Belmont House on Capitol Hill took part in The Annual International Religious Freedom Summit!
Belmont House Partners With The Annual International Religious Freedom Summit
Softball to use Communication to Improve Record
Author: The Crusader Staff Writer, Ellie Ripchik
Did you know that 海角社在线 has two softball teams? There is the main softball team that plays in Conference Carolina and then there is a developmental team that plays different junior colleges and community colleges. This is the first year that there is going to be a conference tournament for the developmental team. The main softball team is coached by Tony Mele and the new assistant coach is Samantha West. This will be Tony鈥檚 fourth year with the team with a 32-win streak in the 2022 spring season.
The new addition to the softball team is assistant coach, Samantha West. She played at Tusculum University for 4 years as an infielder. This is her first year as a coach at Belmont Abbey. These two coaches are ready for some softball.
In the last season, the main team went 32-15 overall and was 15-9 in the conference. Mackenzie Allison, an infielder believes, the main team 鈥渆xceeded coach Tony鈥檚 expectations from the fall鈥. They went through some adversity throughout the season with pretty bad injuries that affected the team tremendously. In the end, they pulled through and finished with a high ranking. One of the best Mackenzie Allsion said during her sophomore year her favorite part was 鈥渂eating Mount Olive a (top-ranked team) in the conference tournament.鈥
Mackenzie believes that this year will be even better. The Devo team had a rough start. According to midfielder Elizabeth Tucker, 鈥渨e didn鈥檛 start off the season as well as anyone hoped, but after some long hours of practice and conditioning, we learned how to communicate about things that needed to be fixed and eventually then ended the season with a long win streak鈥. Due to a lot of postponed games and cancellations, they ended their season being 8-6.
During their season they went through a lot of injuries, these injuries led to some of the girls moving to different positions but everyone rallied and worked hard to have a fun season. Saige Stanley, a junior infielder, has high hopes for the developmental team鈥檚 upcoming season. She said, 鈥淚鈥檇 like to think that our record would be more than positive this year.鈥 She feels if 鈥渨e communicate with one another on and off the field and share a strong bond with each other throughout the season we won鈥檛 have to worry about losing.鈥 With the new assistant coach, that means a new head coach for the Devo team. There are some improvements that Stanley thinks the team needs to work on, 鈥減utting down bunts and being more vocal in the dugout.鈥 Overall, she is very excited to start the upcoming season strong and win softball games.
Maddie Phillips, a sophomore midfielder, is ready to play some softball. Maddie believes, 鈥渢his season is a whole different culture than the previous year.鈥 She has high expectations that they will win the conference championship this year. She says that 鈥渢he dedication and hard work of this team all play a tremendous role in how we will perform this year. Believing in one another and performing to our best ability, they will be hard to beat.鈥
This fall the main team gets to play the University of North Carolina Charlotte, they are part of Conference USA and are a high-ranked division one school. Maddie says that 鈥淯NCC is definitely going to be a tough school to play in but I think we have a very good chance of beating them.鈥澨齅addie is excited and ready to crush UNCC because they beat them badly last year.
Please come out and support these women as they strive to have a great winning season on both teams.
This article was originally posted in the Fall 2022, Issue 2 of The Crusader Newspaper. Download the full issue.
Coaches Job from The Athletes Perspective
Author: The Crusader Staff Writer, Miles Gutzman
The track and field team has recently hired Coach James Thierfelder, a former Belmont Abbey track and field athlete who is now a well-respected and very dedicated coach with many records to his name that hopes to advance the program further. This past year he graduated and accepted a job to help coach the track teams sprinters. I got the chance to interview him and get an insight into the key differences he has noticed and experienced since becoming a coach for his past team.
“What influenced you to want to become a coach?”听
“I wanted to offer the skill and knowledge I learned from being a part of the team along with bringing a new sense听of coaching and further developing the team’s abilities.”听
Previous teammates of Coach James stated that he has experience in his training through practicing as a teammate, proving his form of practice has been very beneficial.
With the freshman class coming in, the team has picked up a handful of talented athletes in all events that have come to further their abilities and help improve the team’s ranking. One freshman athlete, Miles Gutzman, is a long jumper and short sprinter from Marietta, GA. Miles’ personal records include 21ft 11.75″ in the long jump and 11.3 seconds in the 100 meters. He hopes to increase both of these听personal records substantially and possibly even break the school long jump record of 22ft 5 1/4″ in the up-and-coming season with the help of Coach Dan, Coach Tomas, and Coach James.
Many more outstanding freshman athletes add to the amazing team, steadily improving and performing to the best of their ability. With these athletes听coming to the school, providing their strengths, and being guided by amazing coaches, there is no doubt that the team will finish conference ranked higher than ever before.
This article was originally posted in the Fall 2022, Issue 2 of The Crusader Newspaper. Download the full issue.
Dancing in the Light
Last Friday, January 27,听brought a new, transformative light to Belmont Abbey鈥檚 Haid Ballroom.
As the audience sat in rows at the back of the room, a group of student artists prepared to begin 鈥淒ance in The Light,鈥 the inspiration they鈥檇 brought to Kristin Hayes, Dance Program Director and Performing Arts Department Chair, just weeks before. In fact, although Mrs. Hayes had choreographed some of the evening’s performances, 鈥淒ance in The Light鈥 was an essentially student-driven 鈥渆vening of faith expressed through the arts.鈥
It seems particularly appropriate that students in a Benedictine, liberal arts college showed both the agency and the creativity to place art – whether music, dance, or word – in the service of divine praise. After all, loving praise is our highest vocation, and the Benedictine way illuminates the sacramental relationship between divine life and our听tangible, everyday rhythms in community.听Ora et labora, prayer听and work, are not mutually exclusive or alternating听acts. They comprehend and enrich each other in synthesis.
I love the profoundly sacramental reality inherent in this, which embraces all human creativity, artistic or otherwise. Those students who choreographed or danced, sang or recited during last Friday鈥檚 performance embraced the material, sensory reality through which they hoped to communicate the spiritual. They knew implicitly that, in the world of human encounter and experience, we rely on the earthly to mediate he heavenly.
Watching and listening last Friday, the audience applauded a variety of thoughtful performances, but even more beautiful than the deft motions and melodies was the fact that听human creativity could, by the grace of God, articulate supernatural inspirations – like听鈥渢he limitless love of God鈥 or 鈥渢he incomprehensibility of standing before Jesus鈥 – in material form.
So this weekend, if you鈥檙e tempted (as I sometimes am) to impatience with the opaque, difficult, and even resistant physical world, I hope you鈥檒l remember to 鈥淒ance in The Light,鈥 where Christ waits to embrace our very humanness with His incarnate Love. For beauty – and its expression – will save the world.
Republican and Democrat leaders urge Biden to add Nigeria to list of countries violating religious freedom
海角社在线’s strategic plan is based on love and truth. As part of our strategic plan, we have worked to return voices of faith to the public square. To fulfil that element of our plan, we opened up the Belmont House in Washington DC three years ago.
Since that time, we have been using it as a venue to bring together people of faith, people in government, policy experts, and Catholic ecclesiastical leaders from around the world, from Northern Iraq to Lebanon to Nigeria, particularly where Catholics and Christians face severe persecution. One such event was held last summer when Bishop Jude of Nigeria was in attendance and where former Congressman Frank Wolf called for the re-designation of Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern, and where policy experts called for the appointment of a Special Envoy to Nigeria 鈥 both initiatives of which are the foundation of the bipartisan Nigeria resolution that yesterday Congressman Chris Smith formally introduced in the House of Representatives.
The result, as of today, is that a resolution was introduced to do that. Last year, more than 5,000 Christians were killed in Nigeria – accounting for nearly 90% of Christian deaths worldwide. This demonstrates how meaningful discussions can influence real change that could save lives.
