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Boston Globe
28-06-2025
- Sport
- Boston Globe
A lacrosse champion five times over, from Dover-Sherborn to Middlebury, Hope Shue reflects on a legacy of winning
Related : A two-time NESCAC Player of the Year and three-time IWLCA First Team All-American, she earned NCAA Tournament Most Outstanding Player honors for the third time this year. Middlebury coach Kate Livesay called Shue a once-in-a-lifetime player. 'She brings an incredible work ethic and intensity to everything she does,' she said. 'She chases greatness with a competitive spirit and deep love for her teammates.' Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Added fellow Middlebury senior Maggie Coughlin, a Notre Dame (Hingham) graduate from Hanover, 'As a teammate, Hope is able to balance competitive fire with positivity and fun.' Advertisement She joined NFL quarterback, and North Dakota State alum Carson Wentz, as the only NCAA student-athletes to win at least four national championships and three Elite 90 awards — given to the athlete with the top GPA at each of the NCAA's final championship sites. We chatted with Shue to learn about her lacrosse journey. How did you first discover lacrosse, and what drew you to the sport? I think I started lacrosse around fourth grade, maybe a little bit earlier in the backyard. A lot of my family played lacrosse. My older sister played, my mom played. It was just something I felt like I was going to try. I think lacrosse is particularly difficult for young girls to get into, especially back then, because it's so hard to catch and throw with the sticks back then and the eye-hand coordination of a 9-year-old. I was initially more Advertisement Hope Shue initially hoped to play Division 1 women's lacrosse, but it all worked out with four national championships at Middlebury. Courtesy Sideline Media How did your experience at Dover-Sherborn prepare you for college, and what are some of your favorite memories? It was a really epic run at D-S. My coach, Erin Massimi, was my club coach all through middle school. I was really excited when she got the job when I was going into ninth grade. We really were kind of a Cinderella story over the course of the four years. We got pretty beat up by a lot of teams the first year. We only had a 13-person roster, so we had basically one sub on the sidelines . . . By our senior year, we were one of the strongest teams in the entire state, regardless of division, and had a really amazing run to a state championship. Some of my fondest memories in sports are that spring season, playing with my best friends for the town that you were born in and grew up in. In 2021, Hope Shue (left) won a Division 2 girls' lacrosse championship with fellow senior captains Amelia Novitch (center) and Lily Thompson. Trevor Hass What was your recruiting experience like, and what led you to Middlebury? I was really gunning for Division 1. I played on one of the top club teams in the country on Mass Elite. Most of the other girls on my team were committing to Division 1 schools, and I felt like that was the path I wanted to take. But I was a really small player (5 feet, 4 inches) and, quite frankly, not one of the best people on my club team. Because of that, I definitely wasn't getting the Division 1 looks that I wanted . . . I started talking to Middlebury around November of my junior year and went up for a clinic in January. I started to realize that all of the things I thought about, Middlebury could offer. By July 1, when I committed, I was really excited about the opportunity to play at the best Division 3 program in the country. At the same time, I didn't know much about it, so I feel really lucky that it worked out the way it did. But it definitely wasn't where I intended to be when I was an eighth or ninth-grader starting the recruiting process. Related : Advertisement What's some adversity you've overcome that people may not know about? It definitely has been difficult over the years not placing too much expectation on yourself. I personally like being in an underdog position. I think most people would. It's been difficult to frame each season and each game so that I don't feel the expectations. Then the academic side, my GPA became pretty public by sophomore year. So just trying to tune out the awards, the expectations, and really focus on not striving for perfection. Hope Shue won a national championship in all four of her seasons at Middlebury, after winning a Division 2 title at Dover-Sherborn. Courtesy Sideline Media Winning four straight national championships is insane. Can you speak to the consistency of the group and how you were able to do that? Advertisement I think it speaks volumes to the culture that goes top-down from my coaches. They set such a high bar for us, because they really believe that we're capable of that. Then bottom-up, with all the players on our team really committing to coming to practice every day ready to compete at that level. We don't speak too much about national championships, conference championships, or even our record at all . . . I think the secret ingredient for the past four years is that we're really a different team by the end of the season. It's been really fun to see that transformation four years in a row. Related : You have a job lined up at a small biotech financial advisory firm. How do you think lacrosse will translate to the real world? It's a small financial advisory firm called Related : You've embraced the underdog role since you were young. What would 10-year-old you say if she could see you now? I would definitely be incredibly proud of myself. I really put a lot of work in along the way, from being 10 years old, and just hitting a ball against the bounce-back every day, over and over again, the repetition every day throughout the years. I definitely never imagined that this would be where I was after four years at Middlebury. I'm just incredibly grateful for everything that Middlebury's given me. I definitely still feel like the underdog entering the real world here. I'm back to the bottom of the totem pole. Advertisement Hope Shue won a national championship in all four of her seasons at Middlebury, after winning a Division 2 title at Dover-Sherborn. Courtesy Sideline Media Trevor Hass can be reached at
Yahoo
24-04-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Texas Tech football hopes winning follows Cole Wisniewski to town
The NCAA presents an Elite 90 award to the athlete with the highest cumulative grade-point average competing at the finals site in each of its 90 national championships. Academically speaking, it's a big deal to win an Elite 90 once. Cole Wisniewski, a new safety on the Texas Tech football team, did it twice during his time with FCS power North Dakota State. Advertisement "The last B I had was probably eighth grade, maybe," Wisniewski said this week. "Both my parents are teachers. I think my mom told me when I was in like sixth or seventh grade, she wished she took school more serious." Wisniewski remembers thinking: I haven't had a B in a while. I may as well keep it up. "Actually may get one this semester, unfortunately," he said. "I missed having an assignment the first week, so that was unfortunate." Shooting for strength in numbers: What DBs are standing out in Texas Tech football spring practice? Numerically speaking: Texas Tech football has 31 players with new numbers this spring. See them all here. Advertisement Wisniewski (pronounced "Wiss-NESS-skee") transferred to Tech over the winter, already armed with degrees in business administration and marketing, as well as a glittering football resume. He was a consensus FCS first-team All-American in 2023 after making a team-high 92 tackles and tying a Missouri Valley Conference record with eight interceptions. Given his combination of smarts and playmaking, the Red Raiders are expecting him to contribute a lot in a hurry. Texas Tech's Cole Wisniewski goes through a drill during spring practice, Tuesday, April 1, 2025, at the Womble Football Center. "Honestly, it's just whatever they ask of me," said Wisniewski, who's listed at 6-foot-4 and 220 pounds. "I would love to put up the same numbers I put up at NDSU and do the same things. I guess that would be my expectation for myself, but just do the role that they ask me to do and execute in every way, the same way." Tech, next-to-last in the FBS in pass defense last season, went for a quick fix by signing five defensive backs out of the NCAA transfer portal. Four are cornerbacks with Wisniewski the lone safety. He's projected at boundary safety, the position vacated by 2024 senior C.J. Baskerville. Advertisement "I think he's earned everybody's respect, just the way he approaches things and the way that he works," Tech safeties coach Rob Greene said. "And then he's been around great coaches and a great program where they have high standards. Just having another person there to reinforce that with what we're already doing here, I think is a big deal. He just earns so much respect by how he approaches everything." Wisniewski grew up a Wisconsin Badgers fan in Sparta, Wisconsin, but generated little recruiting traction with Big Ten schools. He landed at one of the next best places. North Dakota State won three national championships in the NCAA college division from 1965-69, five in Division II from 1983-90 and 10 in the FCS from 2011-24. Wisniewski spent five seasons in Fargo, the first three as a linebacker. He was on Bison teams that won it all in 2021 and 2024 and lost in the championship game in 2023. However, his role last season was reduced to wearing a headset and relaying information from coaches in the press box to personnel on the field. A foot injury he suffered in a 2023 FCS semifinal required surgery and sidelined him for 2024. Advertisement Wisniewski's been careful so far not to walk in acting like a big shot, preferring to gain teammates' trust. "You're going to be a sixth-year guy, but also a rookie at the same time in the program," he said. "First time transferring, didn't really know what to expect. I think it's just going in and making sure the guys know that I care about them. I'm trying to be here and be the best teammate as well. I'm not just here to take a role." This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Texas Tech football hopes winning follows Cole Wisniewski to town
