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Meet the Coaches

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First-Year Student Academic Life Coaches


Meet Coach Charles Baker

"Don't find the moment to "walk the walk", instead let the moment define your walk."
-Unknown


Meet Coach Sean Hardrick

"History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again."
- Maya Angelou


Meet Coach Conor Johnson

"Only true champions come out and show their worth after defeat.".
- Sir Alex Ferguson


Meet Coach Madi Lowry

"We're all just walking each other home." Ram Dass


Meet Coach Christina Troxtell

"Real change, enduring change, happens one step at a time."
-Ruth Bader Ginsburg

 

Sophomore, Junior, & Senior Student Academic Life Coaches


Meet Coach Deyna Aragon

"I know it can be really overwhelming figuring out who to be and who you are now and how to act in order to get to where you want to go. I have some good news: It’s totally up to you."
-Taylor Swift


Meet Coach Emily Arias

"We have all a better guide in ourselves, if we would attend to it, than any other person can be."
-Jane Austen, Mansfield Park


Meet Coach Jodie Bellomy


"Be kinder than necessary because everyone is fighting some sort of battle."
-J.M. Barry


Meet Coach Andrea Benjamin


"You always have time for what you put first."
-Unknown


Meet Coach Deborah Binkley-Jackson

"'I am no longer accepting the things I cannot change. I am changing the things I cannot accept."
-Angela Y. Davis


Meet Coach Sophia Bolin-Dills

"When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be."
- Lao Tzu


Meet Coach Taylor Boyd

"We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop."
- Mother Teresa


Meet Coach Wes Bush

"I don't know what's out there beyond those hills. But if you ride yonder, head up, eyes steady, heart open, I think one day you'll find you're the hero you've been lookin' for."
-Wiley Burp


Meet Coach Scott Cady

“Like all people, we perceive the version of reality that our culture communicates. Like others having or living in more than one culture, we get multiple, often opposing messages. The coming together of two self-consistent but habitually incomparable frames of reference causes un choque, a cultural collision.”
-Gloria Anzaldúa, Borderlands/La Frontera


Meet Coach Cristela Carrizales

"Sometimes you may never know the value of a moment, until it becomes a memory."
-Dr. Suess


Meet Coach Shelby Cole

"Don't be pushed around by the fears in your mind. Be led by the dreams in your heart."
- Roy T. Bennett


Meet Coach Lori DeKalb

"Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope..."
-Robert F. Kennedy


Meet Coach Jennifer Dell

"The plan is to fan this spark into a flame."
-Hamilton, "My Shot"


Meet Coach Amber Demastus

"Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn."

-Benjamin Franklin


Meet Coach Megan Denney 

"Meaning is about making a difference, not having an audience. It's better to be valued by a few than to be known by many. Your contribution is not the scope of your reach. It's the depth of your impact. Your legacy is not how many footprints you leave. It's how long they last." -- Adam Grant


Meet Coach Natalie Dickson

“I tell my students, ‘When you get these jobs that you have been so brilliantly trained for, just remember that your real job is that if you are free, you need to free somebody else. If you have some power, then your job is to empower somebody else. This is not just a grab-bag candy game. ‘”
–Toni Morrison


Meet Coach Dalynda Evans

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.”
-Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad / Roughing It


Meet Coach Sarah Flanagan  

"Do or do not. There is no try."
-Yoda


Meet Coach Calon-Nicole Gunter-Cox

“True belonging is the spiritual practice of believing in and belonging to yourself so deeply that you can share your most authentic self with the world and find sacredness in both being a part of something and standing alone in the wilderness. True belonging doesn’t require you to change who you are; it requires you to be who you are.”
- Brené Brown


Meet Coach Barton Hanna


“If the future's looking dark, We're the ones who have to shine.
If there's no one in control, We're the ones who draw the line.
Though we live in trying times, We're the ones who have to try.
And we know that time has wings, So we're the ones who have to fly.”
-Neil Peart


Meet Coach Mike Hinderman


“No horse gets anywhere until he is harnessed. No steam or gas drives anything until it is confined. No Niagara is ever turned into light and power until it is tunneled. No life ever grows great until it is focused, dedicated, disciplined.”
-Harry Emerson Fosdick


Meet Coach Garrett Hollingsworth

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
- Maya Angelou


Meet Coach David Kyncl


"Life is more than just reaching our goals. As individuals and as a group we need to reach our potential. Nothing else is good enough. We must always be reaching toward our potential."
- Max DePree,
Leadership is an Art


Meet Coach Rhonda Kyncl


"Love wins."
-Unknown


Meet Coach Travis Lightsey

"Not all those who wander are lost."
-J.R.R. Tolkien


Meet Coach Danielle Lindley

"You can be messy, complicated and afraid: show up anyway. "
- Gelnnon Doyle


Meet Coach Theresa Marks


"You've always had the power my dear, you just had to learn it for yourself."
-Glinda the Good Witch


Meet Coach Johnnie-Margaret McConnell

"An unexamined life is not worth living."
-Socrates


Meet Coach Annette Moran

"The distance between your dreams and reality is called action."
-Unknown


Meet Coach Michele Nabonne

"Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies."
-Saint Teresa of Calcutta


Meet Coach Anthony Natale

"Every day on Earth is another chance to get it right."
-Steve Earle


Meet Coach Cassandra Negron

"Authenticity is the daily practice of letting go of who we think we're supposed to be and embracing who we are. Choosing authenticity means cultivating the courage to be imperfect."
-Brené Brown


Meet Coach Crystal Perkins-Carter

"For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."
-Jeremiah 29:11


Meet Coach Ryan Peters


"Know the Why"
-Unknown


Meet Coach Kathleen Shea Smith

"We either make ourselves miserable or we make ourselves strong, the amount of work is the same."
-Carlos Castaneda


Meet Coach Shana Stanton


“Live the Life of Your Dreams. When you start living the life of your dreams, there will always be obstacles, doubters, mistakes and setbacks along the way. But with hard work, perseverance and self-belief there is no limit to what you can achieve.”
-Roy T. Bennett,
 


Meet Coach Yura Jung

"Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards."
- Søren Kierkegaard

 


Meet Coach Jamie Steele


"Work Hard, Play Hard"
- Wiz Khalifa


Meet Coach Jonathan Vann

"Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you're kind, amazing things will happen."
-Conan O'Brien


Meet Coach Yvette Walker

"You gotta be bad, you gotta be bold. You gotta be wiser. You gotta be hard, you gotta be tough, you gotta be stronger. You gotta be cool, you gotta be calm. You gotta stay together. All I know, all I know, love will save the day."
-Des'ree


Meet Coach Deveda Mason

"If you are always trying to be normal, you will never know how amazing you can be." -Maya Angelou

 




Meet Coach Jessie Youngblood

"Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities have crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense."
-Ralph Waldo Emerson