Page 2 - Laker Connection Fall 2011

President’s Message
As many of you know, Clayton State University is a proud member of the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s (NCAA)
Division II. Intercollegiate athletics is an important component of University life. At the same time that it pro- vides athletic experiences to many of our students, it also (citing the NCAA Division II Platform) “...provides growth opportunities through academic achievement, learning in high level athletic competition and development of positive social attitudes in serv- ice to community....” CBS News’ Bob Schieffer makes a more general claim about sport, society, and learning: “The great value of sport is that it teaches us to recognize the differences between winning and striving for excellence, the better but much harder to achieve. More important, sports teaches us how to handle failure, to get up and try again....” This was a year at Clayton State in which through striving for excel-
lence, our students won, for themselves, for our university, and for our community. This issue of The Laker Connection brings you several stories of success. While the 2010/2011 Clayton State women’s basketball team did indeed win the NCAA Di- vision II national championship, and was victorious in 35 of their 36 games, the nar- ratives describing the roads to this achievement of 13 young women, and their coaches, extends beyond the hardwood. It is a story of both success (35 times) and failure (the lone loss at USC Aiken in the Peach Belt tournament), and what the team members, and the coaches, learned from both. As is the case with every successful athletic team, it is also a story of practice, persistence, teamwork and cooperation, a season that brought national acclaim to the University and will, I predict, bring similar success in the long term future to the team members and coaches. Even before the season began, many of us on campus had opportunities to see these students as winners—preparing for the rigors of the season with multiple runs around Swan
Lake, or preparing for citizenship through participation in community service projects.
Championship seasons are created with championship leaders —and here you can meet these leaders: coaches Dennis Cox and Kaleena Coleman, plus players Teshymia Tillman, Tanisha Woodard and Drameka Griggs, and ways in which their leading was influenced by their learning during the competition of the 2010/2011 season. As part of the Clayton State community, our athletic program always strives to be a point of university pride. In this championship season, it is a time to be particularly proud of these students and
Dr. Thomas J. “Tim” Hynes, Jr.
coaches who so successfully and publicly represent us.
Clayton State’s Athletics & Fitness Center, home of the women’s basketball team
Dr. Thomas Hynes President