Alum News

This summer's Future Coaches Camp was memorable in several ways. For the first time, we welcomed campers from Notre Dame Prep in Pontiac, L'Anse Creuse in Harrison Township and Gabriel Richard in Ann Arbor. Also for the first time, we enjoyed a new presentation by Carmen Kennedy, one of TASL's recent additions to our Board. Carmen's talk focused on the twists and turns she experienced and the hard work it took to get selected for her current position as athletic director of Grosse Pointe North High School.

For the campers, 2008 Future Coaches sessions had different twists and turns; the most significant one the "ropes course" they participate in the first day. Without a doubt, the ropes course remains a favorite part of the camp, even if the girls have participated in challenge programs like the one offered by the University of Michigan (www.recsports.umich.edu/challenge) before.

Why? Well, I got the answer firsthand from Leah Topper, one of the special 8 young women who attended our class this year. Not enough for a full team? No matter. The girls loved being part of the few, and the accompanying special attention showered on them from our many faculty, especially Camp Leader, our President Meg Seng.

I talked with Leah about her impressions and what she learned at Future Coaches Camp 2008.

First, about Leah. She is a junior at Greenhills School in Ann Arbor. She is a three sport varsity athlete, playing on the volleyball, basketball and softball teams. In fact, Leah made the varsity teams in volleyball and in softball in 9th grade at Greenhills. She is especially proud of and cherishes getting on the varsity volleyball team her freshman year: her older sister, a senior was captain of the team.

TASL was lucky to have Rebecca Chinsky as our 2007-2008 Intern. Chinsky herself did not rely on luck to get the TASL position: her hard work during high school and long hours of practice, however, did.

Rebecca hails from Baltimore, Maryland, where she was a three-sport athlete at her high school, a team captain of her soccer team, winner of numerous awards, among them the Sportsmanship Award for basketball and Most Valuable Player Award in lacrosse. Most significantly, she was honored two years in a row her junior and senior years as Female Athlete of the Year. And to top it all off, Rebecca was an academic star and involved in many community service activities, including work with her synagogue and in leadership and participating roles in the Maccabi Athletic movement.

At TASL, we first met Rebecca when she was a senior in the Division of Kinesiology program at the University of Michigan, majoring in Physical Education, when she applied for the TASL internship. According to Rebecca, what interested her in the position was our mission of "getting females more involved in athletics and a healthy lifestyle." 

And true to her word, Rebecca spent the winter months helping our President Meg Seng to market our sixth annual Future Coaches Camp in June and then stayed on to work at the camp, which attracted a small but dedicated group of exceptionally talented young women from around the state.