Fordham Women’s Club Soccer Moves Forward

By: Kelly Kultys

This past fall was a season of success for the young program women’s soccer program. The team made it to the national competition for the first time ever and even succeeded in fundraising over $13,000 to fund their trip.

However, as they return to the practice field for the first time since that journey, there are a few more questions on their mind. For starters, Jackie Gawne, FCRH’15, Maggie Abella, FCRH’15, and Erica DePalma, FCRH’15, the team’s three senior captains will all be graduating in less than a month. The three girls have been instrumental  in moving this team forward.

(courtesy of Women’s Club Soccer)

“[Deciding to go to Nationals] was mainly because of Jackie’s passion for it because a lot of us were hesitant, but she was like, ‘No we’re doing this’,” DePalma said, after the team got back from the competition. “We have the ability to do this.”

Their impact has been felt by the younger soccer players as well.

“[Joining club soccer] was honestly the best decision I made all year,” Maeve McGowan, FCRH’18, said. “I’m so thankful, because I’ve never met a better group of girls. I get along with completely everyone.”

She believes this has something to do with the culture created by her captains. Gawne, DePalma, and Abella said that they emphasized the fact that this group wasn’t just about competing and winning, but also about making friends and bonding away from the sport.

“This is our version of a sorority,” Gawne said. “This is our club, this is our social group.”

“We’re here,” Gawne said. “I just want everyone to be comfortable coming to us telling us, ‘oh my god I have homework due,’ or ‘oh my god my boyfriend is driving me nuts.’ You know, just being able to talk to us and being able to know that you have a family away from your family.”

(Courtesy of Women’s Club Soccer)

Now, however, those three are forced to leave the family atmosphere they created and entrust it to some of the younger girls, like incoming captain Jessica Robertson, FCRH’17, and Lauren Regan, FCRH’18.

“It’s gonna be tough without [them],” Regan said. “But I hope that we just learn from what you did.”

For Gawne, DePalma, and Abella, the next phase of their lives takes place away from the game, but they hope the younger girls can follow their path to success on and off the field.

“I don’t care whether they’re good or not,” Gawne said. She laughed and pointed at Regan and said, “I hope that you would be good and you win. I know that you like winning.” She continued, “But I really hope that no matter what it’s the club of girls that come together every week to share their stories and share their lives together.”

After she said this, Gawne put her hands over her eyes to imitate a crying gesture, as she said, “it’s so sad.”

Gawne and her co-captains, leave behind a lasting legacy of leadership, one that the team lacked the prior year. The team struggled and the three realized the problem came from the top.

(Courtesy of Women’s Club Soccer)

“Our junior year it was just bad. We didn’t make it to regionals. We didn’t win that many games,” Gawne said.

“The leadership just kind of fell apart,” DePalma added.

They wanted to change the direction of women’s club soccer and make it legitimate organization in the eyes of the school. They were able to do that, as when Regan was asked what her goals on the field were for next season replied quickly, “Nationals. Well, definitely regionals, but nationals as well.”

And it seems like she has the proper example to follow to get there.

Practice footage:

Fordham’s Best Kept Secret – Club Hockey

The Rose Hill Gym. Jack Coffey Field. Houlihan Park. The Vince Lombardi Center. For years, one of the most successful Fordham Athletics teams calls none of these places home.

Just a short 10-minute drive from the Rose Hill campus, the Fordham club hockey team makes its residence at the Mount Vernon Ice Hutch, a rink that has not seen a losing season since 2002-2003.

“I like it, Fordham hockey [is] kinda Fordham’s best kept secret,” Rick Podpirka, a junior forward, said.

His captain, senior center man Billy Lane, echoed his thoughts.

“The hockey team I would have to say is one of the least recognized on campus,” Lane said. “I mean, last year when we won I think that might have been the first time people heard about the hockey team.”

Last year was one of the best in the Fordham men’s hockey history as the team finished 20-5-2-1 and captured the title. This year the team came just short of repeating for back-to-back years.

The 2014-2015 team went 15-6-2-2 and once again was in the finals. They battled with Stevens Institute of Technology, tying the score at two after the third period. The teams took the game to overtime, but Stevens prevailed scoring the game winning goal 18:26 into extra time.

The club hockey team’s official Twitter, @FordhamHockey, said after the loss, “Hard fought game…disappointing outcome.. Stevens is a class act, if we couldn’t win it, I’m glad it was them.”

Still, this season was successful in many ways both on and off-the-ice. One of his goals heading into this season for Lane was to be a good captain.

“Coming in freshmen year I really looked up to the captains, they helped, you know coming to college isn’t the easiest transition for anybody and I mean they helped me transition to college and to the hockey team, just trying to do that for the younger kids as well,” Lane said.

One of the guys he was able to help adjust was freshman defenseman Nick Allardi.

“The seniors have been really supportive of the freshmen coming in and it’s been a nice experience so far,” Allardi said.

Despite the fact that not a lot of people know about the team’s success, that has not affected the team’s performance on the ice. Five different players on the team have over 11 goals scored this year, and the team has been successful in recruiting young players like Allardi to join.

“I actually went to the club fair and really wanted to play hockey and that’s how I ended up here,” Allardi said. “I tried out, it was great. It’s a great group of guys, great program.”

The club fair’s actually the same way Lane got involved four years ago.

“When I was a freshmen, I first got involved through the club fair,” Lane said. “They had a huge table and I had been playing hockey my entire life, like pretty much the entire team. And then I tried out for the team and the rest is history.”

One of the keys to that history is the entire team’s desire to continue playing.

“Being competitive in high school, you know playing everyday, it’s nice to still be out here,” Podpirka said. “You know thinking I was going to be 21 still playing hockey – I wouldn’t believe it.”

“But it’s great you know we still get to rep the Fordham, Fordham colors,” Lane added.

Although the guys didn’t accomplish their main goal, young players like Allardi plan to continue the winning tradition into the future.

“It’d be great to win a championship my first year here and continue that throughout my years at Fordham – that’d be awesome,” Allardi said.

Facilities Attempts to Keep Up With Growing Student Needs

By KELLY KULTYS

Over the last few years, Fordham has been attempting to meet the needs of its growing student population. With the help of the Excelsior campaign, the university added new residence halls at Rose Hill and Lincoln Center, the new home for the business school and the law school at Lincoln Center.

Hughes Hall was added to campus as a part of the Excelsior Ever Upward Campaign. (By Kelly Kultys)

Still, according to Marco Valera, vice president of Facilities Operations, his department has a few smaller renovations to complete. Currently the list includes improvements to the science labs, renovations to the church roofs, ADA-accessible additions and updates to the residence halls.

The largest improvement on the list will be adding air conditioning units to Walsh Hall.

“We’re going to try this summer to replace all the windows – it’s going to be close,” Valera said. “And then after we have the windows in – it may not be this year maybe later in 15 or early in 16, we’ll be putting air conditioning in there.”

Walsh Hall is one of the few residential buildings on Fordham’s campus without air conditioning units.

However, one of the areas that was not specifically addressed is the crowded fitness facilities. This past summer, the university closed the Lombardi fitness center, which previously housed cardio and weightlifting equipment.

Nevin Kulangara, GSB’15, and United Student Government executive president, called the current space “inadequate.”

The current weightlifting area features just 4 benches and 2 racks for the entire student population. (By Kelly Kultys)

“As versatile as [the RamFit center] is, it just isn’t big enough, especially the free weights section,” Kulangara said. “I noticed as a student that it was almost dangerous working out in that free weights space. People were literally elbow to elbow trying to lift weights.”

Sarah Bickford, who is in charge of the RamFit Center, said it can be hard to judge how intensely the fitness facility is used because its usages varies with students’ schedules.

At certain times of day, all the machines at the RamFit Center will be in use. (By Kelly Kultys)

Still, she admitted there are times when the facility is noticeably more crowded. “Generally, the busiest times are 11am-2pm and around 3-4pm on into the evening hours,” Bickford said in an email. “The less crowded times are: 6am-11am and 10pm-12am.”

Fordham Athletics is planning to open an auxiliary weight-lifting area near where the old Lombardi center was, but those plans were originally delayed until January.

Besides the fitness center however, one area that Kulangara and Valera have expressed interest in is making the campus more ADA-accessible.

Valera says there will be more accessible doors added to campus soon. (By Kelly Kultys)

“We’re adding ADA entrance doors,” Valera said. “We have a program for multi-years primarily at Rose Hill. Next year we’ll probably add about five operating devices.”

Kulangara and USG however, have been pushing for the renovation of Collins Hall for it to include an elevator.

“We’re talking about basically the only facility on campus where groups like Mimes and Mummers can really perform using a full set of props and everything like that,” Kulangara explained. “At the same time it’s a building that is just closed off to a certain portion of the student body.”

Collins Hall houses the main theater on campus but is not ADA accessible. (By Kelly Kultys)

Kulangara acknowledged that this would be a very expensive project, but emphasized that it was one that would be worth it.

“A prospective wheel-chaired student came up to us and said ‘I’m really interested in theater, you know what are my options here,'” Kulangara said. “And we couldn’t lie to her, we couldn’t have her come to Fordham hoping that she could get involved in theater and then have her find out she can’t. So we had to tell her, you can definitely get involved in the writing process, but when it comes to acting or stage props or whatever you want to do, there are going to be a lot of limitations for you.”

Valera said his department is currently looking doing a study to see exactly how much that addition would cost.

There are discussions to revamp the student center at Fordham. (By Kelly Kultys)

But, in terms of large scale campus renovations, Valera said that there are not many planned for Rose Hill, despite the fact they are looking into ideas for the McGinley Center in the future.

Valera emphasized however, that these are just ideas, not a reality.

“We’ll never build that – it’s really conceptual,” Valera said about the proposed re-design by Sasaki. “We really liked their presentation it includes the architectural elements of this campus, a little stone, a little modern glass . It spoke to us when we saw Sasaki’s rendering, but it’s really just being used for development purposes at this point.”