Puple Team Takes Spring Competition

Yesterday, the Purple team overcame a two game losing streak in volleyball to hang on and win one game and clinch the 3rd Annual Purple/White Spring Competition. White put on a tremendous effort, where they had to win all 3 games to send the competition to the final grade reports for a chance to win. As it turned out Purple turned it on just in the knick of time to grab the third and final game.

Purple captain, Lizzy Karoly, becomes the first 3 time winner and once again will have her picture with her purple team for all of next year. Also, the white flag in the max will be lowered in pre-season and replaced with the Purple Flag!

The Winning Purple Team consisted of: Lizzy Karoly, Jackie Torda, Katie Taylor, Chelsea Wilgenburg, Katie Runyon, Kaylie Garcia, Emma Geyer, Tara Magdos, Danika Powers, Lauren Wysoski, Alex Mathews and Lindsay Holmes.

Tennis Teams Heading To NCAA Tournament

Congratulations to our Men's and Women's Tennis teams, as they will be competing in the 2009 NCAA Tennis Championships. The Women's team, ranked #28 in the nation, enters the NCAA tournament as the representative from the MWC by virtue of their Conference Tournament Championship. They will be traveling to Fayetteville, Arkansas where they will take on The University of Tulsa. This will be the 6th consecutive appearance in the NCAA Championships for the Frogs.

The Men's team, regular season MWC Champions, are making their 18th NCAA Championship appearance in the last 19 years, after they were awarded at at large birth into the tournament. The Frogs are ranked #38 in the nation and will face The University of Tulsa as well.

Good luck to both teams....GO FROGS!!!!

Congrats to TCU Men's Tennis--Regular Season MWC Champions

What a great season for our Men's Tennis Team. Congratulations on winning another Mountain West Conference Championship!!!!

All Sports Banquet

Last night, the TCU Athletic Department and the Student Athlete Advisory Committee hosted our annual All Sports Banquet. The dinner and reception was held in the new BLUU ballroom on the third floor. The room looked amazing, even the the over head lighting was made up of rings of purple. It pretty neat to see all the athletes dressed up for once. And might I add everyone cleans up very nicely.

The evening started with dinner and this AMAZING chocolate mousse drizzled with raspberry sauce! (Coach Plakorus helped himself to an extra one. Haha) During dinner they showed a highlight video recapping all of the teams' successful seasons and then it was time for the panel questionnaire....

Every year 5 senior athletes are picked to go on stage and answer questions about their time at TCU and advice they have for the freshmen. Our very own Caroline Starns was one of the lucky ones chosen to go up and speak. And as usually there is always one character who makes the evening very entertaining.... This year it was senior tennis player Kriegler Brink who had everyone laughing.

At the end of the evening, all of the academic, community service, and team MVP awards were handed out. Junior Lizzy Karoly was awarded the Soccer MVP for an outstanding performance this year. This is her second year in a row to be named MVP. Congrats Lizzy!

TCU Women's Tennis Wins Conference Championship

I love championships and want to say congratulations to the TCU Women's Tennis Team for their 2009 Mountain West Conference Tournament Championship!

5 TCU Players Taken in 2009 NFL Draft

Just thought this was a great picture of the 5 TCU players taken this weekends NFL Draft. It's fun being a top athletic school where you get to be around these type of things.

Annual Mentor Luncheon

Today was another outstanding day for the TCU soccer team, as we hosted our Second Annual Mentoring Luncheon at Garvey Rosenthal Soccer Stadium. Thanks to the amazing efforts of Laurie and Roy Topham, along with our Director of Operations Angie Nickens, we were able to host 17 prominent professionals from the Ft Worth community for lunch with members of the TCU Soccer team. We do this every year to allow our student athletes meet professionals in the career fields they have an interest in. It gives them a chance to learn first hand from these professionals, ask questions about their experiences, and get an idea of what it takes to be successful in their career field. It is an invaluable experience for our student athletes through the friendships that develop along with the opportunities for internships and job placement.

This year the group of professionals who were able to join us and share their experiences included the following fields: sports agent, sports marketing, advertising, physical therapist, dietician, psychologist, nurses, event planning, journalist (sports & broadcast), teacher, CEO of an engineering firm, commercial real estate, accounting and an art curator. It was truly a wide range of very successful outstanding professionals the members of our team were able to spend time with.

It was another great event, and another example of how unique TCU Soccer is in our commitment to building Champions for Life!

Zak Brown Band Rocks TCU

Last night in the campus commons music stars, The Zak Brown Band performed to a packed house of students. Pretty much the whole women's soccer team took in the show that started around 8:00 and didn't wrap up until well after 10:00!

Junior Lizzy Karoly said "It was such a gorgeous night out and they are awesome live. It was the perfect way to head into the final 2 weeks of the semester!"

Check out their hit "Chicken Fried" at: http://zacbrownband.com/index2.php

Kicks For Kids Pictures

UPDATE-2/21/09-The Team Has Now Raised Over $7000 with Kicks For Kids benefiting Cooks!

The girls ended up raising over $3500 for Cooks Children's Hospital with Kicks For Kids by running two great clinics. Today found out a donor has matched that amount for a total of $7000. Thank you to everyone who participated in such a great event for such a great cause!

And yes that is my son Zak sticking out his tongue to the right!

Main Street Arts Festival Hits Downtown Ft. Worth

The 24th Annual Main Street Arts Festival has once again taken over downtown Ft. Worth this weekend. With great food, 3 stages for live music and of course some of the premier art in the country, it always proves to be a blast. The festival is ranked the #3 Fine Arts Festival in the country and spans over 9 blocks downtown.

The streets of downtown are filled with fascinating sights and sounds as more than 500 fine artists, dancers, performance artists, musicians, exhibitors and food vendors take part in the four-day celebration. Two hundred juried artists line the historic red bricks of Main Street weaving a diverse blend of texture and shape down the "magnificent mile" of visual art booths, performance stages and intriguing characters to create an explosion of color against the turn-of-the-century buildings and modern skyscrapers of downtown Fort Worth.

Last night after attending the awards ceremony where Senior Caroline Starns was honored, while waiting for our car we got a chance to see first hand the electric atmosphere-not sure I can describe it, but a great band with a performing group of unicycler's who had random light patterns in their spokes (wish I would have had a camera with me).

Check out the link for more details on the festival: http://www.mainstreetartsfest.org/Home.aspx

Starns Picks Up Female Athlete of the Year Honor

Senior Caroline Starns was recognized tonight at the 11th Annual TCU Intercultural Banquet as Outstanding Female Athlete of the Year! The award was presented based upon Caroline"s leadership and involvement in the community. We're all extremely proud of Caroline as this is one of the top annual honors presented by TCU.

Cristiano Ronaldo's Goal

Don't claim to be a Man U fan and still in bitter shock over Bayern Munich's departure in Champions League (after the 4-0 defeat knew it was inevitable, but didn't want to believe it).

But this goal is definitely worth taking a look at!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_qet3hI3Oo

KICKS FOR KIDS SOCCER CLINIC

Every year as a part of our leadership component at TCU Soccer, our team is responsible for putting on various community service events. In the past we've done dinners and auctions, worked with Habitat for Humanity, volunteered at the local Ronald McDonald House, Boy's & Girls Clubs and too numerous other things to mention.

This year our group decided to put on a soccer clinic to benefit Cooks Children's Hospital. The team has been responsible for every aspect-facilities, registration, marketing, coordinating with Cooks and all of the other things involved with putting on a clinic.

This Friday from 5:00-6:30 and Sunday from 3:00-5:00 comes the fun part, the actual clinic on the field (which once again the team is fully running).

Every penny from the registrations goes directly to Cooks and it looks like the team is going to blow the $2500 goal they set right out of the water!

If you have an interest in sending a child to the clinic just come on out to Garvery-Rosenthal Stadium at TCU on either of dates, it's $20 for one session or $30 for both, or if you just have the desire to make a donation to Cooks you can send a check made out directly to Cooks Children's Hospital. You can send it to
TCU Soccer
TCU Box 297600
Ft. Worth, TX 76129

We'll get some photos up next week of the clinics-but great job ladies and have fun with the kids!

Bit's & Pieces

Hope everyone had a great Easter weekend! Just in the final two weeks of our semester until finals so just some random things:

-U2 announced they will be playing the New Dallas Cowboys Stadium this fall. Pre-sale tickets went on sale today and already got mine!

-The team is hosting a clinic Friday night with all of the proceeds going to Cooks Children Hospital-more details tomorrow.

-Had a great conditioning session today, it's fun to see how hard the ladies are still working.

-Men's Tennis won the Mountain West Conference, while Women's Tennis and Baseball are both poised for championships as well.

-Weather has been awesome-low 70's.

-Have some work going on at our home, Garvey-Rosenthal Soccer Stadium. Over the next 2 days you'll notice a new tree line going in on the east side of the facility. It's going to be a great addition, that will close off the stadium and give it a much more intimate feel. The big addition to the stadium that just got approved last week, I'll share with you next week!

Team Hoops It Up

Monday we decided to step off the field and jump into Daniel Meyer Coliseum for a little basketball. I was impressed to see an intense game of knockout in action when I stepped into the gym-not sure if it was Alex Mathews or Chelsea Wilgenburg who ended up winning, as they were locked in heated battle to the end!

We then broke the team into 3 teams and played games to 5 with the winner staying on. The Red Team got out to the early lead with former High School All-League Basketball player Jenna Hayes dominating as a ringer on their team. But the Green Team made a great comeback to win the championship of the day, led by Jordan Calhoun and Katie Taylor.

We finished up with a Purple/White game to 7, that Purple dominated-I think it finished 7-0. Purple hit two 2-pointers (baskets were 1 pt for a regular basket, and 2 pts for a 3 point shot) to finish the game quick! Was a lot of fun and a great workout as the action was intense! 7-3 overall for the Purple Team as the semester gets close to an end.

Spring Season Finishes up Strong

We finished up our spring season Saturday night with an exciting 4-4 tie Texas Tech in front a great crowd here at Garvey-Rosenthal Stadium. Thought it was a good finish as the girls showed a lot of character, poise and composure through the match. It also gave us some great feedback on things we need to work on going into the fall, particularly managing the game and stepping up to physical challenges more consistently.

Freshman Jordan Calhoun got 2 goals and an assist, while Freshman Kaitlyn Shelledy and Freshman Katie Runyon picked up a goal apiece as well. Most of the spring we spent working on our combination play in the final 3rd and utilizing the flanks more, so the fact we scored 16 goals in our spring matches was definitely a positive.

We'll take the next four weeks to work on some individual stuff, while also having some fun. Yesterday we jumped into our basketball arena and played some hoops in honor of the final four-we'll post some video in the next day or two!

Start Your Engines!

Great day of training-had a lot of fun playing 2 minutes/2 goals and 30 Second Shot! White team also picked up a point in our spring competition with a last minute rally in a relay race. Purple still leads the annual competition 6-3 though.

Lots of stuff happening this weekend in Ft. Worth, as NASCAR comes to town. The big race is Sunday, but there's been a ton of race action around town all week. We host 2 NASCAR events a year, November and April. I wasn't a big fan until I went to a race last year and it is crazy-quite an event. They'll have 200,000 people Sunday.

Then the Texas Rangers Baseball team have opening day on Monday. Might try to sneak out to the ballpark with my son for an inning or two.

Plus, on campus we play Saturday night at 7:00 versus Texas Tech, #7 Football hosts it's spring scrimmage, our #22 Baseball team plays a 3 game home series against #18 New Mexico and our #28 Women's Tennis team host Utah, BYU and New Mexico.

Saturday's Baseball game will be fun as Senior Caroline Starns' nephew, Ryan, is having his third birthday party at the game. My son, Zak, is really excited-he loves SuperFrog!

World Cup Qualifiers Pick Up Steam

Congrats to the US Men for a 3-0 win over Trinidad and Tobago last night. Was fun to watch an enthusiastic crowd in Nashville and to see youngster Jozy Altidore get the hat trick. Definitely a good comeback after the tough road draw on Saturday.

Mexico lost to Honduras-wondering how long Sven will be with that group, I'm guessing if it doesn't happen sooner, a home loss to the US would be the nail in the coffin.

Talking about coaches on the hot seat-what about Argentina getting blown out 6-1 by Bolivia. Guessing Argentina Coach Diego Maradona is getting some nice things in the newspapers today.

The other big match I followed was Germany's 2-0 win over Wales and puts them clearly in the drivers seat of Europe's Group 4.

Busy Day on TCU Campus

Off day for the team from practice, need it after a long day yesterday. But our team leadership group gets together this afternoon. They are organizing a clinic, Kicks for Kids, as a fundraiser for Cooks Children Hospital. Should be a great event and they've set a goal of raising $2500. More details to come later but click here for information on the event: http://gofrogs.cstv.com/auto_pdf/p_hotos/s_chools/tcu/genrel/auto_pdf/tcu-09-kicks-for-kids-promo

#22 Baseball is home tonight against UTA and host #18 New Mexico this weekend.

The Schieffer Symposium takes place tonight here on campus and will discuss President Obama and the press. The event is sold out.