Featured: Jessica Bivins

GSW Senior guard Jessica Bivins

Jessica Bivins is a senior guard on the Georgia Southwestern State University women’s basketball team that just completed there most successful season to date. The Hurricanes advanced to the PBC tournament and after a quarterfinal loss to eventual NCAA Southeast Regional champs Lander, finished with a record of 18-9, 10-7 in the conference. Jessica averaged 11.6 points a game this year along with 3.7 rebounds and 2.6 assists a game. She also has been highly successful off the court, being selected to the PBC All-Academic Team twice and the Presidential Honor Roll twice, as well as being chosen to receive an NCAA Ethnic Minority and Women’s Enhancement Scholarship (one of only 26 recipients across the entire country and from all three NCAA divisions). Let’s get to know Jessica a bit better:

Why did you choose GSW?

Because when I came on my visit the team and coach were really welcoming. They laid everything on the table and I liked that the coach was straightforward with me. She said I could come and contribute and do big things. I also liked the campus because its not too big or too small.

What have you enjoyed most about your time as a Hurricane?

I enjoyed my teammates. We are really there for each other, on the court and academically. We push each other to be better. I also enjoyed how we have grown as a program. My senior year we really put the pedal to the metal. I just enjoy how we’ve grown and wish I could come back for one more year. The teammates are the best part.

Talk about this season, your senior year, and the best season ever for GSW women’s basketball.

Being my senior year I definitely came to practice each day knowing this was it. I came ready, encouraged my teammates and let them know what we could do. As a senior I tried to prepare our newcomers and set an example for them. I think the seniors, we did our job for the most part and even though in the end we couldn’t bring it back it was a good year. Hopefully I can end on a positive note academically as well and leave GSW with a positive legacy.

You’ve had your share of success off the court, being named to the PBC All-Academic team, the Presidential Honor Roll, etc. How do you balance everything?

Everybody teases me because I have a thousand to-do lists. I’m really organized and keep a daily planner, and I set goals for each day. For example if I want to egt some extra shots up at the gym I will make sure I get my school work done early so I can stay as late as I need to at the gym.I know in my mind that things just have to get done and it is not a possibility to just not do something. I’m not going to let myself do that.

You were also recently selected to receive an NCAA Ethnic Minority and Women Enhancement scholarship. What does this honor mean to you?

It means a lot. All the hard work, the studying the basketball practices have actually paid off. It’s the first scholarship for academics I have ever gotten, so it’s a big deal. I am really psyched about going to graduate school. It is what I want to do and this scholarship alleviates some of the financial pressure.

Who are your biggest influences?

Definitely my family. My mother. I’m the oldest so I kind of pave the way and want to set an example for my brother and my cousin. They are student-athletes as well and I want them to know it can be done because JB did it. My mom is big because I’ll call her all the time and she trusts and believes I have the inner power to make it through. I get that from her. She instills the confidence in me.

Also my academic advisor, Dr. Bosak. He’s definitely another big one. I can count on him for anything. He has been a big supporter of me, whether it’s with papers, scholarship applications, on weekends, anytime I can count on him. And my coaches, Coach Britsky and Coach Turman my on the court influences. They are key contributors to my success. Coach is always getting us to work hard and get buckets.

What are your future plans?

Physical therapy graduate programs are very competitive and the one I am looking at is Florida A&M’s. I am applying in May and it is a three year program. I want to work in sports and become a sports physical therapist. Hopefully I can work at a school or with a professional team, but if not I will work with the general population. Ultimately once I am established as a professional I’d like to own and run my own sports rehabilitation clinic.

Meet Kristen Jones

Kristen Jones

Recently the Peach Belt Conference started working with a new intern who will be with us through the summer. Without further ado, Meet Kristen Jones:

Hi everyone my name is Kristen Jones and I am currently a senior softball player at Augusta State University. I am also the newest intern at the Peach Belt Conference office and couldn’t be more excited and honored to have such a wonderful opportunity. Now I have to be honest, when Carl told me he wanted me to write a post for the Peach Blog I was pretty intimidated and wasn’t sure what exactly I was going to write about. But I’ve decided to just give you all the run down on how I got to the conference office and a little bit about my 4 years in Augusta. I hope you all find it as interesting reading it as I found living it.

Originally I come from a smaller town in central Florida called Plant City. For those who don’t know, Plant City is famous for its strawberries and we are in fact the winter strawberry capital of the world. I played softball there from the time I was 5 and eventually made my way to Augusta to play in college. Since being a part of the softball team here I’ve had a handful of wonderful experiences and opportunities. I was able to attend an NCAA leadership conference, I’ve been a member of SAAC (Student-Athlete Advisory Committee) for 3 years and am currently the President for ASU, I am serving on a consolidation of athletics committee for ASU and Georgia Health Science University (the schools will be merging soon and there is a lot to figure out), and like I mentioned above I have the opportunity now to serve as an intern at the Peach Belt Conference Office.

Being a senior I am on track to graduate this summer with my undergraduate degree in kinesiology with a focus in exercise and sport science. Now I know what you’re thinking, “What is a kinesiology major doing interning at the conference office?” Like most other student-athletes and students in general for that matter I thought I knew exactly what I wanted to do when I got done with school. For me it was coaching. But the more time I spent attending events like conference SAAC meetings and the Women in Athletics seminar put on by the PBC, the more I realized how much I enjoyed being in an athletics administration environment. After coming to this realization I immediately got in touch with my advisor and Carl at the PBC letting them know about my plan for getting my masters degree in public administration. I was hoping they would see the path I wanted to take to get in to athletics administration and they did and were so willing to accommodate me.

So that’s my brief little introduction and how I came to be at the conference office. I’m so excited about my current internship and can’t wait for what lies ahead of me.

Follow Kristen on Twitter @kjoness12

Meet Jodie Borchert

By Jodie Borchert

I’m not the college student-athlete that played her sport since she was old enough to walk. Before I picked up my first 9 iron I played nearly ever other sport including soccer, softball, ballet, tennis, equestrian, and basketball. Heck, at the age of 7 I even decided I was going to be in the Olympics competing in the sport of ping pong (which unfortunately still has not been passed by the Olympic committee).

Nope, I didn’t pick up golf until my junior year of high school. But in the short four years I’ve been playing the game, I have grown in it.

Most people see golf as a game of plaid pants, old men, and a quiet field. For me, golf has shaped my view of the world.

It’s a simple game. Not much is needed to play, but the return is significant. Competitive golf demands honesty and integrity to uphold the rules of the game. The same morality is required in our day to day lives, because as nearly every college student has experienced, we are constantly faced with choices that can make or break us. However, competition is not the sole reason for playing, I play to meet and learn about others, and most importantly, learn more about myself.

Jodie lines up a putt

The game is played almost entirely between the ears; if you think about it too much, you will fail. You have to play the ball where it lies and go on with your game. And no matter how you’ve played, at the end of the day you can always look back and say you learned something new.

I am proud to call myself a North Georgia Saint. I am surrounded by awesome teammates and a great coach. Being a student-athlete has taught me how to prioritize and be more efficient on and off the golf course. With my graduation date being a mere year and a half away, I’ve quickly come to the realization that there’s more than playing golf and going to school everyday.

My future plans don’t involve a career with the LPGA (gasp!) but I hope to stay connected in sports and in golf with whatever career I choose. Being a golfer and a college athlete has embedded in me a toolbox of knowledge that will help me to succeed in life after college.

Exploring the Mystery of Brian Beil

By James Alex Bonus

I was devastated last March.  The news hit hard — my coach of three years would not be returning for my senior season, and I’d have to spend nearly half the summer coaching myself in preparation for some of the most meaningful athletic competitions of my life.

I understood my coach’s decision.  He was taking a job that offered better opportunities elsewhere.  It helped that he was taking an administrative position rather than a coaching position — I didn’t feel like he was leaving me for a better runner. But the sting of his departure remained, and that looming dread of what lay ahead infected my life. 

Good news came in late June.  The athletic department had found a coach, and his resume was nothing to scoff at.  Brian Beil, the head cross-country coach at Division I George Washington University, had set his sights on my small team in my small school in my small town in Florida.  

A thousand questions swarmed.  Why us?  Why leave such a well-respected program in D.C. for a Division II school far from everything he knew?  Who was this guy, and what were his intentions?

The past few months have alleviated many of my concerns, and the void carved from the departure of the coach that made me a runner has been filled with the talkative, intelligent and sometimes overwhelming character that is Coach Beil.

But just for good measure, I sat down with Beil and got the facts about his life and just what he plans to do at Flagler College.

ALEX:  Give me a little background on your high school athletic career.

COACH BEIL:  High school.  Well, freshman year I was forced to go out for cross-country. I was dropped off at 5 a.m. when my dad went to work and it was pitch black and I didn’t know a soul.  And I hated it.  But since my older brother did it and my sister did it and they were very good at it, I had to represent the Beil name in running.

I struggled through my freshman year and it made it to an 18:15 PR [Personal Record] 5K — that sticks out in my mind for whatever reason.  After that I said, “This is no fun.”  I did not do indoor track that year.  I played soccer freshman year then went cross-country, indoor track and soccer every year up until my I was a senior, when I quit soccer.  My track coach threatened to throw me off a cliff if I didn’t run because I was going to go to college to run and not play soccer.

ALEX:  Were your parents runners?

COACH BEIL:  My father — yes.  My father ran for a year at Colorado.  He was a 400-meter guy way back in the day.  He was only like a 49-second flat guy so he was essentially a walk-on.  My mother — no.  Uncle — yes.  My mother’s brother ran marathons so I guess I looked up to him.

ALEX:  So when did your opinion of running change from hating it to loving it?

COACH BEIL:  I enjoyed racing from the start.  In middle school it was way less formal and it was mostly competition, which was great.  I didn’t know what “training” was at that point.  It was just show up for races and beat people — and it was a lot of fun.

I started running maybe when I was like 8-years-old.  There were these local one-mile runs around a park where you would just line up with kids your age and run one loop.  I won my first one.  I just loved it.  This poor kid was really rigging hard in the last 100 meters.  He grabbed my shoulder and I shrugged to get him off me and he fell.  His dad wasn’t very happy and he got into it with my dad a little bit.  So as I’m standing on the podium getting my blue ribbon, this sulky kid is next to me and his dad was just glaring at me.  From that point, I was hooked.

ALEX:  What was your high school 5K PR?

COACH BEIL:  15:45 – it was just under 16 somewhere.  I was under 16 a few times. Right in that range.

ALEX:  You went to East Carolina University with a major in exercise and sport science.  Was that just something you were interested in?

COACH BEIL:  To be honest, I wanted to be my high school track coach.  He was a physical education teacher at a middle school, I believe, and he would come and coach us in the afternoons.  Yeah, I wanted to be him.

I went to East Carolina … and I started as a physical education major.  But when I went to student teach in what weren’t some of the better areas in the county, I decided I hated it and immediately changed my major.  It took me an extra semester then to get out and I had to take a couple extra courses, so that’s when I went more of the exercise physiology route rather than the teaching route.  So I have a couple credits in there that were a little wasted, like dance — which doesn’t really apply anywhere.  But yeah — that’s the major.

ALEX:  While you were at East Carolina you were captain of your team, team MVP and you received the prestigious Pirate Award.  Even from the start you were voted Most Outstanding Freshman.  What did those accolades that mean to you then and what do they mean to you now?

COACH BEIL:  Then — it just felt right.  I felt like I was going to come in and I was going to be the No. 1 runner and I was going to go to nationals and be a stud.  And, honestly, it didn’t happen the way I wanted it to.   I wasn’t as good as I thought I was going to be. I thought I was going to be this amazing runner and I was just O.K. for Division I.  I was middle-of-the-road.

I would tell you honestly that I ended up as MVP sort of by default my senior year because the guy I was co-Freshman of the Year with had to take a semester off my senior year.  I wanted to redshirt that year but they wouldn’t let me because I was going to be there an extra semester anyway.  So I raced, and really my “partner in crime” was sitting out and the No. 2 guy was also sitting out.  So, here I was the year before — the No. 3 guy — thrust into the No. 1 spot my senior year.  We would have been much better, honestly, had I not been MVP.

ALEX:  So you wanted to redshirt because you wanted to run with your teammates the following year?

COACH BEIL:  Yeah.  Yeah we would have been pretty good.

ALEX:  So what advice would you give to your athletes now if they wanted to follow a similar path as you?

COACH BEIL:  Follow our only team rule — be young men and women of character.  You know, I did everything my coach ever asked me and that’s the only way I knew how to do it.  I didn’t know the first thing about training when I was in college or high school, but if my coach said, “run through that wall because it’ll make you faster” — then I’d do it.

Like I said before, I think there were a lot of great people around me, and by the end of my career I was the only one left standing.

ALEX:  I have a feeling you’re being modest.

COACH BEIL:  No!  I like my teammates.  Maybe they’ll read this.

ALEX:  You were part of three record setting relay teams during your time at East Carolina (the Distance Medley Relay, the 4 x 800-meter relay and the 4 x 1500-meter relay).  Which were notably memorable to you?

COACH BEIL:  The DMR record held the longest for us — I’m fairly certain I was the 1200-meter leg, but I might have been the 800-meter leg.

We had the same four guys who were basically interchangeable parts … We would steal Justin England — who is being voted into ECU hall of fame next month — and pull him down for the mile in the DMR.  Then we would borrow one of the sprinters for the 400-meter leg of the DMR.  Those relays — more so for our junior year — traveled to a lot of meets together.  You spend so much time with the same guys, you know, staying in a hotel room up in Boston and up in New York and everything.

I still remember the first time we pulled into NYC— I had never been — and we saw a cab get rear ended by a Lincoln.  So the cabby gets out and is very angry — and this is waiting in traffic for the Lincoln tunnel — and he has a knife in his hand.

ALEX:  The cabby does?

COACH BEIL:  Yeah and it’s like a Swiss Army knife and he’s just shouting and shaking his fist at the guy in the Lincoln.  The guy eventually gets back in his cab and we’re like, whew — that was close.  The cabby then pulls off to the side of the road and puts his car in reverse, then sideswipes the Lincoln repeatedly.  The Lincoln guy gets out and shouts and the cabby gets out with his knife again, so the Lincoln guy thinks better of it and gets back in his car.  Well, then the Lincoln guy jams into the back of the cab again.  So this is now the third time they’ve run into each other.  The cabby gets out again and takes his knife to the Lincoln guys’ tires and starts jabbing them.  He pops the Lincoln’s left front tire, and then starts driving away.

We’re like — we’re from North Carolina and we’ve never been up to the big city before and this is our first experience in New York.  Remember, this is all just this relay going up to the cities to run meets, and we’re like — we’re never coming to New York again, coach, this is the worst city in the world!

Those were amazing times.  Probably, if we had Facebook back then, there would be dozens and dozens of pictures of us on the road.  Yeah, we spent a lot of time together.  It was a lot of fun.

ALEX:  Tell me about how you transitioned into coaching at East Carolina.

COACH BEIL:  Like I said — I had an extra semester, so I was going to be there anyway.  That coach who loved New York was kind enough to let me be a student assistant coach right away.

It would have been a lot more difficult had he not handled it like he did.  He basically let me continue running with Justin England, who was training for cross-country and the 10k in track.  He and I were sort of collaborating on what workouts to do and we just had to run it by the head coach.

But, it’s difficult when you go to school with people and you’re their teammate, then all the sudden you’re supposed to be their coach.  You can’t be their friend.  I mean, you can be friendly, but you can’t be their friend.  You’re there to coach them.  Thankfully, my coach let me just continue to train with Justin. It was a smooth, easy transition, and that was great.

After that semester I started applying for graduate assistantships, and I ended up at George Washington University.

ALEX:  If you can narrow it down, what would you consider your greatest success while coaching at GW?

COACH BEIL:  [Flagler College Athletic Director] Jud Damon asked me this question and I couldn’t narrow it down — I picked four things I think.   But just to make it short, I guess I’d say the first time someone qualified for nationals at GW.  Getting to that point where the program was legitimate was great because prior to that it was a joke.  We had a few good male runners when I was the assistant coach, but after that tuition at GW went from South of $30,000 a year to North of $50,000 in a hurry.  It became really tough to get qualified people to go there.  So, taking the program from the Dark Ages, so to speak, to the point where we were represented at nationals and someone could say, “George Washington,” and they didn’t go — “who?”  Having someone to put the program on the map meant a lot of me.

Also, I was the youngest coach in the country at the time they hired me as head coach.  I was 23, I think, when they hired me. So all that time you’re thinking — am I ready to be a head coach?  Do I really know what I’m doing?

ALEX:  Now you’ve gone from George Washington University to Flagler College, which is going from a really well known place to a relatively unknown place.  What was the motivation behind that?

COACH BEIL:  George Washington was a great place and it gave me my opportunity to coach, which was awesome.  But it’s really expensive to live up there.  As a coach you may think we’re making the Jim Tressel kind of money, but we’re not — especially in the smaller sports.   So when you hear about a place where it’s not just the coach who wants to make the program great — which is often the case in some smaller programs — but that the administration is behind it and they want to make it great.  Then, throw in that it’s near the beach and that my little sister lives in the area — well, then there’s no question.  After I came down here and got on campus and set foot into town, I was like, “Why not?”

ALEX:  What is it like going from Washington D.C. to St. Augustine?

COACH BEIL:  It’s fine. You know, growing up in Stafford, VA, it wasn’t the booming metropolis that you might think it is.  Really, all I really need to entertain myself is a sport with some willing participants.  And there are always recreational soccer leagues and softball leagues and beach volleyball leagues.  I don’t have time to do them now of course, but what do you need to do to entertain yourself?  Every other coach in the country is working a lot of hours and that’s why you do it.  It’s really not so different here.  And in D.C. I couldn’t’ stop off at the beach on the way home and jump in the ocean, so the transition has been all right.

ALEX:  The Flagler women’s team lost their coach last fall and that was hard for them, just as it was difficult for the men to lose their coach last spring.  What was it like for your team to lose you, especially so unexpectedly?

COACH BEIL:  I really couldn’t say — I can imagine it was hard, but you don’t know.  I had to switch coaches after my sophomore year and it was tough.  Your immediate knee-jerk reaction is, “I’m following you,” and I got a couple of those.  But you immediately say, no — you’re staying for the education you committed to.  So I don’t know how they handled it.  I like to think it was tough, but I also like to think I left the program better than I found it.  The new coaches will do a great job.  It’ll be an easy transition.

ALEX:  So what was it like for you to leave?

COACH BEIL:  It sounds cliché but it was the hardest decision I’ve had to make.  I mean, what real decisions have I had to make so far in my life?  My runners probably don’t know it, but it was tough.

ALEX:  What was your first impression of Flagler College?

COACH BEIL:  I was surprised when I walked from end-to-end.  I’ve never been to a school where you could do an interval workout around it and still have to add on more.

ALEX:  What’s your coaching philosophy and how has it developed through your past experiences?

COACH BEIL:  Philosophy?  That’s so general you could probably narrow that down to a lot of things.

ALEX:  Make it mean what you want it to mean.

COACH BEIL:  It’s pretty simple for any coach.  First, get everyone to buy into what you have to do.  Everyone has to buy into what you have to do or it won’t work.  There’s a reason sugar pills work — you believe they’ll work.

Another thing is hard work.  Every coach knows that.  But what we do — it’s not like football or baseball or basketball.  It’s not really a skill sport — it’s something you have to make a lifestyle.  You know — running twice a day, getting up with the sun — none of these are really the most enjoyable activities. Like, I’m going to get up at 5:30 to run then come back and swim in the evening and go to the weight room.  You really have to make that a lifestyle choice to be successful; otherwise, you won’t have any success as a program.

ALEX:  What changes have you implemented at Flagler already?

COACH BEIL:  Cross-training.  We’re doing a lot more cross-training than we did at GW.  We have no hills.  In D.C., on a regular everyday run, you’d have hills.  Here, there’s no real great option to get in a hilly run, so we have to make a point to do a hill workout on a bridge.  To supplement that, we will cross-train to get the same benefit we would in a workout.

ALEX:  Where do you see the program in five years?

COACH BEIL:  Nationals.  Every year.

Follow Alex on Twitter (@jamesalexbonus)