Commodore Nation Feature: Sarah Dennis

Dec. 29, 2006

December/January 2006-07 Commodore Nation Feature Article:

Sarah Dennis has no interest in being run-of-the-mill, and she probably wouldn’t fit in with the rest of the Vanderbilt women’s soccer team if she did.

Much like the artwork she is becoming known for creating, the junior forward and Germantown, Tenn., native strives to be bold, distinctive and unforgettable.

“I am a person who loves being well-rounded,” Dennis, a studio art and philosophy double major, said before traveling to Clemson, S.C., to play in the team’s second consecutive NCAA tournament. “My goal is to be an intelligent, interesting person to talk to, and I feel like I am on my way at Vanderbilt. I am just glad that I have had the people and the opportunities to get to that point.”

Dennis, who recently completed painting five life-sized murals on the walls of a Cool Springs day care center and who is in the midst of painting another in the home of soccer Head Coach Ronnie Coveleskie, has been one of a cadre of players that has helped the Commodores regain a level of national prominence in recent years.

After a 2004 freshman campaign that saw Vanderbilt finish a modest 7-7-5 overall, Dennis helped propel the Commodores to a 16-3-3 record last year, including the team’s first NCAA tournament appearance in seven years. Vanderbilt earned a repeat trip to the tournament this season and compiled a 10-4-7 overall record.

Dennis was named to the SEC All-Freshman team in 2004, scored five goals – including three game-winners – in 2005 and netted two goals and four assists this year while starting in all 22 of Vanderbilt’s games.

And to hear Coveleskie tell it, a key to her ability to build a nationally competitive program has been recruiting players like Dennis — who not only stack up on the soccer field, but also work hard to excel in all facets of their lives.

“I talk a lot during the recruiting process about how coming here to Vanderbilt and succeeding both on and off the field is not an easy task,” Coveleskie said. “It takes a lot of hard work. Our success as a soccer team is dependent upon having players who are willing to do that work and who want to succeed – in their lives outside of school, in the classroom and on the field. We have that kind of group here now, and I think that is why we have been able to win a fair amount of games the past couple of years.”

The team won the 2005 Tolbert Cup, awarded to the Vanderbilt varsity team with the best combination of winning percentage, community service and cumulative grade point average. The award, Coveleskie says, is emblematic of the fact that hers is a team full of players who settle for nothing less than the very best.

“They have a tremendous desire to excel in everything they do,” she said.

And Dennis exemplifies the kind of player Coveleskie is trying to build the program around.

“I try and be as good as I can be in everything that I do, and I think Vanderbilt is the perfect conducive environment for that,” Dennis said. “That is why I committed here, and that is why I feel like I have developed so much in the past two-and-a-half years here.”

And that development has included Dennis’ artistic side, which she is quick to say embodies the way in which she tries to live her life.

“I just feel like art is very analogous to my personality,” Dennis said. “It is expressive, and it is colorful and it makes everything a lot more interesting. Art is so multi-dimensional, it has just opened my eyes up to every aspect of my life.”

Her most recent foray into mural painting just “fell into her lap,” Dennis said, when a friend’s mother – a regional executive for KinderCare Learning Centers – asked if she would be interested in helping enliven some local centers with her artwork.

She eagerly accepted the opportunity and developed an aquarium scene.

“The kids’ first reaction was `Nemo!’ so I made sure to do a lot of clown fish because they get that,” Dennis said. She also painted a scene of the solar system, a barnyard landscape and a diversity-themed painting that features a world map.

“It has been a really amazing experience,” Dennis said. “It was great to be able to be sitting there painting and have little kids come in and be able to watch something new being created. It was really fun to be able to see their reactions. And the place is just happier now. There wasn’t a whole lot of color on the walls at all. So I am just happy that I could improve a child’s environment. That sounds so corny, but even little babies would come up and touch the fish. It was awesome.”

Dennis’ current project in Coveleskie’s home was inspired during a three-game exhibition tour in France and Italy the team took last summer.

“We were at Lake Como in Italy and the whole time Ronnie was snapping pictures and she said `Sarah, you are going to paint this for me.’ She recently moved into her house, so I am happy to help her make her house a home.”

For Dennis, mural painting has proven to be the perfect outlet.

“I like drama in artwork,” Dennis said. “I don’t feel like I have successfully achieved the level of technique that some artists can use, so I feel like expressing myself through melodramatic tones and colors and lines and shapes are the most fitting for me and my personality.”