BOO...at the zoo!!!

On Friday night our team made it out to the Birmingham Zoo to volunteer at it's annual Boo at the Zoo event! Our team spent the evening handing out candy to hundreds and hundreds of trick-or-treaters and there may have even been a little dancing involved at the night's end! The team got into character...or several characters... and enjoyed a fun (yet cold!) evening at the zoo!!! Below are some pictures from the night!!!

Home...and staying!

The following was written by junior guard Jazmine Martin from Hoover, AL. Hoover is a suburb of Birmingham located about ten minutes from the campus of Samford.

Living ten minutes away from school has it's pros and its cons but I absolutely love it. To me, my family means everything and when deciding to come to Samford, that played a huge role in my decision. I love the fact that I can go home every single day if I wanted to and not many people on our team have that privilege, so I am very appreciative of that. Being at Samford gives me the opportunity not to miss a moment of my younger siblings lives also. I have a five year old sister and a seven year old brother and being able to go watch them while they play in their extracurricular activities means a lot to them from me as a big sister but it also means a lot more to me knowing that they want to follow in my foot steps. I'm glad that I don't have to miss out on any part of them growing up. Going to college 10 minutes away is one of the best things that I could ask for. 

What I wish I had known...

The following blog was written by Shelby Campbell a sophomore guard from Murfreesboro, TN

When I first started getting letters from Samford, people always told me how great of a school it was and how lucky I was to get this opportunity. My dad paints houses in Brentwood, Tennessee, and when he mentioned his daughter going to Samford, it seemed that almost every customer either went to Samford or had a relative that had been there. I heard so many positive things about the academic part of it and how it was a tough school though. Everyone would talk about how tough it was going to be with just school work at Samford, but I never really talked to people about how it was playing basketball and having to handle school work. That is what leads me to answer the question of what I wish I would have known before coming to Samford as a freshman. Two major areas I wish I had known were going to be so important in my future before moving here and starting school along with playing ball were an effective way to study and also being able to manage my time between school work and basketball.

Studying is imperative in order to become a successful college student. The type of studying required is nothing like studying for a high school test or exam either. College exams require a greater mastery of the subject by going into a lot more detail and each questions needs a great amount of thought. Coming in as a freshman for my first test, I prepared as if I was taking a high school test because that was all I had ever known. I would study off and on, but only knew the information on the surface and not the details of the subject. When it came test time I knew bits and pieces of the information, but not as much as I should have for the test. I learned very quickly that studying for college tests is very important and you do not want to wait till the night before to start. It is best to try and study a little bit of the information every day because the test are not over just one or two chapters. They usually have three to five chapters on a test so it is best to learn the topics as you go along and not just plan on learning them all in one night. Coming in as a freshman, I feel like it would be important to understand that studying is no joke in college courses. It is so important to find a certain method of studying that works for you in which you learn the information and can build upon it.

(Shelby, right, with teammate Hannah Dawson in New York City last season)

      Time management is another thing I wish I would have known and understood before coming in as a freshman. I never really knew how time consuming basketball was, along with having school work. It is very possible to handle, but you must know how to manage your time, that way you are not staying up late every single night after basketball practice trying to finish a paper or study for a test. I did struggle with this the first semester because I had no idea how to manage all my school work along with practice, games, and road trips for basketball. Being able to manage your time will help you get your work done earlier and hopefully, it will take stress off that can feel overbearing at times. You have to set time aside to eat, do homework, do laundry, have a good practice, and if all of this piles up, it can add a lot of stress. It is good to know before starting freshman year how important it is to be able to manage your time with other things you have to do along with basketball practice, games, and road trips.  I know that I have made this sound like a daunting, impossible task, but after the first semester the routine becomes pretty normal to the average college athlete.  Even though I might have come in initially unaware of the challenges ahead of me involving time management and the rigors of school work, there were lots of people who helped me make it through to insure that I would come out okay!

Race for the Cure!

This past Saturday our team arrived bright and early (5:45am to be exact!) to Linn Park in downtown Birmingham in order to help set up the Susan G. Komen: Race for the Cure! It was an amazing event in which our team worked tirelessly for the morning stuffing bags, moving road barriers and setting up tables and chairs! It was a great way to spend a morning and we look forward to helping again next year!

My day...with a cafeteria tour included!

The following is written by junior post player Kylie Black of Danville, AL.

A day in the life of me, Kylie Black, is pretty interesting.  I start my day off with breakfast at the ‘caf.’  I always have to get the cheese grits and eggs, very healthy I know.  There are many other things that are delicious in the caf but that is just my personal favorite.  After my breakfast of champions, I head to my first class, which is statistics.  My teacher has an unusual style but she teaches us exactly what we need to know and I actually enjoy the class.  Then after that class I head to my second class of the day, which is BP, or biblical perspectives.  This class is a core course that is required of every student attending Samford University.  My teacher for this class is very animated.  He makes reading the Bible an adventure and makes the story fit into our lives as college students.  He also says that he is the women’s basketball team’s favorite teacher because he has had so many of us in his classes.

After my BP class, I head to the caf for lunch.  There is usually about half the team in the caf so I never have to eat alone.  We have a plethora of food options for lunch.  There is a grill with grilled chicken, hamburgers, hotdogs, and things like that. Then there is a line with pizza.  The first month of my freshman year I ate pizza everyday, so I would say it’s the best thing they have.  Then there are two lines for “classic” foods which could be numerous things, from chicken to pork to fettuccine alfredo.  Then finally there is the “innovations” line which is where the special of the day is located.  It is usually pretty good.  There is also a salad bar and a dessert bar.  After the caf, I have another class, which is School of Music, and it is my favorite class this semester.  It is required for my major, elementary education and we sing and dance, and I will actually get to teach a lesson. 

(Kylie, right, at the women's basketball banquet with teammate Christy Robinson)

After my three classes I head to the gym for weights and conditioning, individuals, and pick-up, if its in the off season.  If its in season, we have practice and weights.  This is the time we are all together as a team, working to be better.  I enjoy the time that I have with my teammates.  It makes the running and lifting weights easier just knowing that they will have my back no matter how good or bad I do that day.  After practice or workouts has to be my favorite time of the whole day because it’s the time when the team can just chill and hangout.  We all head to the caf together and have dinner, which has about the same things for dinner as they do for lunch.  Then after we have eaten in the caf, we head back to the dorms to hangout or study.  It is the best time of the day.  We talk about how we do not know how we made it through that last 15 (our sprints!) or how funny it was when one of us fell during lay-ups.  We spend time together that is needed to be a good team.  My day at Samford is filled with school, basketball, and my teammates.  The three things in my life that I thank God for giving me the opportunity to experience. 

The first month...as a freshman!

The following blog was written by freshman, Taylor Reece. Taylor (left) with teammates Christy Robinson and Kendall Schwantz comes to Samford from Brentwood, TN and just finished up her first month on campus!

My first month at Samford has been a complete whirlwind. So much is happening on campus at all hours, and it is difficult to keep up! Adjusting to college is definitely something that takes time. I am responsible for myself for the first time! It is a little scary, but Samford is such an incredible place with incredible people to help me out along the way. That is the most important thing I have learned over the past few weeks. I cannot expect to get everything right all the time because college is not something I am used to. I need to be encouraged and Samford is definitely a place where that happens consistently.

Basketball thus far has been a lot of hard work, but so much fun. Getting connected with the team has been a blast. Every girl on our team has a heart of gold and being with them everyday makes the tough workouts easier. Being a freshman comes with confusion about plays, weight training, well, really everything. These girls as well as the coaches have taken the time to help me and push me at the same time. Pre-season is coming to a close now and I am totally ready for practice and games to start up.

Being at college involves a lot more than I originally thought it would. I knew I would need to take the time to study and workout, but I completely forgot about making the time to clean my room or do my laundry. Those things were done for me and adjusting to that has been interesting. Also, managing my time has to be a conscious thing for me now, which it was not in high school, as Samford offers so many opportunities to get involved on campus, and I want to do them all! 

All in all, my experience thus far has been the best. I have made many new friends and I am getting into the swing of things in school and basketball. I look forward the rest of this year!

Life as a Nursing student...

The following was written by junior post player Hannah Dawson from Shelbyville, TN. Hannah is in her third year of the nursing program here at Samford and is on track to graduate as an RN in 2013!

The life of a nursing student involves one main thing, TIME MANAGEMENT. This is something that I had to learn quickly my first semester of nursing school, especially since that semester began during the end of regular season games and the beginning of the SOCON tournament. As a nursing student you spend an average (per week) of 8 hours in the classroom, 14 hours in the hospital and 2-4 hours studying each night (did I mention adding basketball into the mix). In order to make good grades, do well on the court and still stay sane, you must be able to manage your time well. Without time management and a good calendar with color coded pens for each thing, you life will end up being a completely stressful, loss of hair, crying mess. With time management, your life as a nursing student could be one of the most blessed lives you could ever have. 

Three days of the week you spend in the classroom learning about EVERYTHING. Every little thing that you could ever think of that happens to the body is learned in those three days each week. The other two days are spent in the hospital applying what you learned those three days in the classroom. Here comes the time management between classroom and hospital. You must be able to make time to learn, practice, and study all the material you went over in class before going to the hospital to be properly prepared to care for your patient that day. You can never come unprepared to the hospital seeing as how we are dealing with lives and what not. The hospital consists of a long grueling day of standing on your feet for 8-9 hours walking around giving baths and meds to patients, changing beds (with the patients in them), chasing Doctors around asking them what they just wrote down because their chicken scratch is completely illegible and much more and to be completely honest, it’s the most fun EVER! You must be able to manage your time well in order to care for all your patients and get done everything that needs to be done within the day but to be able to go in every day and know that you are going to do everything in your power to help save that persons life is truly one of the most amazing feelings in the world to have.

Hannah (center) with teammates Kylie Black (left) and Ruth Ketcham (right)

Now outside of the classroom and hospital is where it gets a little tricky (yes, as if the hospital wasn’t tricky enough). Seeing as how I am a student-athlete that means I must throw basketball in my busy schedule somewhere, along with studying. Once I am out of class/hospital, I am usually running to either the gym to practice or O’Henrys coffee shop to study, they know me by first name basis now. I go to practice for at least 2 hours a day 6 days a week.  I spend a total of 4 days of the week studying with a girl from my class at least 2 hours each day, we have been kicked out of the coffee shop a total of 5 times already (only a month into school!) because of being there so late...I feel like I live there sometimes!

Once I am done studying with Megan (my "study buddy") and basketball, the spare time I do have is spent goofing off with my teammates. It may seem like a lot to some but to me I wouldn’t have my life any other way. The life as a nursing student is truly the life to live!!! (Biased?? Probably.)