More Zzzzs
When Duke recently won the NCAA women’s golf tournament, a pair of freshmen played a prominent role. It’s not unusual for freshman to be key for the Blue Devils, and it’s certainly not surprising that Duke won the title, considering it was their fourth overall championship.
But what may be a little surprising is what those freshman – Amanda Blumenherst and Jennie Lee – talk about when asked why Duke makes it possible for early success. It’s not the hard work that they mention first, but rather more rest and lots of fun.
“When I came to college I had more time to practice,” Blumenherst recently told ACC Nation. “More time to work out and more time to sleep. I was really able to fine tune my game.”
She fine tuned it so well, and so quickly, that Blumenherst won the individual title in Duke’s first tournament of the year at Vanderbilt.
But wait a minute. Something doesn’t add up. Duke is not only a great golf school – dare we say, fearing the wrath of Coach K, that Duke is a women’s golf school – but it is also one of the top academic institutions in the country. So how does a freshman come in and find more, not less, time to not only work on her game, but (gasp!) sleep?
“I went to a very, very hard high school. It was four-and-a-half hours of homework every night. It was really challenging. When I came to college I felt like, oh, I have so much time off,” said Blumenherst, who, last week, was named Golfweek magazine’s player and freshman of the year.
There’s an idea for Duke’s admissions office if it needs a new slogan– It’s easier than high school.
Meanwhile, Jennie Lee, who finished second in the individual competition at the NCAA tournament, credited coach Dan Brooks and his philosophy toward the game.
“He’s always so relaxed and he’s there to have fun,” Lee told ACC Nation. “And when you play it’s always for the fun of the game.”
Lee, who was recently named, along with Blumenherst, to the 2006 United States Curtis Cup team, also said her older teammates helped with the transition. Liz Janangelo, Jennifer Pandolfi and Anna Grzebien helped both Blumenherst and Lee with their adjustment to college.
“They just really pulled us together as a team and we just had a lot of fun out there,” Lee said. “That brought a lot of comfort to the team when we first joined as freshman.”
So all of you college coaches, listen up. The key to success – fun and sleep. And if you can squeeze in some practice between the two, that’s probably OK also.
-Patrick Hite