April 15, 2015
Quick Slant is an array of brief insights and occasionally opinionated overviews of collegiate athletics in general and the Vanderbilt Commodores in particular.
Vanderbilt partners with Collegiate Licensing Company to market its officially licensed merchandise. CLC just reported first quarter results that show that Vanderbilt’s merchandise enjoyed the third best year-to-date growth among all SEC institutions. That is the result of a number of factors that include more retailers carrying a wider array of quality Vanderbilt gear such as the recent announcement about Lids stores carrying customized Vanderbilt hats and Wal-Mart selling licensed Vandy apparel and headwear. By the way, our bookstore — Barnes & Noble at Vanderbilt — ranks among the top three collegiate bookstores in the country using sales metrics.
Commodore student-athletes attend on-going life skill workshops. The last of this year’s offerings was earlier this week when various specialists presented longer range advice on life after college on such topics as emotional and physical health, nutrition and finances directed to their demographic at the Senior Transition Workshop. We wish our seniors the best of luck in the next season of their lives.
Our women’s tennis team is rated No. 9 nationally and heading for the SEC Tournament in Columbia, S.C. Did you happen to catch that our coach, Geoff Macdonald, gained his 400th Vanderbilt victory near the end of the regular season? He has consistently fielded strong teams and along with our men’s coach, Ian Duvenhage, would rank among the best-read coaches in college athletics.