May 24, 2017
Vanderbilt soccer follows rising junior Gabrielle Rademaker. The Tampa, Fla. native will be journaling her experiences this summer as she explores New Zealand.
What was it like to speak in front of your peers?
At the beginning of May, I had an amazing opportunity to speak to a group in Dunedin, New Zealand. The event featured a roster of 38 speakers, and I was the youngest by about 16 years.
We each gave an eight-minute speech at the Forsyth Bar rugby stadium, but it was also streamed live on Facebook. I had no idea about any of this until I got there and then began to get really nervous. If someone were to tell me I was going to speak on stage to a bunch a people, I would have laughed and thought they were crazy. I’m so unbelievably happy I did it because the experience was unreal: I faced my fears, and now I can say I am an international speaker.
How did you decide the topic of your speach?
When it came to what I was going to say, I decided to talk about my soccer journey and few key things I’ve learned from being on the Vanderbilt women’s soccer team, especially from my coaches! It’s funny, once I decided to begin my speech with the resilience quote from Dostoevsky, “The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time you fall…”, everything else kind of fell into place.
Are you excited about returning home?
I’ll be home in two days, and I can’t wait to take everything I have learned over this past month and implement it in my life at home and at Vanderbilt. I will miss every single person I have met on this trip because they all have made an impact in my life. However, two people really influenced me because of their connection to athletics, and I’ll definitely be keeping in touch with them: Chad Cooper and Carolyn Gish. I have learned so much from them that I have already used to train for our upcoming season this fall, and I can’t wait to share with the rest of my team!
