Freshman Quotations | Page 5

We had a big freshman class come out for the team, and I'm hoping to get one or two of them running varsity. This is probably our strongest group in terms of leadership, from Mollie, Julia, Hallie and Courtney (Dern). Our goal is to get some of the girls down to the 20 minute range. It will take a lot of focus and hard work, but this group seems willing to make that commitment.

With a lot of freshman and first-time wrestlers, you generally don't expect to get medals. The kids are all a little bit green, and they'll learn from this. It was sure tough on our seniors, though. We expected them all to take home medals.

The only thing I didn't like was that our freshman quarterbacks couldn't hit a receiver.

Without that foundation, Colton doesn't come in as a freshman and do what he's done.

We will look to Erin to step in and be our number one keeper. She's a great athlete with good size and good hands. Goalkeeper can be a difficult position for a freshman to step in and play right away, but we really think she can do it.

We've just learned what to do since our freshman year and that's not to get excited and to execute when we need to. We just played Villanova basketball better than Louisville played Louisville basketball.

We've just had trouble closing out all year. But I told the boys that freshman year it's a development year. We were a better team in the second half of the season and consistently played 12-14 players every single night.

We've only got nine seniors on the team. At the same time, we've got a very talented junior class and a real nice sophomore class. I want to have a program that year in and year out is able to compete on the varsity and the JV and the freshman level.

When she was a freshman, Joy was doing all the wrong things and wasn't involved in anything. She was headed down the wrong path. I grabbed her in the middle of her freshman year and told her she needed to play basketball. Since then, it's been a complete turnaround. She didn't start playing basketball until the second semester of her sophomore year, but she's been doing all the right things since then.

When seniors stick around and they don't drop by their freshman year, you have the chance to have a pretty good team.

We've been putting in freshman Josh Homer in at a couple of different weights, and he's been coming up with some big wins for us. He's really been wrestling well. He always battles hard in every match, and works hard in the room. He's done a great job for us, despite us moving him around so much.

We've been a young team and it's time to mature a little. We'll probably have one freshman starting for us, so we'll be moving people around and trying to expand their games. We'll have rough times during the spring as we watch them grow and make mistakes.

You cannot stop her right now. She might be the best post player in the country right now as a freshman after only two months. I'd hate to see her as a senior. Maybe I will have graduated by then.

We've had a good season. The seniors have led us and I have a number of freshman and sophomores on the team who are equally contributing.

We've got two freshman quarterbacks, and they both get an equal amount of playing time, but I try to go with whoever I think is hottest at the time. You just never know about that until you get in the middle of a game. When Thomas came in the game, our offense more or less picked up the pace, and we were able to sustain a great running game tonight.

We've had some great freshman backs, but none of them have responded like he has, ... He has a chance to be one of the great players to come through here.

Well, he got ready in about two seconds on the sidelines. I think with about a week's preparation, he will be as ready as we can get a freshman ready. He is physically talented, and he has been studying our defense. We may not be able to do as many things as we could with Patrick, but I think we can run our defense with (Russell) in there.

We all expected to win and the fact that we didn't gives us something to build on. So I think that, where our program's at right now, freshman and JV programs had winning seasons, so we're hoping to build some new traditions.

Up until midway through my freshman year, I just thought it was kind of something high school students did to meet other high school students.

Up through my freshman year, I just loved gymnastics. As a sophomore, then my junior and senior years, I started to get burned out. That was when the whole scholarship thing became an issue. I figured I had done gymnastics for so long and worked hard enough that I couldn't stop now.

We've got a lot of players coming back, and our (junior varsity) finished 20-0 and our freshman team finished 17-2. There's going to be a lot of competition and it's going to be interesting to see who comes back quicker and more athletic because that's what we need to accomplish to take the next step forward as a team.

We have a defined clientele. The kids come to us. We have to take them and make them into football players. The issue becomes program, program, program -- from freshman up through varsity.

We had three freshman play as well as they could have. The 3-point shot is such a momentum changer. We just couldn't get one to fall for us.

Those two Big 12 opponents on our pre-conference schedule will provide us with a great challenge, while the return trip to South Dakota State and that whole trip around Christmas break will really tell us where we're at as a team. I think we've got games we can learn from, especially with seven new players and nine of our 15 being freshman or sophomores.

This team was at a higher level than other freshman teams I've coached. They still have some work to do before they can compete at the next level.

This will be my fourth year going there. We lost in the quarterfinals my freshman year and the title match the last two years. There's only one thing left to do -- win it.

We were third in the conference this year and second last year. The program has taken great strides and this next group, this past group of freshman didn't let up.

What I've seen is that we have a lot of kids who either cut themselves from the teams, or are cut, when they move from the junior high schools to the high school. Because the high school doesn't have any freshman or sophomore teams. So that's one of the things we're trying to work out.

We cannot have another experience like we've had in my freshman class, of people saying one thing and doing another.

We had a freshman quarterback, a sophomore tailback and three junior receivers. We became real young this week in the skill positions due to some disciplinary measures.

We had a freshman quarterback, a sophomore tailback and three junior receivers, ... We became real young this week in the skill positions due to some disciplinary measures.

We had a freshman at second. Every year I've had a freshman start and we're starting five sophomores. It doesn't take long for them to get into the action. Once they realize they belong the nerves are gone.

We knew he was going to be good. He was very quick, he was really quick. One thing that impressed me the most about him was that he challenged the shooters. Those were the two biggest things I saw with him the freshman year. He also did a lot of work off ice, got into better leagues and worked hard to improve himself.

To help you evaluate how your strengths stack up, you can build models based on statistical profiles of recent freshman classes at the schools, data on their applicant pools, and analysis of other primary sources of information. And of course realism is important. You do not want to place all your bets on colleges where you have little chance of getting in. At the same time, you don't want to be frightened away from colleges where your chances may be much higher than you think.

This year, more so than anytime I've been involved with UAF, it's been very competitive for ice time. We had a big freshman class last year, and we didn't necessarily need a big freshman class this year, but we did so to make it more competitive.

This year I'm just going to go after everybody for the entire match. I'm just focusing on staying in their face and being tough. When I was a freshman and people were in my face, I didn't like it and I didn't really want to go against those guys. That's the way I want to be this year.

This year has been a lot more fun. It's neat to have my own players in the program. The freshman class has been great, and the people who have been here are receptive to doing new things.

What an experience for this kid after walking on the team freshman year. Now he's on the U.S. National Team and competing against the best gymnasts in the world.

We've been talking about this since our freshman year. We had big hopes . . . and we made them come true.

We tried to get a quick score. Ashley Powell thought she could take it all the way and she got a charge. Then we put the other freshman guard in (to replace Owens) and she threw the ball away. It was not from lack of effort, it was just lack of experience.

We weren't quite ready to compete at the next level. We dominated the freshman teams in the league.

We were really concerned about our divers that left with four years' experience under their belts. But the freshman class has been a surprise.

What's tough for Jenny is that she's the only freshman on the team and she has an older sister who is just a phenomenal soccer player. She tends to be kind of quiet, but she comes out and plays hard. I think next year (after) Estelle has graduated, Jenny will come out of her shell a little more, which makes sense.

When a freshman has to carry us offensively, it?s a tough day.

We lost more kids than we probably have in the last 10 years. But then you add Libby O'Brien and Krissy Brown. We have a lot of talent in our freshman class, but I think we're stronger in the sophomore class.

We had this opportunity my freshman year, and it was a great experience. I'm just looking forward to getting to experience the tournament again, the Sweet 16, and hopefully advance all the way to the finals.

With freshman they just don't seem to have a sense of how to correctly do research and that's probably because they're just not sophisticated enough yet. With juniors and seniors, if they don't understand plagiarizing it's high time they did.

We expected her to do good things, but to have a freshman with 17 kills is fantastic. We need to keep giving her the ball. That's a big key, is seeing if we can get her into the lineup more and get her to do more things. We are sorely lacking outside hitter depth and she brings in a strong arm and good defense.

We're going to be good. We're going to be real good with our freshman class coming in.

We feel Mario is probably as talented as any freshman point guard out there.

We feel like we're playing pretty well at times. We lost three games in the Sarasota tournament alone. Plus, we're a pretty young team. We have eight new freshman players this year.

You gotta defend him. I'd put him up against any freshman in the state right now. He doesn't play like he's 14. Just the things he does around the basket, the way he rebounds, the way he finishes. ... (He's) just amazing.

You go through so many changes as a freshman and sophomore and then you come into your own as a player. It feels like all the hard work is paying off.

You get a freshman (Abramson) in there, and he hasn't been around enough to feel the pressure, like the varsity guys do. He just took it to (Chase County) and the other guys started to feed off that, and I think he carried us there for a while.

To be honest with you, for a freshman to step into that environment against that caliber of a team is phenomenal.

This new student number is like your freshman class as they work their way through these programs. That will help your total enrollment going forward. It's a strong precursor.

We should be awesome next year. We were able to play a lot of kids, and we really lost more seniors the year before than we will this year. Our freshman and junior varsity teams were undefeated.

We didn't know that she would come in as prepared as she was. She came in her freshman year in great shape and determined to make an impact and did it right away. She's been a starter since Day One and has been a leader on this campus since Day One.

We had our two freshman shoot 15-under (for the tournament), now that excites me. More than anything, it shows what they can do and that they are ready to step in and play. I know one thing, it's going to be really exciting just watching guys try to get into the lineup. Now that's a nice luxury to have.

We have eight juniors, two seniors, and one freshman starting. We all know there is still a very long way to go but we are playing very well right now." ()

We could tell even as a freshman that with his athleticism he was going to be a good basketball player. But a lot depends on the personnel a team has, you don't just call up a freshman to call them up.

Bonnell was our first verbal commitment of the freshman class a year ago. He knew he wanted to come here.

Bess made a great play. She got inside her defender and had a good finish. It takes a lot for a freshman to play. She really stepped it up.

Ben may be a freshman, but he's not a freshman in maturity. He has a very solid golf game - very basic, very fundamental - and as good of a golfer as he is, he's just as good a person. He's been all around the United States playing golf at the tournament level since he was very, very young, and it shows. We just know he's going to help us out as a team tremendously.

Believe it or not, I kind of miss the discipline and all the crazy stories that you hear being associated with a freshman dorm, ... I also miss the RAs because they were an incredible group of student leaders.

Being thrown into that situation is not easy, particularly when you don't expect it. You sign with a team as a freshman and expect to come in and have that buffer year. Then all of a sudden a month or a couple weeks before training camp, we say that one of you guys has to be ready to play against Notre Dame if something happens. I think they've handled it well.

Blake and I have been playing with each other since his freshman year and my sophomore year (at Maryland) so we have lots of fun playing with one another. We understand each other and the game. We've learned a lot since we've been in the game so hopefully we can continue to push the young guys on the team and hopefully we can continue to get better.

Billy Hill I've known since freshman year in Congress,

Every team in our league has a freshman team. I think it would be great for our program to have a freshman team.

At one point we had four freshman out there. We're a young team.

At one point or another this upcoming weekend, you may see four true freshman in there at one time. They're good freshmen that I have to play out there to get their feet wet, but there's been some growing pains as you can expect.

At this point in the season, mistakes have to cut down. We can't be making freshman mistakes anymore.

At the Harvard meet, I beat the one-meter champion my freshman year. It's really hard to believe.

Coming in my freshman year we were a .500 team. Ohio State hasn't done it since the 1980s, so it means a lot.

Coming from our freshman year, we've come such a long way. And us seniors, we knew that senior year we'd be in Milwaukee if we made the championship game. It's a dream come true for us. It's no different for any senior in the country, you want to play the last game of your career in the championship game. And we're ready. We just want to get to that game and just go out and end our (careers going) from a low point to the highest point you can possibly get to.

Did she tell you about her first game? Well, we brought her up (to the varsity) at the end of her freshman year and there was probably 50 seconds left in the game.

Devon just started golfing this summer. She was very outstanding for her second or third meet. Sara Nolan is another freshman I think is coming on strong.

Don't know yet. Sometimes it's out of necessity that you play a freshman right away. Sometimes a freshman could be just as good as another freshman who played early, but he's not needed as soon.

Curran's make a good progress. He's a freshman and put into a pressure cooker like that, he did a great job.

Andy is a competitor. He came in and played right away as a true freshman at linebacker and has a great competitive spirit ... I'm excited because I think he's found a rebirth a new way and a new opportunity to get on the field.

Ever since we all made the freshman team together, we all knew we (were) going to go grow up and play with each other (on) varsity.

Dundee just outmanned us. They have 12 seniors and several kids who weigh 250 pounds or more. Our biggest goes 210, and we have 12 sophomores and one freshman on the team. We're athletic, but we're not big.

Duke is probably our biggest rival, but Florida State is a close second. Since our freshman year, we've kind of knocked heads with Florida State. It's just been very competitive.

Each year, I take it upon myself as dean of students to go and talk to the freshman band members by themselves. I let them know that in order to be a part of the Southern University Marching Band, they don't have to take certain physical or mental abuse to be a part of the band.

Erin is a freshman and there are rigors with being a college freshman and a student-athlete, but she will really help us,

Evans plays defense well for a freshman and that comes from being well-coached. He's a coaches kid, so he should be good on defense. But all of their players play good defense.

Erin's improvement is probably mentally. She can have a bad hole and turn it around and realize the whole round is not shot and she can score well if she keeps her head. This year will probably be the toughest for Brittany. As a freshman no one expected anything of her. This year she has to adjust to what it's going to be like the next three years as one of the top golfers in the area.

Flury was just phenomenal. You put a freshman in the 2-mile who has never run the 2-mile, and he goes under 11 minutes. You don't run under 11 minutes the first time you run the 2-mile.

There was a big difference in Kyle from his freshman to his senior year. A lot of that had to do with physical gains, but mentally he also showed a lot of growth. He used to get angry and frustrated on the court, even as a junior, but this year there was a big difference.

There's a freshman who Aaron has taken under his wing. He's done an excellent job with him, teaching him the game. In a way, he's kind of taken over the team and made it his own.

There's no freshman or JV team like you have in high school. So after awhile, if you're not having success, it becomes frustrating. It's a lot of work, and some guys just feel like they aren't being rewarded for it.

There's no freshman or JV team like you have in high school, ... So after awhile, if you're not having success, it becomes frustrating. It's a lot of work, and some guys just feel like they aren't being rewarded for it.

There's just so many things going through your head as a freshman knowing the plays, knowing when to cut, knowing what to do. It really is tough to find that kind of balance as a freshman. I think it's something you have to kind of play through to find, too. It's just part of being a freshman.

I started playing tennis in my freshman year, it's really exciting and I am happy to help out these kids because they have got good skills. We work well together and have fun together and not take it too serious.

I've been watching Steve since I was a freshman in college. He's been making great plays as long as I've known him. He seems to get better every game. You know he's drawing more and more attention, but he still finds a way to do what he does.

I've come a long way with my foul shooting. I could not hit a free throw for anything my freshman and sophomore year. I feel real comfortable now.

I've been here K through 12, and we've all been playing together since elementary school. (Receiver) Mark Dillman moved here before freshman year, but other than him it's been us all the way.

I've been in this defense for five years, so I feel like I know it pretty well. Other guys have done the same, so it's easier for us during practice, if we see a younger player do something wrong, we can pull them aside and tell them what to do. In our freshman year we were all new to the system, so there wasn't a lot of player coaching going on. Now, there is.

I've been in marching band since my freshman year and the best part of it for me has been the relationships I've made.

I've been getting it for so long. When I was a freshman in high school they said I wasn't good enough to play varsity, and I ended up starting. Then they said I would not be able to play Division I, and I keep proving people wrong. If anything, it just gives me motivation to go out and prove them wrong.