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Svicarovich Helping Engineer Success 3/29/2005 By Meggie Butzow A pile of balsa wood leans against the dresser. Papers and assorted materials cover the quilted bedspread. A tube of epoxy slowly leaks onto the dresser top. Kristen Svicarovich, the No. 2 golfer on the Vanderbilt women’s golf team, is simply engaged in the technical business of figuring out how to build a balsa-wood tower, with classmate and teammate Chris Brady, for a civil engineering competition. The girls laugh and huddle over the computer, considering various strategies and techniques to help with the project. Their spring semester is a busy one, as they juggle required classes with the higher demands of the spring golf season. After some disappointing showings throughout the season, the team finds itself needing to play well down the stretch to improve its chances for a post-season bid. While Brady has garnered most of the media attention in leading the team this season, her good friend and fellow sophomore Svicarovich has quietly put together a solid spring in the No. 2 spot. “We’ve dropped in the rankings,” she says, “so it’s important for us to play well as a team the next few tournaments.” As sophomores, Svicarovich and Brady are the oldest members of a very youthful women’s golf team. As a result, both have been asked to do more, both on and off the golf course, this season. As Svicarovich begins to explain, “Both Chris and I have taken a lot more responsibility — well, not responsibility–“ “Leadership roles,” Brady cuts in, helping her friend out like a true teammate. “Yes, more of a leadership role,” Svicarovich continues. “When we came in as freshmen, we followed like little ducklings, in the paths of (departed golfers) Courtney (Wood) and Sarah (Jacobs) and May (Wood). This year, it’s kind of been hard because we don’t exactly know the path we’re on, since we’re only sophomores, but we’re definitely trying to start focusing and work things out for ourselves and the freshmen.” Both have certainly done so by example, consistently finishing 1-2 in every tournament in which the team has competed. Besides the normal managing of classes and spring golf, Svicarovich was also hampered by medical problems throughout the winter that put her slightly behind her teammates in preparing for the spring season: she was unable to play at all for nearly a month after having her tonsils removed in December. After working patiently to regain the distance that she lost on her swing, though, her game is starting to return to form. “I’m starting to pick up the distance again,” she says, “and my swing is starting to feel really good.” The pile of balsa wood begins to crash to the floor, and Svicarovich, laughing, rushes to catch the spindly timber. It really is only fitting that the Oregon native and nature-lover must construct a tower out of these tenuous pieces of wood. This is the same person who has been known to grow not just flowers, but potatoes, in her dorm room, information that Brady mischievously volunteers. “Yeah?that didn’t really work out very well,” Svicarovich admits laughingly. “I just love nature, though. I grew up 45 minutes away from the beach, so we did a whole lot of stuff out of doors — clam-digging, steelhead fishing with my dad. I just spent a lot of time out of doors.” For someone who both revels in the energizing and soothing nature of the outdoors, and, as a civil engineering major, spends her time pondering over minute details, golf must be the ultimate activity. As the Commodores prepare to make their final push for a Regional bid, look for Svicarovich to be right in the middle of it all. |
