Without a doubt, sports are a central part of the lives of many University students, whether they are intramural or varsity team members, casual frisbee golfers on the Lawn or pick-up football players at Mad Bowl. Others display their love for sports by painting themselves bright orange and braving freezing temperatures for a shot at a front row seat when Duke or Maryland comes to town.
But as the mania for mainstream spectator sports such as football and basketball reaches fever pitch, other Cavaliers train themselves in athletic events that the average person probably hasn't heard of, let alone witnessed firsthand. These dedicated athletes quietly go about their serious training, attending and winning statewide, regional, national and even international competitions, yet they receive a fraction of the acclaim awarded to a "big sports" victory.
Three of these students shine in their respective sports, representing a small piece of the huge diversity of athletic interests at the University.
Dancing on wheels
Figure skating is a high-profile and well-recognized sport, combining powerful yet graceful intensity, beautiful music and glamorously-costumed competitors. Its status as an Olympic sport boosts its visibility and popularity in a way that figure skating's lesser-known cousin, roller skating, does not enjoy.
First-year College student Sarah Outten said she hopes one day that will change, and that she'll be part of making it happen.
A native of Ashland, Virginia, Outten has been a competitive skater since the age of 12. She has attended Nationals five times in her career, with a best finish of 3rd place in the country. She trained intensively throughout high school, spending five or six days a week at the rink for as much as four hours at a time.
"It's the same kinds of jumps and spins [as figure skating], but with different names," Outten said. Outten also managed to serve as president of her student government and was heavily involved in other extracurricular activities in high schoool. She said she has no regrets about choosing to balance skating with a strong academic and social life.
"I only have one national placement, but I wouldn't change the way I did things," Outten said.
Now that she is in college, Outten has drastically reduced her training time. Without a roller rink in Charlottesville, she has to travel to Ashland once a week to train at home. She said she hopes to remain a solid presence on the skating scene in years to come and looks forward to attending a "Gold Medal Test Center" in February, one of the highest honors a skater can receive.
Outten said she plans to continue training and competing as it fits in with her new college life, and do what she can to publicize and strengthen her sport. Her favorite way to do so is teaching lessons to kids, because, she said, "when you're that involved in a sport, you want to give back. It's not all about you, its about what is bigger than you."
Weighty Matters
Far from the light-footed turns, spins and sparkly sequined costumes of the skating rink, first-year College student Walker Anderson practices a sport with its own particular grace and elegance -- he is a member of Virginia's track team, competing in hammer throw and shot put. Both are Olympic events, but are not well known or understood by the average fan.
The hammer used in outdoor collegiate and Olympic competition is a 16-pound ball on the end of a 30-inch wire. "A good throw would be about 200 feet," Anderson said. There is also an indoor version of hammer throw, which uses a heavier 35-pound ball, drastically reducing the length it can be thrown. The wire allows for a different throwing technique than that used in shot put, which uses a similar spherical weight but is thrown from the shoulder.
Anderson was a football player, wrestler, boxer and shot putter in high school when an older athlete friend suggested that he add the hammer throw to his resume if he wanted to consider college track competition.
"He told me I should think about doing college [sports] and said, 'You'd have more flexibility in choosing schools if you threw hammer,'" Anderson said.
Though he picked it up late in his high school career, Anderson still managed to qualify for three indoor/outdoor national competitions and one junior nationals. His highest accomplishment thus far has been winning the 2002 Midwest Classic indoor meet in shot put.
In the short term, Anderson said he hopes to break the school record in shot put, which stands at 57.5 feet. As for longer term goals, Anderson plans to work his hardest on the U.Va. track team, especially focusing on this weekend's important indoor meet at Penn State.
"I just kinda wanna take it as it comes; I just want to improve my skills," he said.
All-around talent
Like Anderson, second-year College student Kitty Ganier was a multi-sport high school athlete who did not discover her niche until the second half of her high school career. While at a track meet at Vanderbilt University during her junior year she was approached by a coach who asked her if she did other sports. When he discovered that she not only was a very strong runner and swimmer but that she also knew how to ride horses and shoot, he told her she was a perfect candidate for the modern pentathlon.
The pentathlon is made up of "the five things it would take to be a good soldier," Ganier explained. Those five components are shooting, fencing, swimming, show jumping (equestrian) and running, in that order. The athletes are seeded according to their scores at the end of the equestrian portion to begin the 3000 meter run, and the winner of the run generally wins the entire competition.
"Its like you have a message to deliver -- you have to be able to shoot your enemy and run when your horse can't run," Ganier said.
Ganier's list of accomplishments in her discipline is prestigious -- the Youth World Championships in Sweden, Junior Worlds in Budapest, where she placed 20th, time spent training at both the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado and the Pentathlon Training Center in Texas, as well as a number four national ranking. Two of the women ranked above her were Olympians and the other trained full-time.
Despite her many successes, the life of a pentathlete is a very difficult one, and Ganier has been faced with many decisions about her future plans in an attempt to reconcile her college experience with her athletic pursuits. She chose not to attend the last Pan Am games because of school, and recently cancelled her planned trip to a competition in Australia.
"I wasn't giving pentathlon the respect it needed," Ganier explained. "It's a full-time job it needs eight hours a day. You can't do it halfway or it tears up your body. Plus, it's disrespectful to a sport to compete when you're not ready."
But the missed competitions do not mean that Ganier plans to slow down -- far from it. She has big plans for next school year: Olympic trials, Senior Worlds and a move to Oxford University in England to train with their pentathlon team. She does not expect to make the 2004 Olympic Games, but plans to compete in 2008 and possibly 2012.
Training as a world-class athlete and trying to have a normal college experience is a precarious balance to try to maintain, but Ganier said he is proud of and happy with the choices she has already made and those she plans to make in years to come. "I wouldn't trade it," she says, "even though sometimes you suffer."
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