April 23, 2015
Quick Slant is an array of brief insights and occasionally opinionated overviews of collegiate athletics in general and the Vanderbilt Commodores in particular.
The excellent Perry Wallace biography, Inside Strong, by Vanderbilt alumnus Andrew Maraniss has been listed on the New York Times bestseller list’s Top 20 each of the past three months in the sports and race/civil rights categories. Only nine books can make that claim and the other eight were written by celebrity authors. Maraniss continues to travel the country discussing the book’s amazing story and the man who lived that story.
The massive Country Music Marathon is Saturday and at least three department employees are running. Football Director of Player Personnel Tyler Barnes and lacrosse assistant coach Julie Gardner are set to go 26.2 miles around Nashville while digital media specialist Brandon Barca has trained diligently for the half-marathon, although this past Tuesday he narrowly beat women’s golf coach Greg Allen in an eating contest by devouring 22 Krispy Kreme donuts in 15 minutes. Coach Allen is not running in the marathon.
Monday’s Black and Gold Awards, our SAAC’s annual all-sports event, produced some terrific winners. One that caught my eye was the Jerry Reves Award for the graduating senior with the highest grade point. Football’s Alex Hysong compiled a 3.990 with a perfect 4.0 in six of his seven semesters. Who gave him that A- anyway? We can’t begin to explain how impressive that is around here and needless to say, Alex has been accepted into Vanderbilt’s School of Medicine, joining teammate Patton Robinette.
David Williams spent part of this week on the west coast interacting with other athletic directors from around the country in an interesting agenda arranged by Southern Cal AD Pat Haden. It is the second year for this program.
All you golfers out there: did you notice that two Vanderbilt student-athletes were recently chosen for the Palmer Cup this June? Hunter Stewart, a semifinalist for the Byron Nelson Award as college golf’s top player, will compete for the USA team while sophomore Matthias Schwab was selected to play for Europe in this Ryder Cup-like event. Only Brandt Snedeker and Luke List have played Palmer Cup before. The No. 5 ranked Commodores have become one of the nation’s elite programs.
