Angelique Gaddy-McElveen poses for a portrait outside of DeVos Fieldhouse.

General 6/19/2023 12:00:00 AM Alan Babbitt

Hope Athletics Orange and Blue Podcast Transcript: Angelique Gaddy-McElveen

Pictured, Angelique Gaddy-McElveen

Alan Babbitt (00:06):
Welcome to the latest episode in the Hope Athletics Orange and Blue Podcast. My name is Alan Babbitt. I'm Sports Information Director here at Hope College. This summer we're taking some time to bring to you conversations and interviews and a lot of fun with the people of Hope Athletics, from student-athletes to coaches and administrators, and take people behind the scenes, all the hard work that's done to make Hope Athletics both an educational opportunity but a transformative place as well. And my guest today has been someone who's been transformed by Hope and now is giving back as well. And that's Angelique Gaddy-McElveen. Angelique, been a few years, but not too long since I remember you on the basketball court. And now you are the Assistant Athletic Director of Philanthropy and looking forward to talking to you today. Welcome to the Orange and Blue Podcast.

Angelique Gaddy-McElveen (01:03):
Thanks so much, Alan. Super stoked to be here.

Alan Babbitt (01:07):
Obviously, you've taken on a new role this past January by joining the athletic department as Assistant Athletic Director of Philanthropy. Tell us about that role. It's a new role here for Hope Athletics, but one that there's a lot of excitement and a lot of promise about. Just tell us first about this role and the work that you have been doing and will be doing here, now obviously we're coming up with the 2023-24 school year.

\Angelique Gaddy-McElveen (01:38):
As you stated, this is a brand new role, so took the first quarter of this semester to get to know what has happened in the past, how have you been fundraising for athletics, which altogether is a newer concept for the college in the last five to six years. But then additionally, what are coaches looking for? What are our ADs looking for? Of course, the student-athletes, how can we continue to enhance their experience and more than just on the court, the field, the pool. I did a lot of listening over those first few months, asking a lot of questions, but then also reflecting on what my experience was like, my teammates, other student-athletes that I got to hang around with and are doing great things now. So just piggybacking on their experiences as well.So did a lot of listening and then also pulling in some efforts that we had already started over the last year. So when I wasn't in this role yet, last October, last September, October of 22, we started corporate sponsorships for athletics. And that was headed by Keagan Pontius, our lacrosse coach, women's lacrosse coach. And so we worked very closely together. But then also we have our Orange and Blue Fund, and that's headed by Dan Oosterbaan. And so the three of us, we all do a lot of things regarding annual giving, corporate sponsorships, and then I was brought on to lead those efforts to put more synergy behind the direction of them altogether, acting as one. And then I'll be working more so with some of those major gifts and cultivating those relationships of how can we really pair, whether it's parents, alumni, fans, friends of the college, how can we pair what their passions are, their desires for student-athletes, coaches, programming, and make that a real opportunity for those different areas on campus. So taking the meaningful parts of people's experiences and what they love about sports, specifically Hope Athletics and making it actualized here on campus. So we do a lot of amazing things. Sometimes we're too humble about it and we got to tell folks, "This is what we're doing here on campus." And I really think we are leading the charge specifically in a lot of different areas and we can talk about those too. And of course with Division Three, we don't have athletic scholarships and Division Three, we don't have all the rah, rah of traveling here and there and having those really strong contracts within colleges. So looking at new funding opportunities to elevate our athletics, elevate our programming to continue to be a leader, not just in Division Three, but in athletics overall in higher ed.

Alan Babbitt (04:35):
Obviously you mentioned a couple of the teams you work with, obviously athletics and the athletic department and some of the leadership there as well as philanthropy and that group. But just talk about what you've learned about the people in those roles and the energy and the impact they're making for Hope and what makes it special. I guess we'll start with philanthropy. What have you learned from your brief time in that department in particular?

Angelique Gaddy-McElveen (05:02):
Yeah, so I'm in a unique position where I'm like a bridge, almost a liaison. So my team in philanthropy, I actually got to do a couple of fun trips with individuals already there. So I went to a case conference for diverse leaders in philanthropy, so diversity and leadership in philanthropy, excuse me. And got to just understand what different functionalities of philanthropy and engagement looks like within Hope. So we have those two different areas, philanthropy and engagement, they pair together really well. So we have some folks who are affinity based and I'm affinity based, so my thing is athletics. Others would be culture and inclusive excellence. Another area is natural and applied sciences. So really trying to understand... Or in campus ministries, missional work. So trying to understand how do you approach that work with whether it be your donors or other stakeholders or students even in learning about their experiences, alumni, hearing about their experiences. I love the stories and being able to hear about how my colleagues who have been doing this work much longer than I have and are excellent and what they do, hearing how they approach those stories and how they transform those into the work of the college has been really eye-opening. I'm able to look back on my experience as a Hope student and be like, "Okay, so I see how I was able to do this now", because we had some really generous donors, but then also some really awesome philanthropy officers who know how to connect those two pieces together. So that's definitely one thing that I've learned with my philanthropy team is just understanding the different ways that you can go about this work, but then also really listening and connecting the wants of donors or of stakeholders to what we have to the college. And again, we have Hope Forward, a lot of big initiatives coming or that are happening. So we have Hope Forward. From a more insular conversation, like we're going through office space change. So it's just that there's always something going on. So my first six months have been filled with a lot and that's like a good a lot. So I'm taking in a lot and not so much drinking from a water hose, but a lot of folks are really generous with their intellect and their passions and their stories to bring me under their wings to hit the road running. So that's the philanthropy side. Taking it over to athletics. So I'm more familiar with that. So that's a language that I can speak more easily and it's a department that I'm very familiar with, not just as a student athlete, but also professionally. So going back into athletics, but now being back home at Hope, it's been super special working with Schoony, Lindsey, Courtney Kust and the coaches, the coaching staff and I talked about, we were able to have a unique workflow where coaches can do other things, whether it's teaching, whether it's running a building, I think it's super unique that Kegan can also do corporate sponsorships with me as a coach, so I can pick her brain from a coaching perspective or Coach Schmidt, Becky Schmidt for volleyball. She works with the Office of Possibilities. So understanding what does funding opportunities look like for that office and how can we pair those things together? So I will say for sure, athletics has synergy. They're locked in. Schoony at the helm, he's a wonderful leader and if you ask many folks in that office, they're going to run through a wall for him. So he's able to really energize and unify that office. And so a really, really strong team over there and I'm just blessed to be a part of it at this point.

Alan Babbitt (09:07):
Your experience, you talked about before you came into this role, you were in the college admissions team and worked over there and led the recruiting efforts in the Chicago land area. Obviously coming off last year we had a record incoming freshman class, a very strong freshmen class. Take us through that experience. That obviously was a new window, obviously you were once recruited to come to Hope. And now in that role being the recruiter, what did you learn from that team and that aspect of a vital part of Hope College?

Angelique Gaddy-McElveen (09:43):
That's one area. So for one, I moved out to Chicago. My then fiancee, now husband Dylan, he came with me and our dog, Nike. So it felt like a big move. It was during the pandemic and so we're going to a major city and it was a big change for both of us, but it was exciting and I learned a lot personally and also professionally. So I'll just start with the personal piece to begin with. I learned that I can do challenging things and I don't have to know the end result, I don't have to know the details of it, just to just jump in and go for it. And so that's what we did and it was super exciting for both of us. But for me, I'm usually a low-risk, okay person, so I like to have all things lined up, clocked up, ready to go, and you throw in a pandemic, you throw in a major city and you throw in a very new role. And that was also a brand new role for admissions in that Chicago regional position. And so I just jumped in and I learned that I can do challenging things. And then another personal piece that was really big for me was really leaning into and knowing your support system. So whether that's family, friends, or other communities that you're a part of, leaning in fully, and then just giving them respect. So we learned that during the pandemic. We're all doing Zoom happy hours and things like that, but I was really grateful to know how many individuals were thinking about me, praying for me, and just coming out to visit us in Chicago. And so really just understanding that support system and leaning all the way into it was huge for us. So those are some personal things I learned. And also wellness, just take care of yourself. So professionally, building a network out there. So as a regional rep, that was what you had to do to get to know other reps from different colleges, whether it's Ohio State or whether it's Loyola, you want to build relationships out there because we're all going through a very similar process. So that was really nice, just building a network. I was serving lots of different students, a very diverse population of students, and that excited me. I loved it. I feel like that's the world that God created. And so I was able to really, really be immersed in it in one location. So that was super special. But it also allowed me to be a servant leader to the max. I'm working with students who have challenging home situations or school situations or just challenging mental states. A lot of different things going on for students as juniors and seniors in 2020, 2021. So really leaning into servant leadership. And so at times, I'm not talking about admissions, I'm just bringing students food and I just want them to know, "Hey, just make sure that you eat tonight. I know that your parents were probably working late. "Life was very different then. And then other situations were, "Let me go and print this off for you because you don't have a printer at home." And that's like an area where I could step in and really be a change maker for something small, but something very big, getting an application in. So those were some things that professionally I didn't think I would really grab onto in that role, but I definitely did. And then of course within admissions, the team, the travel, the busyness of the season is cyclical, so it scales down and it ramps up. But overall, the admissions team was great with building morale and cheering folks on. Things would always get really hectic toward decision day. So that's May one, so from March to May one, it was big, how are numbers looking? And then as you mentioned, 2022, was just an exciting year. Come March where knowing that private liberal arts colleges are losing enrollment, we know that they're struggling with funding, we know that students are probably not even looking to colleges these days. And we have a very different perspective, a very different trend happening for Hope. And students want to be here. They see the transformative experience that they can have. And so to be a part of that, to talk with families about it, to bring them to campus and show them all that we have, that was super rewarding for me. And I loved talking about this is how I got here. And it may not be why you get here, but there's going to be something else that you find on this campus that will really speak to you. So being able to see families find those things when they get to campus when they speak to different individuals was very rewarding. And that was a big part of the job that I just loved. So again, we brought in a record class, it stretched the college, but in the best ways because again, we're trending in a very different direction than the rest of the nation.

Alan Babbitt (15:09):
Your Hope story, did you know about Hope? You grow up in Grand Rapids, went to South Christian, not far away.

Angelique Gaddy-McElveen (15:18):
South Christian. Yep.

Alan Babbitt (15:20):
South Christian, yep. And was Hope something that was on your radar? And then how did you find that Hope was a place that you wanted to invest in?

Angelique Gaddy-McElveen (15:32):
Dare I say that South Christian, Calvin was on my radar first. Yeah, I think all of my teachers at the time went to Calvin. So not so much to attend there, but I just knew of Calvin College, now university as an institution. One of my best friends who actually ended up coming to Hope with me, still my best friend to this day, she played soccer, her older siblings went to Hope. So that was my familiarity with Hope is, okay, so my best friend siblings went to Hope. We go to Holland for the beach. Sometimes we pass by downtown and I see this campus. But then once I got into high school, we started to do team camps, basketball team camps, ran by Coach Mo and his staff over the summer. And so we would stay for four days in Dexter Hall, we'd be in clusters, we'd get the full college experience for four days. We'd eat in Phelps dining hall and then we'd go play at the Dow and at DeVos. And so I knew the facilities were spectacular. I knew that the college was beautiful, still didn't know a whole lot about Hope. And so by the time I was really into my recruitment stage, so junior year, I was looking at a lot of division twos and then some smaller division ones. And so the Hope was not really on my radar at all. I was looking to either stay close to home and go for a scholarship or get out of state and it just spread my wings there. And so I ended up going 30 minutes away. But how I ended up getting there, so my dad calls me downstairs when he is like, "Hey, here's the deal. This coach keeps calling, Mo. Okay, I know you know who he is. Let's just go up there, let's check it out. He seems like a sweet dude. You've loved the basketball camps, let's just go up there and hey, you get to miss school for half a day. And I'm like, "Ah, you're right, actually. Let's do it." So I go and I schedule a visit and it's the most memorable visit that I've ever been on. And I probably went on unofficial and official visits close to 10 at this point as a junior. So I got started pretty early and Hope was my last visit that I went on as I just started my senior year. So it was probably September of my senior year in high school. And I remember meeting with Laura Bainbridge, who was my admissions' rep. I remember meeting with John Yielding at the time and then also Stacy Jackson. So I met with a handful of folks before I even got to athletics. And then I had my lunch and on that lunch was Courtney Kust. So I remember Kust was on that lunch and then I go and meet with Mo and by the time we got there I was like, "Hey, I really like this place." And so had never said that. On the way home I was telling my dad, "Yeah, this is speaking to me. I feel like I can truly be more than a basketball player here." And that was the first time I felt that at any campus I had been on. I got to speak with professors, I got to speak with my admissions rep and we talked about more than just basketball. And that was one of the first times I could see myself as a multifaceted college student. Yeah. So that was how I got to Hope.. And then I started coming to their games. I remember I went on a visit or I just came to a game that winter and I met Mandy Traversa and we ended up playing together for four years and she was from Wheaton. So I met Mandy and we were watching a game together and then Liz Ellis was playing and Courtney Kust brought us into the locker room to show us around. Those are experiences, memories that probably wouldn't mean a whole lot to folks who are like, "Oh yeah, you went to locker room." But to do that with current players right before their game began, they saw us out, they wanted to bring us in as recruits, that's just the Hope way. And I think that's what's so special about what we have going on here. Just the personal dynamics, the personal touch. You're seen from all different sides of you. And that really spoke to me. So I ended up coming and that was hard for me initially because a lot of my family, a lot of my basketball community was expecting me to go for a scholarship and I went to Division 3 and that was surprising for a lot of folks. But I trusted my gut, I prayed a lot about it. I trusted my family. They were super supportive and it allowed my family to be at pretty much every single game I played. So that's how I got to Hope and why I got to Hope.

Alan Babbitt (20:27):
Did a career path when you started college?

Angelique Gaddy-McElveen (20:31):
No way.

Alan Babbitt (20:31):
Or were you... I didn't know until my sophomore year. And everybody's different. Some of them, everybody has it. You mentioned earlier being one who likes to have things lined up. So I wasn't sure if you were, but how did you find... Obviously you went from, "Okay, this is the place for me, but then how do I want to take advantage of it to set up my future?" When did you find, "Hey, this is what I want to do for a career path and use my liberal arts education."

Angelique Gaddy-McElveen (21:01):
Spot on Alan. I think that was also a big attraction to why I came to Hope as a liberal arts college. I didn't mention the faith piece at all, but that was also big on my visit when I went to chapel, knowing that these students are choosing to come here, it's not forced on them, it's not mandated. So that was another piece was that I could really live out my faith at Hope. So I knew that I wasn't deep into anything stem, so I went through process of elimination, but I knew that if I came to Hope that I could experience a lot of different areas of whether it be the humanities or the social sciences and I could find something there. So knowing that I was a liberal arts college and I had time to really find my thing that really spoke to me. I had really great advisors, really great advisors and really great professors. So Amy Otis was my advisor. I was a Phelps scholar, so I had a really robust team of advisors. So that was also John Yielding too and Yoli Vega. So they helped me understand, "Okay, well if you like this part of this book that we read, check out this course next semester." Things that specific. I ended up taking a psych course my freshman year taught by Scott VanderStoep. And long story short, he was a best friend for me to this day, but he brought me in and let me know, "Hey, I'm really big into athletics. Let me show you how I cultivated athletics into my professional life, even though I'm deep into higher ed as a professor, as a dean at the time." So that was encouraging to know I can do more than one thing, I can find different parts of myself and build that professionally. So I started off undecided up until the end of my sophomore year. That's when Amy Oates was saying, "Hey, you got to declare at some point." And so I was unintentional track for communication. And so I declared communication first. Picked up Jayson Dibble as an advisor, and he pulled me into their honor society. And so I was able to do a deep dive into... I was a social chair, so to that's speaking to my soul. I didn't want to be anything tech, okay. I didn't want to be the writer, but the social chair, I can do that. So I just had really great folks in my corner that helped me find those pieces. And at that point, I also declared business midway through my junior year. So I was taking some business classes and I recognized that I was actually on track to graduate early. I took some summer classes through freshman and sophomore year, but I didn't come in with any credits to Hope. So again, and a testament to how awesome my advising was. But I ended up declaring business as a major. And by the time I wrapped up my junior year, I was interning at Meyer going into my senior year, and I met a really great guy there. And he was just really encouraging me, "Hey, if sports is where your heart is, go chase it. Go chase it. Don't do corporate just because this is the way it's supposed to go. Go chase athletics." And so at that point I knew that I wanted to apply for grad school, talked with a bunch of folks in our athletics department, in our kinesiology department and MSU and Western rose to the top and ended up applying to Western and going there. So that's how I found my thing, how I found the area that I really wanted to be in. And pretty much after that, my entire senior year was dedicated to something in sports, whether it was in communication or business. So that was nice.

Alan Babbitt (24:54):
You mentioned chapel, and that's obviously a treasured part experience now people are able to thanks to live-streaming, able to experience it. But I know from being there and to talking to former student-athletes like you or current ones, there's just something unique about that. Take us if you could inside chapel, if there's somebody listening that's thinking about Hope, what makes Chapel such a place that I don't know, even, maybe embracing isn't the right word, but it just is something that's so fulfilling for this campus and particularly students. What is it about Chapel that just has a special connection and is so impactful?

Angelique Gaddy-McElveen (25:38):
I'm so happy you brought this back around. One word that comes to mind is welcoming. It's extremely welcoming. No matter where you are in your faith, if you have been deep into your faith as a Christian your entire life, if you're questioning or if you're just like, what's everyone talking about? Everyone keeps flocking to this building at 10:20, what's going on over there? So just very welcoming. So the way that worship is led, you're able to see students up on the stage, singing, praising, playing the drums, praying over service. The fact that it's student led I think is really eyeopening. And I go back to the point again that it's optional. Students choose to come to Chapel, and the way that it's filled every single time just speaks to how welcoming it is because every student that's in there is not at the same place. Every single staff member, professor that's in there is not at the same place, but the ecumenical faith that we have here at Hope, the welcoming spirit, the invitational spirit as well, and then just the way that they hit on applicable messages, they're bite size. So I would say we worship and then we have a message, and we do all this in, what is it, Alan, 20 minutes? Just about 25 minutes.

Angelique Gaddy-McElveen (27:02):
And you leave learning something. You leave being challenged. You leave thinking and reflecting on your life. And our chaplains, President Scogin, our senior reflections, no one's just talking at you. We're talking to your soul and we're talking to your heart, we're talking to your mind, and we're talking to your body. It's very applicable messages that again, no matter where you are in your faith or if you're just exploring or if you're not even of faith, it's still something that you can take away from our chapels. And I think that is such a secret sauce that we have at Hope. And it's meaningful. It's very meaningful. And that's why you have, again, professors, that's why you have staff members, community members coming to Chapel for that 20, 25 minute. Yeah, deep dive into just something to come out with. So the chapel that I went to, again, I remember it was yesterday on my visit. It was called a Be Chapel, B-E. And they just wanted you to just be in the presence of the Lord and just be still. And that was awesome. It was just awesome. And it sounds like, "You're a senior in high school visiting, and that's a chapel you went to." And it wasn't super intense, it was just very calming and it just resonated. So again, our chapels are elevated, definitely elevated and welcoming is the word that comes to mind for those.

Alan Babbitt (28:37):
You mentioned a variety of people that have impacted you through your time at Hope, and you also mentioned your parents. And I wanted to give you a chance, obviously they helped introduce your faith and get you on that journey, but also just who you are as a person and that just talk about your parents and what they mean to you. Probably not enough in this podcast, knowing your family, just in terms of how much they've loved you and supported you, but just talk about them and their impact on you to be in the position you are now as Assistant Athletic Director of Philanthropy here at Hope.

Angelique Gaddy-McElveen (29:18):
Yeah, thanks for this opportunity, Alan. Yeah, we had a whole different episode to talk about their impact on my life, but I'm just extremely blessed. I'm extremely blessed. So my mom's father is a reverend, and my dad's mother grew up with a disability and she passed young. So I had the matriarch and the patriarch. And my grandmother on my mom's side was a business owner, started her own daycare. So again, in a Black community, very unique for that to happen in the sixties and seventies. So I come from very strong lineage. I'm blessed by the lineage I come from. And my parents are busy folks. They are passionate about their professions, but they're even more passionate about their family. And so I don't know how, but they work. And I'm playing AAU, and my sister also played AAU, so I'm the youngest of the three. She also played AAU and my brother was a football guy and track and was also an artist at one point. And we're going to, I don't know if I should say this on the podcast, but we are Ohio State Buckeyes. I grew up in Michigan this way, it's fine. My dad went to Ohio State, so.

Alan Babbitt (30:36):
We embrace everyone. Buckeyes, Wolverines, Spartans, we're all good.

Angelique Gaddy-McElveen (30:41):
Appreciate it, Alan. So we drive to Ohio State, and I think about the amount of time that my parents put into all of us when they also just had super busy schedules. There was also times when my parents would bring in folks into their home, whether it was a friend of theirs, a friend of mine, my cousins, just very generous people. And so I have had the incredible opportunity to come up and grow and learning all of that. So my parents instilled a lot of things in all of us as we grew up. And so one of those was generosity and giving of your best, giving your best. And so we would spend our Thanksgivings at DeVos Place and serving to the homeless, and that was something that we just did regularly. So that was one area my dad would all the time, whether it was at church or out in the community, he wanted to be a father figure for those individuals who didn't have fathers active in their lives. And so I would always just be with him as he would take folks out with us to go get ice cream or go get a meal. Just very generous people. So now they're both wrapped into Hope. They love Hope. So that was cool just as a student athlete, seeing how much my parents really resonated with the place that I chose to be for four years. And so they joined the parents council and other various boards and areas of influence as well. So they just loved to be in and around Hope. I actually had to have, Alan check this out, a safe word with my dad. I didn't want to hurt his feelings, but I had to have a word. And we established it when I was a sophomore at Hope of, "Hey, you're coming to campus too much. I know I've got games and I know you're on this parent council and everything, but I don't need to see you once a month. And so we had to stay for bananas. So just something nice and soft to not hurt his feelings. But I'm again, extremely blessed. So this was also really cool. On my graduation day, my mom gave the baccalaureate speech and I'm in chapel and I'm just got these tears in my eyes. How cool is this? This is a once in a lifetime opportunity. And to be able to take pictures of my mom and robes was just a really cool moment to have and to just hold as a treasured memory. So my parents, I think they're the best. I'm very blessed to have so many pieces of them in me, but also continuing to learn from how they live their lives today.

Alan Babbitt (33:35):
Was it either of them that, or was it just following your brother or sister in terms of putting a basketball in your hand? When did you realize they talk about, I use a golf analogy of when you hit the right shot, it's a tuning pork, and I think that applies when you're playing a certain sport. There's just one potentially that hits just a little bit differently. How did basketball became the game that you fully embraced and immersed yourself in?

Angelique Gaddy-McElveen (34:05):
I love this question. I love this question because my parents are awful at basketball. Absolutely awful.

Alan Babbitt (34:15):
Don't listen, dad, don't listen just ...

Angelique Gaddy-McElveen (34:16):
Right, don't listen. Well, he's a football guy. I'll give him that. So my dad played football in college for a little bit, and my mom cheered in college, so they're both athletes. So they did give me the athleticism, but they did not know about basketball. And so I think that was a blessing in disguise because they just pushed me into folks who knew basketball really well. And so that's where I was able to, that tuning fork, that's when I knew this is really what I want to do. But before basketball, I played tennis and I thought that tennis was going to be my thing. I was a big fan of Venus and Serena and so they were young at the time with the beads. So I was like, "Yeah, tennis is my thing." And then I started doing tracks. So the Hershey Track meets, I loved those. But basketball just spoke a different language to me. I love the physicality of it. I love the elegance of it. I love the teamwork dynamic. Just so many different elements of the game, the sound of the basketball. I know that sounds really cheesy, but it's just something about when the rubber hits the hard way, it just sounds so good. So I started getting serious about basketball around fourth, fifth grade. My older sister played AAU basketball, but she didn't stick with it for too long. Basketball was around, but it wasn't serious. So for our family, track and football was the thing. So track for me and my brother, and then football for him. But I think I knew that I liked the game when I got geared up for it. So I'm at the YMCA and I've got the white headband on, and I've got the Allen Iverson armbands on, and I like the swag of the game. So that really spoke to me, and I got to change up my shoes every year. So something like that. But I think the swag of the game spoke to me, and that's when I got started. But then I started playing AAU in fifth grade, so that's when we started to really invest in just the skill of the game and the repetition of the game. And then by the time I got into eighth grade, eighth, ninth grade, it wasn't all I did, because I was still a two sport athlete. I did track as well, but I committed a lot of time to just knowing the game. So I watched a lot of film, which was new for kids at my age. I'm sitting at my computer, my family computer on YouTube just watching really old basketball, Pistol Pete. And I think he's awesome. So one of my favorite point guards. So I'm just watching the game. I just want to get to know the game, feel the game a bit more. And that's when I knew like, "Okay, I'm going to take this as far as I can go."

Alan Babbitt (37:11):
And reminder, I always say, and I give you credit for dropping a Pistol Pete reference, your three-point line for that man and he still is scoring in his ability to handle the basketball is just, yeah, if you having anyone listening to this, haven't heard of him, Google him. You too will not be disappointed. I could back Angelique on that.

Alan Babbitt (37:33):
And now you've come full circle. Now you are in administrative role and leading and helping others get the fullness of their experience. And you're also, as a woman in that role, and as an African American in that role, obviously traditionally it's more looked like me in these roles in athletics. And that is changing, thankfully. We're still an up work in progress. But what does it mean to you to be someone that can be looked up to by whether it's a fifth grader, come into a Hope camp that might run into you or someone, a freshman in college that comes here and goes, "Hey, I want to do what she does." And then they have that connection is made and you can help mentor them too. What's it mean for you just to have that opportunity to be... I mean, you were fortunate with your folks to have good role models of what could be done professionally, but just particularly in athletics.

Angelique Gaddy-McElveen (38:32):
Yeah, it's humbling. It's extremely humbling. I don't take this lightly. I don't take the role lightly. This is so important for not just the athletic department, but for the college. Not just for the college, but families and students. So I take this very seriously. It's humbling to be put in this position, but I also know, yeah, it's time to start making this a bit more permeated. Women in general, when I chose this route, when I was at Hope, I didn't see a lot of women uniquely when I applied to Western, their ID, Kathy Beauregard is a Hope grad, and I thought that was just the coolest thing. Okay, you at the time in Michigan, not on one hand you could count up to five of female IDs. And for one of them to be a Hope grad was like, "Okay, let's go. Let's go." I also recognized that when I was in my master's program, I was the only Black woman. I recognized that when I began working in different areas in athletics, not a lot of people looked like me, even when I was officiating. Okay, we're going to pull it over for a second. I was an official. I paid my dues after I graduated. And at the time in West Michigan or in the Greater Grand Rapids area, there were three Black women. Two, myself and Cam Sudbury went to Hope, and so she pulled me in. And then Jane Hartley was a basketball player at Michigan, so the three of us. And so just understanding that this isn't normal in athletics, but this is exciting, it's necessary, and it's good to continue to just diversify the landscape and also continue to be a role model to those young women, young men who are just aspiring to do something different. I mean, my dad's in sales and my mom's a nonprofit, and before that she was in banking. So we're talking about really known industries, it makes sense. And then when I'm talking, "Yeah, I'm looking to go into athletic administration, sport management", it's like, "Okay, so how many jobs are in that landscape?" And so just continuing to open folks' eyes to all that's in athletics and sports in general and the different avenues. And then also the world is continuing to grow and grow even more. And we're seeing already the landscape changes year over year, right, Alan? So there's always new opportunities for why this industry is just so necessary. But I know that being at Hope, this is desired. The diversity is desired. I just love talking with Tim Schoonveld and this is something he's passionate about and really wants to get right, and really wants to be a leader in. So I'm just really humbled again, to be in this position, to be a leader in this role for athletic philanthropy and to be trusted with that. And I think there's going to be a lot of good that will come from this, not because of me, but because of the trust of the institution, the trust of our ADs in our department, and the desire and the hunger from our donors, our families, our student-athletes.

Alan Babbitt (42:21):
It has been an absolute pleasure to talk with you, Angelique, today on the Hope Athletics Orange and Blue Podcast. Going to look exciting. 2024 coming up, hard to believe. Summer flies by, but it does. We get rested and then we get ready to go. So-
Angelique Gaddy-McElveen (42:39):
You got it.

Alan Babbitt (42:39):
Thank you for joining me today. And again-

Angelique Gaddy-McElveen (42:42):
Thank you.

Alan Babbitt (42:42):
We'll have another episode and a couple of weeks, but thanks everyone for listening to the Hope Athletics Orange and Blue Podcast, and have a good rest of your summer, Angelique.

Angelique Gaddy-McElveen (42:53):
Thanks so much.

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