Baseball Player Makes a Surprise Proposal

It was always going to happen.

Connor Grant ’18 and Kelsey Corless had known each other since seventh grade in Lake Orion, Michigan. They were high school sweethearts. And though he went to Kalamazoo College while she attended Grand Valley State University, they remained committed to one another.

Connor Grant on one knee in front of Kelsey Corless for surprise proposal
Connor Grant ’18 gave Kelsey Corless a surprise proposal last weekend during a Senior Day doubleheader at Kalamazoo College’s Woodworth Field.

“We talked about it and she knew something like this was coming,” Grant, a first baseman for Kalamazoo College’s baseball team, said of his engagement to Corless.

The inevitable, however, didn’t have to be predictable. Grant wanted to make sure his proposal was a special — and very memorable — moment.

So before last weekend’s Senior Day doubleheader at K’s Woodworth Field, he went to Head Baseball Coach Michael Ott and asked for permission to carry out a secret plan. It was crafted to make sure that when he made his proposal, not only Corless but both their families would be there and that she would have no clue as to what was about to happen.

Grant’s plan revolved around the Senior Day ceremony, which takes place during the break between games. The graduating players line up along the third base line, then are called one by one with their families and friends to home plate, where they receive a bat engraved with their name and position. Grant, the team captain, deliberately asked to be called last so as not to overshadow his fellow senior players and he made sure he had their assent.

He also arranged it so that when his roommate, catcher Alex Fultz ’18, presented him with the bat, he would slip him the ring, as well. The announcer would then set up the moment, saying, “This is more than a Senior Day …”

Grant’s proposal to get hitched went without a hitch, and the appropriately stunned bride-to-be said yes. And both of their families got to witness the engagement, as planned.

“I had a nervous day leading up to it,” Grant said. “But other than that, it went perfect.”

For the crowd, one of the biggest of the season, it was an unexpected treat.

“Their reaction was amazing,” Grant said. “People were ecstatic for us. All the seniors’ families were there and got to be a part of it.”

“I think there were some people wiping away tears,” said Ott, adding that the opposing team joined in the cheers and applause.

The wedding date has yet to be set, but Grant said he expects it to occur sometime next summer, after he and Corless get settled in to post-college life. Corless last month received her degree from Grand Valley in management information systems, and Grant, a business and economics major who graduates June 17, is set to start work this summer as a mortgage banker with Quicken Loans in Detroit.

Ott said the proposal “was a really cool moment” for the baseball program, and “definitely a first.”

It capped a weekend when the Hornets finished their season with a sweep of Olivet College, making it even better. And despite his nervousness, Ott said, Grant drove in four runs in the afternoon’s first game.

For Grant and Corless, Ott said, “I’m sure it’s something they’re going to remember.”

He said it was also a reminder for Grant’s graduating teammates that, although their collegiate athletic careers are coming to an end, their lives—like Grant and Corless’ together—are just getting started.

“I think it was a moment that was a little bit bigger than baseball,” Ott said. “It provided some perspective about what’s really important.”

He said he was proud to have been able to make the surprise proposal possible for Grant, who is fourth on the list of Hornets baseball players for most games played.

“I just love the kid,” he said.

Grant said being at a school like K allowed him to forge a strong relationship with his coaches and fellow players so he could share his big moment with them.

“That’s what made it possible,” he said.

Anderson, Longtime Men’s Athletics Director, Dies at 97

Rolla Anderson
A memorial service for Rolla Anderson will be held at 10:30 a.m. Saturday, May 5, in Stetson Chapel.

Rolla Anderson, namesake of the Rolla L. Anderson Athletic Center on Kalamazoo College’s campus, died on Wednesday, April 25. He was 97 years old.

Anderson came to K in 1953 and was director of men’s athletics until his retirement in 1985. In 1962, he led the Hornets to an undefeated football season and was named Michigan Coach of the Year in news media balloting. Under him, the team again won the MIAA championship in 1963. He also led teams to championships as a coach in tennis, golf and cross country, and he coached basketball. Anderson was a long-time director of the United States Tennis Association (USTA) Boys’ 18 & 16 National Championships.

“Generations of Kalamazoo College student-athletes benefited from Rolla’s guidance and leadership,” said President Jorge G. Gonzalez. “He was well-known for tirelessly stressing the importance of sound physical education in the liberal arts.”

Named a professor of physical education in 1965, he continued to be an active and enthusiastic supporter of the College in retirement, and was a leader in Kalamazoo civic organizations and the USTA.

Anderson Athletic Center was dedicated in his name in 1981, and he was inducted into the Kalamazoo College Athletic Hall of Fame in 1992. In 1997, he received the Kalamazoo College Alumni Association’s Weimer K. Hicks Award, which recognizes employees who have made exceptional long-term contributions to the College.

Rolla Anderson obit 1920-2018A 1944 graduate of Western Michigan University, he was a star in basketball and football there and was inducted into the university’s Athletic Hall of Fame in 1982. He also is in the hall of fame at Southeast Missouri State University, where he was a member of a championship basketball team before transferring to Western.

He was preceded in death by his wife, Patricia, in 2010.

A memorial service will be held at 10:30 a.m. Saturday, May 5, in Stetson Chapel, followed by a time to visit with the family. Anderson’s family has asked memorial gifts be made to the Rolla and Pat Anderson Athletic Endowment at Kalamazoo College, a fund that will support the Hornets in perpetuity.

Women’s Football Champion Inspires Campus with Tale of Perseverance

Every year Kalamazoo College athletes and coaches present a Community Reflection session titled “Why We Play” where they share with the entire campus stories of what motivates them to compete, and the lessons and rewards of NCAA Division III athletics.

Women's Football Champion Liz Okey
Former women’s football champion Liz Okey ’07 displays the gold medal she won as part of the 2013 U.S. team.

Inevitably, a few seniors also express regret that their sporting careers are about to end. In 2007, Liz Okey was one of them. A Hornets volleyball player who served as team captain, Okey was moving on to graduate school and a career in Chicago.

“When I graduated … I thought my athletic career was over,” she told the audience in Stetson Chapel as she returned to K share her story at this year’s “Why We Play” reflection in late January.

Instead, she began a completely new adventure, discovering women’s tackle football, and in 2009, becoming a lineman for the Chicago Force, part of the Women’s Football Alliance.

“I tried out for the Force and traded my knee pads for shoulder pads,” she said.

Women’s tackle football is just like the men’s game, she said, except the ball is slightly smaller — and there’s no pay. She loved the game, and kept on playing until her fourth year. In the home opener of that season, which would see the Force contend for a national championship, she suffered a devastating injury.

Recovering from surgery for a fractured fibula required extensive physical therapy, she said, and after the Force lost a “nail-biter” championship game, she thought about retiring from football.

Women's Football Champion Liz Okey at center
Former women’s football champion Liz Okey ’07 lines up at center for the Chicago Force during the 2014 season.

“My body had been through it all, and I had spent eight months a year for the last four years living and breathing football,” she said. “After a lot of soul searching, I returned to the questions that brought us all here today: Why do I play? And I realized I was not ready to hang up my cleats. I had more to give.”

She recalled an annual volleyball drill at K that, as she put it, was “designed to cause players stress” by forcing them to compete against a numerically superior squad while repeatedly changing up their offense.

“Essentially, these players had to achieve the near-impossible, and yet the rule was they couldn’t quit. Every year we knew we were going to be pushed to the edge, and we only had one choice: to dig deeper and overcome,” she said. “I knew following that injury that I had more inside of me. I had more to give to my teammates, to my coaches, to the city that I represented and to the sport of football. I was not done yet.”

Nine months after her surgery, she won the competition to become the starting center on the U.S. Women’s National Team. The team went on to win the world championship that July in Finland, where the Americans crushed opponents from Sweden, Germany and Canada.

Women's Football Champion Liz Okey kneels
Former women’s football champion Liz Okey ’07 in a Chicago Force official team photo.

After that, Okey returned to the Force, which won a national championship the next month. When the team failed to repeat in 2014, she retired. She still proudly wears her championship rings and serves on the executive committee of the board of USA Football, the official youth football development partner of the NFL.

“There’s a magical thing about sports,” she said. “It teaches you things about life. How to withstand, react and rebound from life’s greatest adversities.”

She said returning to speak at K had been a dream of hers, and she urged current Hornets to pursue their own dreams with similar dedication.

“Future Hornets, this amazing campus and community has not seen your talents yet. Prepare to give it your all. Current students, your adult life is about to take off. Give the world everything you’ve got,” she said. “Faculty and coaches, you’re shaping the leaders of tomorrow. Protect them, push them and give them all the tools they need to succeed. Each of us will be tested on a regular basis. And under the layers of doubt and fear we each have more to give. So do one more rep, run that extra mile, volunteer one more hour and give it one more shot. You never know where that extra effort will take you.”

K Alumnus Named to International Tennis Hall of Fame

Kalamazoo College Alumnus Vic BradenRejuvenation might be a theme for this year’s tennis Australian Open. Venus and Serena Williams meet in the women’s singles championships match. And if Rafael Nadal (age 30) wins his semifinal match, he’ll face the 35-year-old (ancient by professional tennis standards) Roger Federer in the men’s championship.

There’s a K connection to this year’s Open as well. The late Vic Braden, Kalamazoo College class of 1951, is one of the 2017 recipients of the International Tennis Hall of Fame. That class was inducted during the Australian Open on January 23. Vic was a groundbreaking tennis instructor and sports scientists. Other members of the hall-of-fame class of 2017 include former world number-one ranked players Kim Clijsters and Andy Roddick, wheelchair tennis player Monique Kalkman-van den Bosch and journalist and historian Steve Flink.

Women’s Athletics Pioneer Passes

Women's Athletics Pioneer Tish Loveless

Ada Letitia (“Tish”) Loveless, Ph.D., women’s athletics pioneer and longtime Director of Women’s Athletics at Kalamazoo College, died on Thursday, September 22, 2016, at her home. She was 91 years old.

Tish served as Director of Women’s Athletics from 1953 until she retired in 1986. Prior to her arrival, there were no women’s intercollegiate athletic teams at Kalamazoo College. During her tenure, she established women’s varsity teams in tennis, field hockey, archery, swimming, basketball, volleyball, soccer, and cross country.  She is the most successful coach of women’s teams in the history of the Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association, the oldest athletic conference in the country. Her teams won 28 league championships: 23 in tennis, four in archery, and one in field hockey. Her 1986 women’s tennis squad finished third in the nation. In 1992, Kalamazoo College inducted Tish into its Athletic Hall of Fame and, in 2015, the College dedicated the “Tish Loveless Court” in the Anderson Athletic Center.

Tish believed in the benefits of competition for everyone, regardless of skill level, and she worked tirelessly to ensure all students had opportunities to compete. She added new sports and classes based on student requests, and not just her own skills.  On several occasions, Tish coached sports largely unfamiliar to her at the urging of passionate students. Over the years, she learned, and then taught, fencing, archery, modern dance, folk dance, social dance, and swimming.

“Tish’s legacy includes the thousands of students whose lives she touched,” said Marilyn Maurer, coach emerita of women’s swimming and a longtime colleague and friend. “She opened their eyes to doors of possibility to which they hadn’t realized they already possessed the key. Many of her students remained in close contact to the very end.”

Tish earned a BS in physical education from the University of Illinois in 1948, an MS from UCLA in 1952, and a PhD in education from Michigan State in 1977.  In 1988, she was inducted into the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics Hall of Fame.  She received the Weimar K. Hicks Award from the Kalamazoo College Alumni Association for service to the College in 2002.

Thanks to the loving care of friends and caregivers, Tish spent her last days at her Kalamazoo home that she had shared with Marilyn Hinkle, a lifelong good friend and member of Kalamazoo College class of 1948.  Marilyn died on January 25, 2007.

Tish is survived by many nieces and nephews and their children, as well as several generations of Kalamazoo students who always treated her like family.

A memorial service is being planned for Saturday, November 12, 2016, at 3:30 p.m. in Stetson Chapel followed by a reception in Anderson Athletic Center Lobby. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the Tish Loveless Women’s Athletics Endowment or the Marilyn Hinkle Endowed Scholarship for Arts at Kalamazoo College.

 

College Tests Football Lights

College Football LightsBe Light, indeed! After a 30-some-year absence, stadium lights once again light Angell Field, home to the Kalamazoo College Hornet football team. With help from Musco Sports Lighting and Hi-Tech Electric, K is now the first sports stadium in Michigan with LED lights designed to drastically reduce both light trespass and glare outside the College’s property lines. Musco engineers, a City of Kalamazoo inspector, K officials and several neighbors witnessed a test of the lighting system at its highest intensity Wednesday night. All pronounced the finished product a success. K and its lighting consultants will continue to tweak the lights in order to achieve maximum benefit on the field and off. Per an agreement with neighbors and the City, K will use the lights for up to 20 nights annually, almost exclusively for practices that will accommodate Hornet varsity football, men’s and women’s soccer, men’s and women’s lacrosse, men’s and women’s club ultimate Frisbee and intramural teams. (Wednesday’s test counted as one of those 20 nights.) Thank you, everyone, who worked hard to bring lights back to Angell Field. Lux esto! (text by Jeff Palmer; photo by Susan Andress)

Woodworth Field Baseball Diamond Sparkles for Donor’s Children

In 1955, Kalamazoo businessman and sports fan Thomas Woodworth purchased uniforms for the Kalamazoo College baseball team. That spring, the Hornets responded by finishing second in the MIAA conference. Woodworth then gave funds for a new baseball field at K, located near the College’s Angell Field football field. The City of Kalamazoo helped build the diamond, which was ready for the 1956 season.

Sixty years later, Woodworth’s four children returned to see their father’s newly polished ball diamond in a brand new, if familiar, setting.

In 2012, K completely renovated its aging outdoor athletics facility, replacing the old cement-block Calder Field House and rusty Angell Field press box with terrific new structures. Mackenzie Field (soccer), Woodworth Field, and the Hornet softball field were completely rebuilt on new locations within the site in order to maximize overall space and make way for a new parking lot and intramural field. Only Angell Field retained its original footprint (though it gained an artificial turf surface, new bleachers and the new Stadium Services Building compete with press box, concessions and restrooms).

Woodworth Field dedication program 1The Woodworth Field reconstruction – with new dugouts, bleachers, fencing, scoreboard and other amenities – was accomplished, in part, through the renewed philanthropy of the Woodworth family.

Recently, Thomas Woodworth, Jr., and his three sisters – Nancy Tyler, Marilyn Moise, and MaryLou Milner (l-r in the photo) – returned to K and to the ball field that bears their family name for the first time in decades. They now all live out of state.

“They were absolutely delighted to see the new Woodworth Field and to reconnect with part of their family legacy,” said Al DeSimone, K’s vice president for advancement. “I had no trouble imagining them as kids running the base-paths and sliding into home plate.”

During their visit, the Woodworth “kids” helped to dedicate a new plaque at the diamond. It reads:

“Thomas B. Woodworth Sr. and his family have demonstrated remarkable support for baseball at Kalamazoo College and in the greater Kalamazoo area. In 2012 and 2013, the family reaffirmed its commitment to the athletes who play this sport. This field, originally dedicated in 1956, bears the Woodworth name and continues to symbolize the family’s generosity and the College’s gratitude.”

Ready, Set, GOLF!

Golf ball on teeOnce a year Kalamazoo College alumni are invited to join other alums, K athletes, coaches and staff for a day of swinging clubs to benefit the Hornet Athletic Association. This year’s golf jamboree is set for Monday, June 27, at the Kalamazoo Country Club. You can register today for the chance to apply some serious stinging to those little pockmarked spheres.

Study Abroad in Soccer

Andrew Bremer at US Soccer Paralympic Training
Andrew Bremer at US Soccer Paralympic Training. Photo by Hana Asano.

Like many Kalamazoo College student athletes over the years, junior Andrew Bremer will enjoy a spring term international experience. His travel will take him to Spain, the Netherlands and (possibly) to Brazil, not as a currently enrolled K student but instead as a member of the United States Paralympics soccer team.

“Before all this happened,” says Andrew, “I’d only been on a plane once, and never out of the country.”

“All this” started with a June 2015 invitation to attend training camp for the U.S. team. That first camp for Andrew (requiring his second plane trip) took place at the National Training Center for Soccer in Los Angeles last October. Andrew had to miss a week of fall term classes as well as two soccer matches (he plays defense for the Hornet team). The second training camp occurred in November (after Thanksgiving and therefore the end of fall term, “thankfully,” smiles Andrew) at the Olympic Training Center in San Diego.  For training camp number three Andrew flew to Florida in early January.

“Missing week one of winter term was tough,” says Andrew, who is as hard working and disciplined in his studies as he is on the pitch.  The economics and business major (and mathematics minor) enjoyed the full support of his K professors and soccer coach, as well as that of Associate Dean of Students Dana Jansma, who notified the College’s communication office about Andrew’s story and his plans for junior spring term.

He will take a leave of absence that term because he learned in late January that he is invited to join the U.S. Paralympics soccer team. The team will train for most of the month of April in Atlanta. At the end of that month the team will depart for Barcelona, Spain, for a pre-Paralympics tournament to include seven of the eight teams that will compete at the Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. In addition to the U.S. squad, the eight teams include Russia, Ireland, Brazil, Ukraine, Argentina, Great Britain and the Netherlands.

“The pool play format guarantees us at least three games in Spain,” says Andrew. After the tournament the team will return to Atlanta in mid-May for more training. Then it’s off to a four-team June tournament in the Netherlands, organized by the International Federation of Cerebral Palsy Football. After that tournament Andrew will wait to see if he’s made the roster for Paralympic Games in Rio.

He feels his chances are pretty good, and the prospect of playing there (September 7-18) he considers the most exciting aspect of his soccer study abroad adventure.

“The team will stay in the Olympic Village,” says Andrew, “and the atmosphere will be electric.” He says that the Paralympics soccer matches that followed the London Olympics drew crowds of some 13,000 spectators on average. And the stadium in Rio can hold 15,000 people.

His participation in the Paralympic Games will mean Andrew misses the first few days of fall term, but he’s proven he can handle that challenge. He plans to do preliminary research for his Senior Individualized Project while in Atlanta, where training occurs nearby the liberal arts school Oglethorpe University and its library. During previous trips to Los Angeles, San Diego and Bradenton (Fla.) Andrew grew accustomed to finding a quiet place between practices to knock off some study. And, as good fortune would have it, he completed most of his requirements for his major in his first two years at K. All that remains for economics and business will be the SIP and senior seminar.

True to his liberal arts nature, Andrew intends to snag that math minor as well. And speaking of liberal arts, it’s evident in his soccer too: though he plays defense for K, for Team U.S.A. he prowls the pitch as a forward. He’ll resume the former when he steps foot again on MacKenzie Field fall term. And academically, “I’ll complete all my degree requirements in time for June commencement.

A challenge? Yes. But in some ways enrolling at K at all may been his toughest initial test, what with the familial tug of Calvin College (both his parents are graduates, and the family lives about two blocks away from the campus) and Hope College (his older brother is a graduate and his younger sister a current student). How did Andrew navigate these cross currents?

“I love the Quad,” he says, “and K’s academic rigor. In fact, I love it here so much that it’s painful to take the leave from spring term.” Now that’s a student athlete! With quite a family sports pedigree. His older sister swam the Rice University (Houston, Texas) team. His older brother played hockey for the Flying Dutch, and his younger sister is a member of Hope’s soccer team.

Will they or his parents attend any of his matches overseas? “Probably not in Spain or the Netherlands,” says Andrew. “But if I’m on the roster for Rio, well, they’ve already inquired about plane tickets.”

Toward that end, K shouts out a huge “Good luck, Andrew!”