by Jeremy Keck | Dec 18, 2012 | Sports
Lipscomb students are, like millions of fantasy football combatants across the country, gearing up for the playoffs. Many opt to join a random league, but plenty also partake in a private league with people they know, and that play has the added benefit of helping players bond. For Lipscomb senior Tyler Summers, joining a league with his friends has been the most fun way to participate. “I love fantasy football,” Summers, a Bible major, said. “It’s always fun being in a league with the guys so that you can talk trash to them all week.” Summers is in three fantasy football leagues and enjoys the sense of community that comes with each one. “I’m in a league with people from Smyrna Church of Christ where I interned for two years and two different Lipscomb leagues,” Summers said. “It’s great having a group of guys that you can have some friendly competition with and exchange some smack talk leading up to the game.” Many enjoy the community a league tends to bring. However, each game must have one winner and one loser. Lipscomb senior Ethan Johnson has been on the losing end of a lot of his fantasy football games. “Both of my teams suck,” Johnson said. “I’m an engineering major; you would think I’d eventually devise a winning team, but that hasn’t happened for me this year.” Johnson is in two leagues. In one league, he has a record of 3-9 and is in 13th place out of 14 teams. In his other league he is 4-8, but is in last place out of eight teams. “This just hasn’t been...
by Emily Snell | Dec 17, 2012 | Sports
For Emily Harris, director of campus recreation, physical activity and good nutrition aren’t just her job. They’re a vital part of her lifestyle. Harris, who has Type 1 diabetes, thyroiditis and a chronic kidney disease, said her health struggles contribute to her passion for helping college students achieve wellness. “My own personal battles with my own health makes me passionate for teaching people how to be healthy,” she said. “With the chronic diseases that I have — which most people don’t even know that I have — I understand how hard it is to balance your health. Some people it’s a choice; some people it’s not. And if you have the choice to prevent it, by all means, prevent that from happening.” Harris is a 2007 Lipscomb graduate, who competed four years on the university tennis team, before accepting a job opening here in fall 2008. When Harris began working at Lipscomb, there was only an intramurals program. Harris said during her interview for the position, she presented a comprehensive approach to campus recreation. “I basically presented a whole model for Lipscomb that would be a comprehensive program that would meet more students’ needs than just sport,” she explained. “There would be this whole component of being active in body, mind and spirit. We still encompass that whole approach of spiritual, physical, mental, emotional training.” In addition to her campus recreation duties, Harris runs the Lipscomb University Racquet Club with her husband Andrew, who coaches the university men’s and women’s tennis teams.Harris said the two first met while both were competing on Lipscomb’s tennis team during the undergraduate education...
by Cory Woodroof | Dec 15, 2012 | News Slider, Sports
The Bisosn were ready to give the Kentucky Wildcats a fight – and for a good portion of the game – that’s exactly what they did. Unfortunately, the men’s basketball team (4-5) came up short in a hard-fought battle with the Wildcats (7-3), losing 88-50 at the historic Rupp Arena. Today’s game saw the team playing in front of 21,323 spectators (the biggest crowd to ever attend a game the men’s team was a part of). The Bisons were battling a nationally ranked team (no. 22) that had members of a squad that won the national championship this past April. After Kentucky got the tip, the Bisons and Wildcats went back and forth until around the halfway point in the first half when Kentucky started to widen their margin. Sophomore Martin Smith had three key 3-point shots that helped the Bisons keep the Wildcats on their feet. At the half, Lipscomb trailed the Cats 43-29. After the strong 4-0 run by Lipscomb to start the second, the Wildcats pulled ahead, turning a 12 point lead into a dominant run that sealed their seventh win of the season. Martin Smith had a strong outing for the Bisons with 18 points and 5 rebounds (including a 3-4 3-pt. rate). Freshman Stephen Hurt had a double-double with 12 points and 11 rebounds. Junior Khion Sankey said he believes that the Bisons must work on playing through adverse situations. “We’ve just got to play harder,” Sankey said. “We’ve got to play through adversity.” After today, the Bisons look to rebound against Austin Peay in Clarksville on Tuesday night, followed by another road game, a...
by Cory Woodroof | Dec 8, 2012 | News Slider, Sports
You know what they say. “You can’t keep a good Bison down.” The men’s basketball team left Tuesday’s tough loss to Belmont in the rear-view mirror, posting up an 86-62 victory in Allen Arena Saturday night against the now 3-7 UT Martin Skyhawks, another OVC opponent. The team evened out their record to 4-4 on the season. The Bisons brought the heat early, eventually pulling their leading margin to eight about halfway through the first half. The Skyhawks started to push back a little, cutting the margin by five with about eight minutes before halftime. But not before the men’s team went on a roll. By the half, the Bisons had a commanding 46-27 lead, closing out the first with a buzzer-beating 3-pointer by senior Deonte Alexander. The second half allowed for the Bisons to showcase plenty of blocked shots, staunch defense and even two dunks – courtesy of sophomore Martin Smith and freshman John Ross Glover. The team never yielded, closing out the game with a 24 point margin. Martin Smith had a huge game for the Bisons with 22 points, 3 rebounds and 3 assists. He also went 9 for 9 from the free throw line. Both Alexander and Glover had 13 points in the game, and Juniors Khion Sankey and Oscar Garcia each had 7 rebounds. Glover said he feels tonight’s win showed the team’s resiliency. “I think it’s good we bounced back,” Glover said. “That’s what we talked about as a team coming into the game. That’s just a sign of toughness. “When [tough teams] get beat, they don’t stay beat. They get back up and they...
by Nick Glende | Dec 8, 2012 | News Slider, Sports
New York Mets pitcher RA Dickey shared his triumphs and struggles in and out of baseball and how God has inspired him when he spoke in Allen Arena Dec. 6. Dickey was on campus as the featured speaker for the 2012 Forehand and Friends/Golden Bisons Luncheon. Dickey is the first knuckleball pitcher to earn the National League Cy Young Award, the highest honor in pitching, and he was recognized by Lipscomb’s College of Business as part of its “Heroes of Business” series. Dickey spoke about overcoming obstacles in his career, his path to climb Mount Kilimanjaro, and how it all helped him solidify a great relationship with God. Dickey announced the climb in November 2011, following his inspiration from reading Hemingway’s The Snows of Kilimanjaro. He completed the climb and returned to his team in January, risking his 2012 season salary with the Mets. The Mets threatened to void his contract–a salary of $4.25 million, but Dickey said he wasn’t intimidated because there were bigger things at stake. “They told me, ‘if you get hurt and fall off that mountain, we’ll void your contract.’ I said, ‘If I fall off that mountain, that’ll be the least of my worries.'” Dickey climbed in support of Bombay Teen Challenge, an organization which ministers to victims of human trafficking and their children in the heart of the redlight districts. Dickey and other members of his team raised over $100,000. Ascending Kilimanjaro was much less a physical challenge for Dickey but more of a spiritual reinforcement, he said. Dickey described a moment at the mountain peak when he looked out over cloud shelves...
by Brianne Welch | Dec 5, 2012 | Sports
Chelsea McMeans, in May, will have completed one of the most difficult majors at Lipscomb, and she will have done it while playing Division I basketball. McMeans, a biology major, grew up in La Vernia, Texas, which is just outside of San Antonio. She started out aiming for medical school, but for various reasons, her plans have changed. “I definitely want to get my master’s,” McMeans said. “I am applying to grad school for genetics right now.” Helping others is something that McMeans enjoys and would love to carry with her into her career and life after college. “If I could do anything, I want to be a professor,” McMeans said. Not only does the senior basketball player have dreams of becoming a college professor. McMeans also would love to be a basketball coach. “If I could coach, I would like to coach,” she said. “Not anything big but even like an AAU team would be pretty cool.” McMeans is currently in her fourth year of playing on the Lady Bison basketball team. She played both her freshman and sophomore years but was injured during her junior year and took advantage of a medical redshirt. This season is going to be McMeans’ last season to play wearing a Bison uniform. “I redshirted last year, but I won’t be staying for a fifth season,” McMeans said. McMeans said playing basketball at Lipscomb has helped her learn some very valuable life lessons. “I learned so many important things here,” she said. Though McMeans only took a medical redshirt her junior year, she struggled with injuries throughout her career, but she said...
