CSU Buccaneers: Life is Goodenough: September 7, 2009

To our Freshmen Parents:
Your daughters are doing great!

Being a college freshman means meeting new people, making your own decisions, managing your time and money, figuring out how to get along with strangers with whom you now share a bedroom and bathroom, learning how to maneuver around in a new city, getting to classes, incorporating time to study and do homework, prioritizing the events your calendar, and so on and so on. Oh, and for my five freshmen, we have also added 8 hours per week for study hall, academic meetings, early morning weight training, conditioning, and individual skill workouts. They will also be expected to attend weekly Bible study, FCA, and participate in community service activities. No doubt they do have busy schedules, but parents, they are doing great! Day by day, your daughters are learning about being responsible and accountable, while fighting through the adversity of waking up early and fighting through soreness and fatigue.

I really like this freshmen class! Though they have distinct personalities and interests, they are similar in their strong work ethic and in their love for basketball. Our freshmen are: Lakeitha Alston, Helen Terry, Shay Jones, Kori Penick and Katie St. Clair.

My freshmen enlightened me in our last freshmen meeting on their perspective of how everything is currently going for them. They were all very honest about the fact that they miss their moms and dads. Not surprising, because we have an exceptional group of parents. They also miss their bedrooms and own beds. Shay was the first to say she misses her mother’s cooking. Katie misses working out with her dad. Kori misses her parents and also her little sister. Lakeitha has the luxury of having both her older sister and her twin sister here at CSU with her; however she does feel a void without her dog.

Though moving away from home is a challenge, Helen believes that the transition has been much easier because everyone on campus is so nice and it has been easy to meet people. Academically, Kori and Shay feel pretty confident that their classes will not be near as tough as they had expected. Katie has decided that having a roommate is fun and Lakeitha has found that it is easy to find good food in the cafeteria.

Although they miss high school activities and the comfort of being around their long time high school friends, they are enjoying the new freedoms that college offers. They are enjoying living on campus, having awesome teammates, and being recognized already as CSU women’s basketball players. With each workout, they are appreciating hard work even more and consider it a blessing and a great opportunity to represent Charleston Southern University on the basketball court.

This is a talented group a young ladies who will help our team have another record setting season. Parents – thank you for sharing your daughters with our program and CSU and I am so excited for our fans to get to know them as players very soon!