the Ghetto, celebrating their return and welcoming the freshmen and families. It was exciting to see how excited everyone was, not just the freshmen who would be starting their college life, but the upperclassmen excited to be meeting new people and welcoming them to Dayton.
The dorm life is much different than my summer living in the Garden Apartments. I was definitely spoiled this summer, having a kitchen to store and cook food, my own bathroom, and only having a short walking distance to the PAC for workouts. I honestly can’t complain, though, I am in the nicest dorms on campus, the Marianist Complex, and have a whole floor of new people to meet. That includes my new roommate, Emily. She is one of the nicest and sweetest girls I have ever met. She is quite opposite of me but it works! Emily doesn’t know much, if anything about basketball but it’s rather nice because it provides an escape for me. I can have conversations with someone on a topic other than basketball. I think it should be a fun year.
As the fall semester started, so did a whole new set of classes. I switched my major last second from Visual Art Communications (Graphic Design) to Civil Engineering which in itself was a stressful situation. I had to get a whole new class schedule, and then ended up being put into the same classes I took this summer. Therefore, I did not get my finalized class schedule until the day before classes began, leaving me clueless as to where my classes were. Luckily, Casey Nance came to the rescue and helped navigate me where I was going. I am taking a full load of classes—17 credit hours. I start off my days with physics, philosophy, and calculus, and then later in the day we get into my engineering specific classes. It’s a lot of work but in the end it will all pay off.
Since it is officially fall semester, our team can now workout with the coaches. They can come and watch our weight training sessions with Mike Bewley, work with us individually, and in small groups of four. Official practices do not start until Oct. 3 but these workouts are preparing us for them. These workouts are still as intense as ever but the team is really starting to look good. Weights have been going great, open gyms are better than ever, and individually everyone is improving. I must admit I have made some dumb “freshman” mistakes but I’m getting through it. In our first group workout for some reason I decided to go first in the drill. Not knowing what I was doing, I rim-ran down the center of the court not looking for the ball and it came...at my head. Luckily, I did not get hit by the ball but it was super embarrassing messing up the very first drill. We all laughed about it after and the next one was much better! Rookie mistakes but you learn from them and move on :)
With all the hard work the team has been putting in on the court and in the weight room, we had to spend some time bonding outside of basketball. The coaches came up with a brilliant idea for us to go laser-tagging. What I love about our team is how competitive everyone is. We had girls challenging each other to DDR, some racing car games, and others in shooting games (this included shooting basketballs and some shooting guns), all before the laser-tagging even started. Once we finally did get all suited up, everyone meant business. We separated into teams and ran and hid like snipers ready for a battle. It was a blast. Then the following day Coach Rechs decided to have the whole team over for a BBQ. It was so much fun and once again very competitive! People were challenging each other to games of corn-hole, others were busy tie-dying T-shirts in UD’s colors, and of course some were busy playing H-O-R-S-E on the hoop. It’s great being a part of a team that is so focused on the court yet can let loose and have a good time off of it.
We also had the chance to get all dressed up for a party thrown by Dr. Levitt. It was nice seeing everyone out of their basketball shorts and cut-offs, it’s not something that happens every day, trust me! We got the chance to meet fans in the community that come out and support both the men’s and women’s basketball teams. I have never been around such an excited group of people, ready to come and watch our program grow this year. The team made history last year making it to the second round of the NCAA tournament and we are hoping to go even farther this year. With the support like we saw at Dr. Levitt’s it will make it that much easier.
Well, as you can see the first few weeks have been jam packed. Workouts, classes, and many team building exercises take up the majority of my time but it’s all worth it because there is something special going on in Dayton. It’s a great day to be a Flyer! :)
Love,
Cassie
