Wednesday, March 27, 2019

Fwd: Olympic champ Misty Hyman and the benefits of adversity

Great article and history lesson. Missy H was coach by the late, great Bob G. He was a master and so creative. 

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Olivier Leroy <olivier@yourswimbook.com>
Date: Wed, Mar 27, 2019 at 8:04 AM
Subject: Olympic champ Misty Hyman and the benefits of adversity
To: Mark <mark@rauterkus.com>


It's five months out from the Sydney Olympics, and American Misty Hyman has decided she's had enough.

The past couple years haven't been very smooth for the butterfly specialist, who catapulted to the top ranks of the swimming world with her signature underwater dolphin kicking style—fish kicking.

Hyman would dive into the water, turn on her side, and just like a fishie, would kick powerfully in both directions, surging out to massive leads in her races.

At the 1998 World Championships in Perth, she would explode to early leads in the 100m butterfly (kicking 35-metres underwater) and the 200m butterfly (touching at the 50 over 1.3 seconds faster than world record pace).

In the short course pool, she was hilariously dominant. With the added walls she could really flex her dolphin kick, breaking the world record in the 100m butterfly in 1997 while taking just 16 strokes.

But Perth would be the last chance for her to use her fish kick for extended use.

Although FINA had restricted backstrokers from kicking further than 15m ten years earlier, every other stroke was still fair game.

Until now.

With just months to go until Sydney, Hyman was in the throes of self-doubt.

"I questioned everything," she said. "Maybe I'm too old. Maybe I need a new kick. Maybe I've lost my passion."

Hyman, frustrated and overwhelmed with doubt, called her coach.

 "I'm ready to throw in the towel," was her message.

*

The underwater dolphin kick has always been a bit of a troublemaker in our sport.

There was the duel between David Berkoff and Daichi Suzuki in the 100m backstroke at the 1988 Seoul Olympics, where both swimmers disappeared under the surface of the water for 30-35m on the first lap alone.

The final was one of the big storylines in the pool that week in Seoul, with spectators and viewers watching with bated breath as half the lanes churned with backstrokers while the other lanes looked eerily empty, their occupants meters below the surface kicking furiously.

Months later, citing athlete safety, FINA changed the rules for backstrokers forcing them to surface before 10m after every start and turn. (This was extended to 15m in 1991.)

Denis Pankratov of Russia, another butterfly specialist who performed "extended breakouts" did so in an un-streamlined position, with his hands several inches apart, basically sculling. Pankratov powered to gold medals in the 100 and 200m butterfly at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. Other early pioneers included Sean Murphy of Canada and Mel Stewart and Jesse Vassallo of the United States.

And of course, more recently there was the debate over the "Lochte rule"—whether a swimmer could push off on their back during freestyle events to perform fly kicks on their back before turning over onto their front.

Hyman's case is particular interesting as her and her coach, Bob Gillett, had quite literally turned the novel concept of longer underwaters on its ear by having Hyman turn onto her side after diving in or pushing off.

"It's not like you can have instant success with it," said coach Gillett back in 1997, as the controversy over her kicking was hitting fever pitch. "It takes discipline to practice and develop over the years."

Since the rule change, Hyman had struggled to keep the pace, while also fighting the doubts of whether she could swim well enough to compete with the best swimmers on the planet.

She'd always struggled a little bit to bring home her races, and now she would have to depend more on her swimming ability than her kick to get onto the podium.

"It was a huge challenge," said Hyman. "I had developed a technique for swimming that brought me to an elite level. I wasn't sure if I was an elite swimmer anymore."

*

One of the big story-lines for the hometown Australians at the 2000 Olympics was Susie O'Neill.

Earlier that year O'Neill had erased Mary T. Meagher's storied world record in the 200m butterfly, a mark that had stood for nearly two decades.

O'Neill was also the defending Olympic champion in the event.

So when the finalists got up on the blocks for the 200m butterfly on the night of September 20, 2000, all eyes were on O'Neill and countrywoman Petra Thomas.

In lane six, Hyman.

Although she is last off the blocks, Hyman's underwater fly kick give her a quick advantage when the swimmers surface.

The body-length-off-the-start leads are a thing in the past, but Hyman's dominance on the underwaters remains dangerous.

Compared to O'Neill, who surfaces right away off the walls, her head breaking under the backstroke flags, Hyman kicks out to 10-12m, maintaining an early lead.

When Hyman touches the wall at the 150m, O'Neill right on her, observers would have recognized this as the moment where O'Neill would take control. The Australian had a history of fast finishes, including in the final of the 200m butterfly in Perth, where O'Neill sailed past a fading Hyman to win comfortably.

But the rule change has created an unexpected advantage for Hyman—she doesn't create the same kind of oxygen debt and fatigue that comes from holding her breath for twenty seconds off the start.

Where the final lap would have been her weakness, in Sydney her lungs are fresh enough to power her home.

This time, she doesn't crumble coming down the stretch.

Hyman touches first in a time of 2:05.88, just several hundredths of a second off O'Neill's world mark.

When she sees the scoreboard, Hyman erupts in joy.

She is asked afterwards why she appears so stunned, so surprised by her win.

"It's happened so many times in my mind," she said, smiling from ear to ear. "I was surprised it was real." 

Adversity is a weapon

I hear a lot from swimmers who refer to adversity as something that is unfair or as something that proves they are not worthy.

They don't have the best facilities. They lose to swimmers that they outwork in practice. They feel the deep frustration of not improving as fast as they want.

But adversity doesn't mean you are unworthy.

The opposite, actually…

Adversity is the opportunity to show how worthy you truly are.

Adversity, when you treat it as such, is the engine for improvement. It's the moment where you realize you need to work harder. Or smarter. Or be more honest about how focused you are in practice.

Adversity is a launch pad for better things. Even if you can't immediately what they are.

Misty Hyman could have very well decided that throwing in the towel was the smart thing to do that spring before the Olympics.

She'd spent years perfecting a kicking style only to see the advantage be wiped away.

But in reality, that kick, the leg fitness, the breakouts, and the limitations imposed that allowed her to better oxygenate her muscles, turned out to be completely to her advantage.

Hyman had never closed well when kicking out to crazy distances.

But the shorter breakouts meant that she was indirectly forced to take in more oxygen.

Which helped her keep the wheels on during that final 50m.

Although it seemed hilariously unfair at the time—the rule change was largely driven by her specific case—the "adversity" of the rule change actually worked to her favor.

Something to think about the next time you find yourself face to face with some adversity that feels unfair and sucky.

See ya in the water,

Olivier

P.S. Want help with changing your mindset so that adversity doesn't keep you from doing big things with your swimming?

Last year I wrote and published Conquer the Pool: The Swimmer's Ultimate Guide to a High Performance Mindset

From learning how to be mentally tougher, learning how to focus properly in practice, to how to be mentally and physically ready to rock and roll on race, Conquer the Pool will help you develop the mindset of a mega champion.

The book was written with the feedback of 200+ head coaches, Olympians, former world record holders and NCAA champions. It's written as a workbook (so you get to take your new mental toughness skillz for a ride for yourself), and it's written in an easy to understand style that may or may not make you chortle out loud every once in a while.

Click here to learn more about how Conquer the Pool will help you dominate the water this year.

 

 

--
--
Ta.


Mark Rauterkus       Mark.Rauterkus@gmail.com
Swimming and Water Polo Coach, Schenley High School, Pittsburgh, PA
http://CLOH.wikia.com
412 298 3432 = cell

Saturday, March 23, 2019

Fwd: The Eagle



---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: The Eagle <noreply+feedproxy@google.com>
Date: Sat, Mar 23, 2019 at 5:50 AM


The Eagle


Michael Rosfeld's Acquittal is Just Another in a Long Line of Abuses of Power

Posted: 22 Mar 2019 11:31 PM PDT

The man who killed Antwon Rose II last June has been cleared of homicide charges.

Michael Rosfeld, a white former East Pittsburgh police officer, pulled over a car that Rose, an African-American 17-year-old, was a passenger in because it matched descriptions of a vehicle present at an earlier drive-by shooting. Shortly thereafter, Rose was dead. Rosfeld claimed that he thought Rose was carrying a weapon. He was not. In fact, Rose was running away from the scene, his back turned, when Rosfeld shot him three times. Rose never even faced his killer, let alone pointed a gun at him.

To many, a conviction seemed like a matter of common sense. Rose posed no real threat to Rosfield, so self-defense was not applicable; how, then, could this be anything other than manslaughter? But the members of the jury thought differently. After four days of trial, it took just four hours to reach a verdict: not guilty.

As pathetic as that is, it's not really that surprising. According to the Washington Post's fatal force database, 221 people have been shot and killed by police in America so far this year. Last year's total was 998. A shocking number of the ensuing trials tell a similar tale to that of Antwon Rose — if there even is a trial.

In 2017, police bullets ended 987 lives. Only six of the officers responsible were brought to trial that year. As of late 2018, only 93 officers who used their firearms lethally since 2005 had been tried, and only about a third of them had been convicted of any crime whatsoever. From that frame of reference, it was actually a small miracle that Rosfeld ever appeared in front of a jury — the vast majority of his contemporaries are spared the inconvenience.

Said Allegheny Attorney General Stephen A. Zappala, Jr. in a statement following the announcement of Rosfeld's acquittal, "In the interest of justice, we must continue to do our job of bringing charges in situations where charges are appropriate."

Here's the thing: charges are always appropriate. In no other setting than in that of the police officer versus the civilian is there a question of whether a potential homicide should be subject to legal examination. Some say that police officers cannot effectively perform their jobs unless they are comfortable in the knowledge that acting on spur-of-the-moment inclinations will not result in punishment. But if a police officer's job is to maintain peace, the power to arbitrarily, whimsically strip someone of their life fundamentally undermines that duty.

And here's the other thing: charges are meaningless if they never result in convictions.

For every Michael Rosfeld we let walk free, we reinforce the tacit understanding that a police officer can commit murder and get away with it, especially if the victim is a person of color. Until the legal system proves capable of disrupting the pattern that it began, the protests won't stop.

Michael Rosfeld Acquitted on All Charges for the Killing of Antwon Rose II

Posted: 22 Mar 2019 09:30 PM PDT

When an unarmed black teenager was killed in East Pittsburgh last summer by a white police officer, to most of the nation, it was just another death in a long string of police shootings of unarmed black men. For Pittsburghers it brought an issue that had until then seemed remote into startling clarity, and it reminded the inhabitants of the city and its suburbs that they were not removed from the issues that plagued the rest of the country. As of this evening, that saga has -at least temporarily- come to a legal close. Michael Rosfeld, the East Pittsburgh policeman responsible for the death of Antwon Rose II, was found not guilty on the charges of first degree murder, third degree murder, voluntary manslaughter, and involuntary manslaughter. For supporters of Mr. Rosfeld, it was a vindication of Mr. Rosfeld's motivations and decisions- and of those of other cops in similar situations. For supporters of Mr. Rose, it was a stinging defeat that drove home for them a sense that the justice system does not actually deliver justice for victims.

With no clear indication of what comes next, Mr. Rose's supporters have taken to the streets. From Downtown to East Liberty, hundreds of marchers have gathered in the biting chill of a March midnight to protest the decision of the jury. Together with the many more people who have cried out agains the decision on social media, they have rallied around a shout of, "No Justice, No Peace," to declare their refusal to accept the verdict on moral grounds. But it remains unclear where these protests will lead, beyond more protests. Mayor Bill Peduto tweeted out his grief and desire for progress, but there is little he can do to repair relationships between communities and police that have frayed across the region, not in the city itself. Popular anger with District Attorney Stephen Zappala may help bolster the campaign of challenger Turahn Jenkins, but Mr. Jenkins made early stumbles in his campaign that he does not seem to have fully recovered from. It seems likely that no matter how important Mr. Rose's case remains to the public consciousness, nothing will be done in the present to truly reform police-community relations in the region's most vulnerable -and stratified- boroughs and neighborhoods.

As the region moves forward, much of the impetus from the case and protests will end up in the hands of its youth, many of whom felt viscerally connected to Mr. Rose. Plans for a protest on Friday, March 29th at Capri's in East Liberty are already circulating across social networks. The outpouring of anger, sorrow, and support that occurred during the direct aftermath of Mr. Rose's shooting, and which has manifested again today, may be a sign that there will be a more enduring effort towards reform by students across the region for justice to be delivered in courts of law. Or a brief spike in calls to action and plans for protests may be all that results. With Mr. Rosfeld's acquittal a fact, observers will just have to wait and see.

--
--
Ta.


Mark Rauterkus       Mark.Rauterkus@gmail.com
Swimming and Water Polo Coach, Schenley High School, Pittsburgh, PA
http://CLOH.wikia.com
412 298 3432 = cell

Thursday, March 21, 2019

Fwd: Team USA Recruitment Opportunities

----- Forwarded message ---------
From: Suzy Sanchez <suzy.sanchez@usaweightlifting.org>



If you are having trouble viewing this email, click here.

Good afternoon, 

I am reaching out on behalf of USA Weightlifting to update you on an upcoming opportunities for your graduating athletes to transition into the Olympic sport of weightlifting. Through our Transitional Athlete Program athletes are able to try-out and qualify for benefits to get them started on the road to competition. Additionally, high school athletes can opt to have their results sent to collegiate programs for review.

53% of our international elite athletes have transitioned from backgrounds in swim, diving, hockey, and gymnastics to name a few and we find that providing these opportunities to athletes helps open doors to new experiences within sport should they not continue moving forward at the collegiate or post collegiate level within their current sport. Additionally, as weightlifting has the ability to improve overall sports performance it is possible for athletes to become dual sport athletes. 

If you have any athletes you think may be interested please have them review and fill out the program application through the link below

https://www.teamusa.org/usa-weightlifting/recruitment-programs 

Thank you for your time


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Suzy Sanchez | Director of Grassroots Development and Scouting

USA Weightlifting

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1 318-207-3598[c]

1 719-866-4741[f]

SUPPORT USA WEIGHTLIFTING!

Follow Us: Facebook | Twitter


 

 
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Wednesday, March 20, 2019

Fwd: Ready for March Madness? Here's what you need to know

----- Forwarded message ---------
From: BaylorProud <baylorproud@baylor.edu>


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March 19, 2019

 
 

Lady Bears claim No. 1 overall seed for third time in program history

Posted in Athletics, Honors

Infographic: Lady Bears named No. 1 seed

Big 12 regular season champs.
Big 12 tournament champs.
The unanimous No. 1 team in the country.
The nation's No. 1 overall seed entering the NCAA tournament.

The Lady Bears followed that path all the way to the national championship in 2012. Now, they'll put that formula to the test again in 2019.

Monday night, head coach Kim Mulkey's squad was named the No. 1 overall seed for the 2019 NCAA tournament -- the third time the Lady Bears have earned that honor.

[LINKS: BaylorBears.com Tournament Central || Get tickets || Full NCAA bracket || ESPN experts each put Baylor in Final Four]

Baylor will kick the tournament off by hosting first- and second-round action in the Ferrell Center -- the eighth time in nine years the Lady Bears have earned that honor. Baylor will play Southland Conference tournament champion Abilene Christian on Saturday at approximately 4:30 on ESPN2; the winner of that game will face the winner of Cal and North Carolina on Monday (time TBA).

Abilene Christian is making its first-ever NCAA tournament appearance. The Wildcats finished fourth in the Southland Conference during the regular season, but swept through the conference tournament to earn the league's automatic bid. ACU is led by a pair of second-team all-Southland performers in juniors Dominique Golightly (13.8 points, 5.8 rebounds per game) and Breanna Wright (14.0 points, 4.8 assists, 3.9 rebounds per game).

Mulkey's team enters the tournament at 31-1, having swept the Big 12 regular season and tournament titles for the eighth time in nine seasons. This year's team is led by All-American senior center Kalani Brown, a semifinalist for the Citizen Naismith Trophy given to the national player of the year, and junior Lauren Cox, one of four finalists for the Naismith Defensive Player of the Year award.

Ready for March Madness? Tickets are on sale now, as is Lady Bear Big 12 Champion gear from the Baylor Bookstore.

Sic 'em, Lady Bears!

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Men's basketball headed to NCAA tournament for 5th time in 6 years

Posted in Athletics, Honors

Men's basketball tournament info graphic

There's no questioning the fact that Scott Drew is the most successful coach in Baylor men's basketball history. In his 16 seasons leading the Bears, he's won more games (and a higher percentage of his games) than any coach in program history, reached the Sweet 16 five times and the Elite Eight twice, and produced nine NBA players.

But this year might be his best coaching job yet. Even before the injuries started to mount, the Bears were predicted to finish ninth in the Big 12 by league coaches, and at times this spring they started a lineup that featured just one of the five projected starters as Clark and seniors Jake Lindsey, Makai Mason and King McClure all missed significant time.

Despite such obstacles, the Bears battled for first in the Big 12 into the season's final month, and ended up fourth in the league's toughest conference. As a reward, Baylor is back in the NCAA tournament for the fifth time in the last six years. The Bears are headed to Salt Lake City as a No. 9 seed in this year's NCAA championship; they will face Syracuse in the first round on Thursday (approximately 8:57 p.m. CT, TruTV). The winner of that game would likely face No. 1 seed Gonzaga in the next round on Saturday.

[LINKS: BaylorBears.com Tournament Central || Ticket link for season ticket holders & Bear Foundation members || Tickets via NCAA.com || Full NCAA bracket || How to watch TruTV on cable and online]

Syracuse enters the tournament with a very similar resume to Baylor: 20-13 overall, with a 10-8 record in the ACC, and having lost three of their last four games. The Orange are led by legendary coach Jim Boeheim, now in his 43rd season at Syracuse, and All-ACC guard Tyus Battle, who tops the team in scoring at 17.2 points per game. The Orange lean on their defense for success, ranking among the top 20 nationally in field-goal percentage defense, blocks and steals per game; Syracuse is 41st nationally in points allowed per game, but 255th in points scored per game.

Baylor enters the tournament at 19-13 on the season (10-8 Big 12), led by four all-Big 12 players in Mason, freshman Jared Butler, and sophomores Mario Kegler and Mark Vital. Despite battling a foot injury all season, Mason has led the Bears in points (14.6) and assists (3.3) per game. Butler, Kegler and Vital each came on as the season progressed. Butler averaged 13 points and 3.5 assists per game after joining the starting lineup when Clark went down. Kegler has led the Bears in scoring four of the last six games, averaging 14.8 points and 6.8 rebounds over that time. Vital averaged 10.2 points, 9 rebounds and 1.5 blocks over the last six games (while shooting almost 70% on free throws).

Ready for March Madness? Tickets are on sale now -- see you in Salt Lake!

Sic 'em, Bears!

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Give Light projects: Tidwell Bible Building renovation

Practically every Baylor student over the past 60+ years has taken at least one class in Tidwell Bible Building, home today to the university's religion and history departments.

When Baylor announced last fall the launch of "Give Light" -- a $1.1 billion fundraising campaign to support the university's strategic plan, Illuminate -- a top-to-bottom renovation of Tidwell was featured among the campaign's priority capital projects.

What will that entail? For starters, it's about bringing the building up to speed to meet the 21st-century needs of Baylor students. When Tidwell opened in 1954, it served a campus of roughly 6,000 students; today, Baylor has grown to welcome more than 14,000 undergraduates -- and virtually all of those are required to take religion and/or history classes in Tidwell. Updating (and creating flexibility in) classrooms, adding faculty offices, and freeing up additional space in the building will help the facility better serve future generations of Baylor students.

Some of that space will come from a reuse of the current Miller Chapel space. After serving as the primary chapel on campus for decades, today Miller Chapel is seldom used, as many other sacred spaces have sprung up across campus. The existing space will be repurposed -- as you can see in the video below, an ingenious design will incorporate the existing stained glass windows and allow the space to be better utilized for classrooms and other uses -- and a new worship space on the sixth floor will provide a breathtaking view of campus.



Plans call for new office and work spaces on every floor, the creation of 13 new classrooms of varying sizes, plus space for seminar rooms, resource libraries, and other needs. A new elevator will allow better use of Tidwell's fifth and sixth floors, which are currently only accessible via stairways, and new common spaces will offer students places to study and hang out before and after classes.

"The Tidwell Bible Building is an icon here at Baylor University," says Dr. Lee Nordt, dean of Baylor's College of Arts and Sciences. "We're doing this for the faculty and the staff and the students of two very important departments who are at the core of so much of what we do in Arts and Sciences, and so much of what they do on behalf of Baylor. Because every student walks through the hallways at some point, we want it to be an effective facility for cutting-edge teaching. We want there to be space available for students to interact in, and we want our faculty and our graduate students to be in optimal position to teach and to produce great scholarship. When it's completed, Tidwell will be ready to serve many new generations of Baylor students."

The next step, of course, is fundraising. Once fundraising brings in the estimated $20 million needed, plans will be made to take Tidwell offline, with a goal of completing the project within 12-18 months so that students can begin benefitting from the new space.

Want to help make this renovation a reality? Contact the Office of Advancement at 1-800-229-5678, option 4, to discuss opportunities to support construction.

Sic 'em, Bears!

You might also like:
* Baylor launches 'Give Light,' a $1.1 billion fundraising effort to support BU students & programs (Nov. 2018)
* Give Light projects: Hurds' lead gift paves the way for new Baylor welcome center along I-35 (Nov. 2018)

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Meet 7 Baylor women who blazed new trails in the sciences

When Baylor was chartered in 1845, it was one of the first coeducational colleges or universities west of the Mississippi River -- about 10 years before any public institution of higher learning would introduce mixed-gender learning, and a full 75 years before American women were guaranteed the right to vote.

Since that groundbreaking beginning, countless women have come through the halls of Baylor before going on to do amazing things. It began with Mary Gentry Kavanaugh, who in 1855 became the first woman to earn a Baylor degree (just a year after the university's first male graduate). Since then, a host of other Baylor women have played large parts in the university's success.

Here's a look at some Baylor Bears who have made lasting changes in the world of science -- locally, nationally and internationally:



Dr. Harriet "Hallie" Earle, BA 1901, MS 1902, was the first female graduate of Baylor Medical School and the first licensed female physician in Waco.

If her name sounds familiar, you're probably thinking of Earle Hall -- one of two residence halls housing Baylor's Science & Health LLC, named in her honor. Born in 1880 in a log house in McLennan County, she came from a long line of physicians. While enrolled at Baylor, then-President Oscar H. Cooper praised her math skills as exceeding all other students; in fact, her 1902 M.S. degree thesis was included in the cornerstone of the newly erected Carroll Science Building -- then one of the finest science buildings in the southwest. Earle opened her Waco office in 1915, treating both paying and non-paying patients until she retired in 1948. She built a private practice around women, assisted with medical examinations of female Baylor students, and was known as Waco's weather watcher, following in her father's footsteps of keeping records of Central Texas weather.



Allene Rosalind Jeanes, BA '28, is a member of the National Inventors Hall of Fame for her part in developing an artificial blood plasma and xanthan gum.

Jeanes spent most of her career researching dextran, as she and her fellow researchers believed hospitals could use it to replace blood plasma, slowing bleeding and preventing countless deaths. She later developed a process for mass-producing xanthan gum, which keeps substances like oil and vinegar from separating and prevents ice crystals from forming. If you enjoy ice cream, salad dressing, toothpaste, or gluten-free baked goods -- or have ever had to use medicine to slow bleeding -- then you owe a word of thanks to this Baylor alumna.



Dr. Jimmie Holland, BA '48, was among the first to help cancer patients with both their emotional and physical needs.

Holland challenged what she called "the tyranny of positive thinking" regarding cancer. As a doctor at New York's Memorial Sloan Kettering (MSK) Cancer Center in the mid 1970s, Holland pioneered the field of psycho-oncology, giving patients the liberty to explore how they felt about fighting for their life against disease. At MSK, she established the first full-time psychiatry service in a major cancer hospital and founded the American Psychosocial Oncology Society -- just two of the incredible achievements for which she is remembered.



Dr. Beverly Griffin, BS '51, broke incredible ground in cancer research.

At Baylor, Griffin majored in chemistry and was a member of Peers, the Burleson and Memorial house councils, the American Chemical Society, and Alpha Chi. After graduating and getting two doctoral degrees from Virginia and Cambridge, she was the first woman appointed to a professorship at a prestigious medical school. She then spent the majority of her career studying the Epstein-Barr virus, which causes a variety of cancers, at a time when no one knew about viral genes that could account for cancerous growth. Eventually, she became known as one of the top virologists in the world.



Dr. Helen Ligon essentially introduced computers to the Baylor campus in the early 1960s and essentially introduced computers to the Baylor campus is the early 1960s and developed Baylor's first Management Information Systems (MIS) courses.

Ligon joined the Baylor faculty in 1958 (back when computers took up an entire room) and served until she passed in 2003 (the same year iTunes and Blu-ray players made their debut). As the first person in computing at Baylor -- and one of the first in the state -- Ligon made many unique contributions to the field of information systems. In 1962, Carl and Thelma Casey gave the Hankamer School of Business an IBM 1620 computer, and Ligon was chosen to learn how to run the computer and then teach students in the computer field. Under her guidance, student workers wrote and ran programs using keypunch cards. For many Bears, Ligon was the one who first introduced them to computers. She was named Baylor's "Most Popular Business Professor" an unprecedented six times, was awarded the Herbert H. Reynolds Award for outstanding dedication and service to Baylor in 1991, and was honored a year later as the namesake of the Helen H. Ligon Professorship in Information Systems.



Dr. Rebekah Ann Naylor, BA '64, spent three decades at Bangalore Baptist Hospital in India as a surgeon, chief of medical staff, administrator, and medical superintendent, until her retirement in 2009. All the while, she exemplified the ideals of the Christian servant.

Named the outstanding premed student of the year, Naylor graduated from Baylor with a degree in chemistry. After getting her M.D. from Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, she became the first female resident in general surgery at Southwestern Medical Center and Parkland Hospital in Dallas. In 1973, she was appointed by the Foreign (now International) Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention as a missionary to India. Arriving at the new Bangalore Baptist Hospital in early 1974, she launched a missionary career that included busy clinical practice, administrative responsibility, and teaching. She doubled the hospital's number of beds, expanded its services, and in the 1990s organized training program in four allied health disciplines, set up accredited residency training programs for doctors, and initiated a training program for chaplains. Finally, in 1996 she established the Rebekah Ann Naylor School of Nursing, which has trained hundreds of nurses in India, most of whom came from a very poor socioeconomic background. To this day, Baylor's Louise Herrington School of Nursing maintains a strong partnership with the Naylor School of Nursing.



Louise Herrington Ornelas, the woman for whom Baylor's nursing school is named, generously supported countless future Baylor nurses throughout her lifetime even though she was never an alumna herself.

In 1999, her $13 million gift to the Baylor School of Nursing led to the school being formally named the Louise Herrington School of Nursing (LHSON). In 2015, another lead gift made possible the purchase of the Baptist General Convention of Texas building in Dallas, which has since become the new academic home for LHSON. Inbetween, she established the Lou Ornelas Endowment for the School of Nursing and the Louise Herrington Endowed Scholarship Fund in Nursing and supported a simulation lab to give Baylor nursing students the most real-world experience possible.

These are just the handful of the countless Baylor women who have made their marks on history; today, Baylor women continue to make huge impacts on the scientific world. For instance, Dr. Lori Baker, BA '93, MA '94, is vice provost for strategic initiatives and a professor of anthropology, and is recognized nationally for her forensic work in identifying the remains of undocumented immigrants. Dr. Mary Lynn Trawick, an associate professor of chemistry, is among Baylor's leading cancer-fighting researchers. And Dr. Lisa Giocomo, BA '02, has a research lab at Stanford University, where she's breaking new ground in understanding the grid cells that create the brain's "GPS."

There's not enough room, even on a blog, to list every notable Baylor woman. But if there's someone you think particularly deserves to be honored, please let us know!

Sic 'em, Bears!

You might also like:
* Baylor unveils memorial to Dr. Vivienne Malone-Mayes, BU's first black professor (Feb. 2019)
* Baylor faculty & students honored for career contributions and promising new research (Feb. 2019)
* 50 influential Baylor women you should know (March 2018)

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Ta.


Mark Rauterkus       Mark.Rauterkus@gmail.com
Swimming and Water Polo Coach, Schenley High School, Pittsburgh, PA
http://CLOH.wikia.com
412 298 3432 = cell