Alan Babbitt [00:00:05] Welcome to another episode of the Hope Athletics Orange and Blue Podcast. My name is Alan Babbitt. I'm the sports information director here at Hope College, where we believe intercollegiate sport is a powerful vehicle for education and personal development. Mission of Hope Athletics is to provide and promote programs defined by academic success, competitive excellence, and transformational experiences. Monthly conversations with members of the Orange and Blue family. Spotlight their experience with the Hope Athletics mission. And since it's December, we want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas. Coming up as well in an exciting time and just a reason for the season. Merry Christmas, everyone, and glad to be with today Caroline Curnutt, an outstanding lacrosse defender and much more here at Hope College, a senior elementary education major as well. Welcome to the Hope Athletics Orange and Blue Podcast, Caroline.

Caroline Curnutt [00:01:02] Hi, thank you so much for having me.

Alan Babbitt [00:01:04] Well, I obviously I've watched you and your team play for several years now. So I I feel like I know a little bit about you, but I know a lot of people may not necessarily know that much about you. So let's start by where you grew up. We'll start with your kind of your childhood path here to Hope College. Tell us where you grew up and a little bit about your life there.

Caroline Curnutt [00:01:27] Yes. So I'm from Fishers, Indiana, just a little under four hours from Hope, which has been a sweet distance. I grew up with my parents and then I have a younger brother, Joey, and a younger sister, Natalie, who is actually coming to Hope next year to play lacrosse. So I'm super excited about that. But I have grown up in Fishers and got to go to the same Christian school kindergarten through 12th grade. So grew up playing soccer in lacrosse there.

Alan Babbitt [00:01:57] Obviously I have to ask since it's Christmas time, what are some of your memories from Fisher's Indiana and and Christmas time with your family?

Caroline Curnutt [00:02:05] Oh yes. I love spending Christmas Eve with my family. We would always go to church with some family friends and come back. And one thing that my family always does is the first snow. We always watch the same movie. It's called Prepped Landing. It is not heard of by too many people, but that is a near and dear tradition in my family. And so has been fun to do with people I've lived with at college while I've been away from home. But that's a sweet one for my family.

Alan Babbitt [00:02:36] That's awesome. How mportant has your family been in shaping you?

Caroline Curnutt [00:02:40] Yeah, so important in so many ways. I think two of the ways that come to mind is the way that my parents have shaped me in my faith and as a leader. Just getting to grow up in a family of faith has just given me a really strong foundation for all areas of my life. And to be able to learn from my parents in that way and being involved in church with them was so huge for me. And both my parents are incredible leaders in really different ways from each other. And so I just felt like I learned so much from them growing up that I get to see come out in myself as I'm in college and in a new environment. Getting to see the way that my dad leads with a lot of grace and learning to lead in that way. And my mom is like an organized powerhouse and getting to see some qualities of that come out in myself. As I do school and lacrosse has been sweet to know that they both have been really influential in my life in those ways.

Alan Babbitt [00:03:35] You talked about the sports you played. When did you first pick up a lacrosse stick?

Caroline Curnutt [00:03:40] So I started playing lacrosse in sixth grade. There was a girl in my sixth grade class who brought a lacrosse stick to recess, and I had never seen one before and started playing around. And I'm really not sure what drew me to it. We didn't have a middle school lacrosse team at my school, but for some reason my friends and I decided that we wanted to have one, so my sixth grade year, me and my friends and some of my soccer teammates got together. Our P and health teacher was willing to coach our team, and I played my first season of lacrosse.

Alan Babbitt [00:04:14] Awesome. What did you what what what grabbed you about the game as you played it and obviously we're motivated to help really kind of get a team together?

Caroline Curnutt [00:04:23] Honestly, when I think back, I don't know what drew me to it. I was actually a dancer for a lot of my life growing up. And so before middle school, my mom always said like she didn't consider me like a very athletic person, which is funny to just watch myself grow into that through middle school and into high school. And I think truly, like what drew me deep into the game was like having a coach at my school and then in club that summer who really like saw potential in me and was willing to call that out. I think as a 12-year-old, I was really encouraged that somebody saw that I could be a great defender and call out those qualities in me and wanted to help me grow. And I think that's what really helped the sport take root and have me eventually grow into really loving it for myself.

Alan Babbitt [00:05:09] And obviously being a defender, that can be sometimes a less than glamorous position, especially when you're on a high scoring team, but obviously a critical role. What is it about playing defender that you found really suited you and was something that you could really excel at?

Caroline Curnutt [00:05:26] Yeah, I love the IQ and the grit that comes with playing defense. I think it has been so fun, especially in college to get to have a coaching staff that wants to be creative on defense and figure out what kind of defense we can play against different teams and getting to be in that position where I can use my understanding of the game to adapt and make changes and work as a defensive unit and work to lead that unit to make the changes we need to be successful is really awesome. So I love that part of it. And I think there's so much determination and grit that comes from having high-powered attackers screaming at you for a whole game. And so getting to just continue to build like strength and mental toughness to take those on really excites me. And so yeah, I played midfield in high school and was super excited to make a transition to defense in college because it's truly my favorite spot on the field to be.

Alan Babbitt [00:06:22] Or you talked about the dance. Are there some things that have carried over from dance to help you on the cross field? I mean you you have to be nimble and flexible, I would imagine, with defense. Defenders are trying to fake you out. Has any of that carried over from your eyes to help you when you're out on the lacrosse field?

Caroline Curnutt [00:06:41] Honestly, I think something that I've recognized about myself is that I stopped dancing when I was in eighth grade. And that's when I got really serious about soccer and lacrosse. And I think a transition that I saw myself when I was a dancer was I did it because I enjoyed it, but I didn't have like too much like determination or discipline. And so when I look back on that experience and think about my experience with sports in high school, I think I see a huge shift in honestly, like who I am as an athlete and in person of being able to be in a new space of athletics and being like, I really care about being the best that I can be and putting in the work and putting in the hours. And so I feel like that was like a huge transition in my life where I did something that I'd done for a lot of years, but moved into something I truly cared about and could really be committed to. And so I think that's really how I think about that experience.

Alan Babbitt [00:07:31] You've obviously been a part being one that started a helped start a team from the ground up. And the the sport of lacrosse has been catching on in America and then especially on the women's side. What when you think back to sixth grade and then to now, what do you see, what do you think about when you think about how far the women's game has come?

Caroline Curnutt [00:07:51] Yeah, that's such a great question. I think lacrosse is such an awesome opportunity for girls who are athletic to step into a new space to learn a new skill. And for lacrosse to be, I think it's a sport that transfers really well from other sports. I went to a pretty small high school. There were about 120 kids in my graduating class. And so my high school team was made up of girls from my soccer team or girls from the basketball team. And something I loved about my role was getting to bring those girls on and use the strengths that they brought from other sports to be successful in a sport that is new and emerging. And because of that, there I think that there's so many more collegiate opportunities for girls. And so I think it's so unique for different athletes to find lacrosse to try it out, to really find a love for it and to watch teammates or on honestly other girls from Indiana move from being maybe a serious soccer basketball player to really find a love for lacrosse and now have an opportunity in college to play collegiately because they tried something new and were really successful at it. I think is so unique and just opens a lot of doors. Especially girls from Indiana attending schools where they can get paid to go to school. I think it's awesome for girls in general to have an opportunity for education that's created through athletics and especially in a sport like lacrosse.

Alan Babbitt [00:09:15] And obviously the sport helped lead you here to Hope College. Take me back. When did you first learn about Hope College and meet the coaching staff.? What do you recall about your recruiting experience?

Caroline Curnutt [00:09:27] Yeah, so I being from Indiana, I hadn't heard of Hope growing up, but I was coming up to Michigan to visit some family the summer after my fresh year of high school, actually. And my neighbor recommended that I stop by Hope on my way up and check it out. And so I figured I would. I signed up for a tour and on the like sign up for a tour, you can check a box to meet with an athletic coach. And being 14 or 15 years old, I didn't know much about look rooting process. So I checked the box and showed up to my first college ever and got to meet Coach Pieri. And she took me around campus. And I remember being so like so excited about hope and so excited and really loving getting to talk with Coach and leaving my tour, wondering like, hey, am I really excited about hope or am I just really excited about college? Like this is my first visit, I don't know what to make of it. But over the next couple of years, my high school experience, I spent a lot of time thinking about what kind of school I wanted to go to. And I knew that the things that were important to me is I wanted to be a school where faith was a part of my experience. I wanted to be a school that had academic excellence and I wanted to go to a small school. And so I mean, hope, a dream race for all of those things. And so just as I navigated the recruiting process and figuring out which of those things were most important to me and what level lacrosse I wanted to play. Coach Pieri was a huge part of continuing to just speak into my life through that. Being so encouraging to me as I grew as an athlete. I had opportunities to play on the club team that she coaches. So just getting to know her coaching style. And at the end of the day, I found that the culture of Hope Lacrosse was one that I wanted to be a part of. And I knew that coming to the school, I was gonna have a chance to have great academic experience and also have faith be a part of my experience. And so took me a long time to figure out what I wanted, but I committed following my senior year of high school and by that point it was such an easy choice to know that this was gonna be the fit for me.  think something that's been really cool to experience is my class is a pretty big class. There are eight or nine of us in our class and to see us all grow from freshmen into now seniors has been really awesome to watch the program grow with us and to start as freshmen who all really excelled on our high school teams and now being in a new environment and learning what it looks like to be confident players when a lot of us are playing right off the bat, has been cool to watch, like us learn together. How do we play at a collegiate level? And then moving from there, how do we emerge as leaders on our team and take things to the next level? And so coming in, I was really blessed with a group of girls who wanted to come in and work hard and push each other to be better. And so I think that has been a contagious culture that has continued to grow through our four years. And so I think the hunger and desire that this group has brought in and has taught me in a lot of ways, has continued to just deepen the commitment that our group has to excellence and to one another in a way that's really helped us grow.

Alan Babbitt [00:14:02] Talk about the coaching staff. Obviously, Coach Pieri and then Coach Pruszynski as well. You know, these past three years. What have they done to help draw the, you know, the best, not obviously culture, but also best product out on the field with the way you guys at the high level you're competing?

Caroline Curnutt [00:14:19] Yeah, I would say for me personally, both of them have been so influential and helping me develop my mental game and being able to step onto the field as a player who knows my strengths and can play with confidence. I think that's a huge jump for a lot of college athletes to make coming out of high school. And to have two coaches who really have my back and are able to patiently and consistently share with me the things that I'm good at, the things that they see in me, the ways that they want to develop me, has been so great. Especially I take the draw in lacrosse. And for me, that's a huge mental game of being like, we have to be in possession and we have to do it well. And that's something that both of my coaches have been so faithful and consistent in not only growing me in that skill, but being able to talk me through what it looks like to walk out on the field with confidence, to walk out on the field with attitude knowing that I've worked and trained to be successful. And I know without their influence and their reminders, I would be a totally different athlete. So I've been really grateful for just their consistent building up and confidence that they've grown in me.


Alan Babbitt [00:15:35] Is education something you knew that you wanted to do coming to college, or is that something you discovered here during your journey at Hope


Caroline Curnutt [00:15:42] Yes. So I came into hope. When I was looking at hope, I wanted to study neuroscience. And so that was something that was actually really big in getting me to hope was learning about the neuroscience program. And I got to go to some great academic days and sessions and hear great things about that. But I wanted to pursue neuroscience because I loved learning about how people learned and the brain. I had experiences in high school working with students with disabilities and tutoring them. And so understanding what it looks like to help these students be successful. I thought I wanted to take a neuroscience approach too. But coming to school, I learned that what you do a lot with a neuroscience degree is you either go into research or you go to med school. And I really wanted to be in a field where I was working with people in a way that I was applying what I was learning about the brain. And so I spent some time my freshman year taking both education and social work classes and ended up really loving my education work. And so I've been in the program since then and can't cannot imagine doing anything else with my career. It's been a fantastic experience. And I'm student teaching right now. So it's just been awesome to find that passionate hope and be part of a department that is so passionate about education and has taught me so much about what it looks like to teach well.

Alan Babbitt [00:17:01] The balance you talked about obviously with your lacrosse skills, but also your educational pursuits and your faith pursuits. And then there's just normal hanging out with friends and life that's the other interests that you have. What have you learned about balancing all the demands and the polls that you have on you that have helped you kind of find a path that, you know, it you're being productive, but also enjoying yourself as well?

Caroline Curnutt [00:17:27] I think the biggest thing that I've learned is how to make my own priorities. I think there are so many voices around me in my life coming from professors on the academic side or my coaches or lacrosse or my friends saying what should be most important in my life. And so being able to discern for myself, like especially in a season where I'm at school teaching all day and then trying to go to practice or lift if I can and planning lessons for a lot of hours, figuring out like what's most important to me. And so in this season, it's been awesome to say, like, okay, some people who'd be in my position would be like, I need to be running and working out every day. And like my physical fitness is the number one thing, or my student teaching is my number one thing because it's my career. And so for me to be able to sit down and evaluate that like, all right, where I am right now, the people in my life are the most important thing in my life. And knowing that that is my priority to pour into my teammates, to pour in the people around me, to pour in this to the students that I'm teaching, I think has given me a lot of peace in the season, knowing that there's so many things on my plates and so many demands. And when I can put that in order and understand that if I miss a run today because my teammate wanted to go for a walk and talk about how they're doing, that's an easy choice for me to make. I think the same thing goes for having faith be a huge part of my life. Knowing that that's a priority for me has I think taken like a lot of worry off of my plate to know that. When I wake up in the morning, like I will be cutting out time to spend time praying and being in scripture. And if that means I'm not getting a workout in that morning, like that's okay because I know it's most important to me.

Alan Babbitt [00:19:12] So talk about some of the other experiences that you've had, other things that you've done on campus that have helped you grow as a person. I know you went on a seed trip and there are other things you've done. Just talk about some of the things and how they've really made an impact on you.

Caroline Curnutt [00:19:28] Yes. So yes, I did get to go on a SEED trip this past summer. I went to Zambia. I was with a group of athletes where I had met two people on my team before. And other than that, did not know anyone on my team going into this trip. But I was so excited because I'd heard from my teammates and other athletes the way that SEED trips were just transformational experiences. And getting to go to Zambia with this group was incredible because I got to see so many people from so many different walks of faith come into a space where we all were excited and interested, interested in learning more about what life with God looked like. And so growing into that space, I was able to grow in my own faith and leadership in so many ways. And I was also really reminded that like people at Hope want to know God. And like s their faith and hearing from other athletes who came to hope and have found faith or came to hope interested in faith, but haven't gotten to have an experience with it yet. And the SEED trip being their first experience with it was such a great reminder to me to lead in that way on my team, to be reminded that the girls that I'm surrounded with want to get better at lacrosse and want to grow as friends, but also want to grow in faith. And so it was so cool to just watch each day the growth that our team went through. And to be able to experience that all together and talk about it and watch people who had no interest in faith at all decide they wanted to leave the trip, like following God was incredible. I think reminded me a lot about what it looks like to lead with God coming back to campus. And be able to have those experiences on my team too, of going through experiences together and coming out, knowing each other more and knowing God more. And so I think that's something that has set me up to be really excited for my senior year and continue to grow in that way. Another way I've gotten to be involved on campus is I'm involved with an organization called Met by   Love. And so my freshman year, I was part of a group of students that started this group that just worships together on Monday nights in the basement of the chapel. And that has been a huge way that I've learned a lot of leadership skills through that and lacrosse to be put in a setting where I'm learning how to lead in a new environment and a group of people and doing things well and falling short and learning what it looks like to continue to walk with the team towards a common goal.

Alan Babbitt [00:22:09] You talked about your student teaching. Are you graduating then in May? What's next for you after graduation?

Caroline Curnutt [00:22:18] Yes. So I'll be student teaching through January and then I'll take some classes and graduate in May. I'm hoping to stick around the Holland and Grand Rapids area after I graduate. I'm super passionate about Christian education. And so I'll be applying to a couple of schools in the area and not in my first year of teaching because I need a work life balance, but after that I also hope to coach lacrosse. It's been a huge part of my life. So to be able to give back in that way would be huge for me. So I'm excited to see how that all comes together in the spring.

Alan Babbitt [00:22:52] I always like to end with asking my everyone here on the Orange and Blue Podcast about,was it long ago you were that wide-eyed freshman coming in trying to decide is Hope College the right place for me? And then starting that first day on campus. If you were to, what advice would you give to someone that might be listening that's maybe considering hope or a high school senior about hope college and how to find the place that's right for you to grow, you know, personally and in your faith you and in your sport? What advice would you give to someone like that?

Caroline Curnutt [00:23:29] That's a great question. First I would say that coming hope is one of the best decisions I've made in my life. I love being here. I am on a team that grows me every single day. I have coaches who believe in me. I have professors who inspire me as professional. And I've truly found the people who will be my friends for the rest of my life. And so hope has been so impactful and transformational in my own life. And I think thinking back to myself in high school, the advice that I would give me, the advice that I would give other people looking for hope or looking for where they want to go to school, is go to a place where people deeply desire to be, where people love where they're at and want to pour into the space that they're in. I think that's something that makes Hope incredible is that everyone I talk to is so passionate about this place. And whether it's in the classroom or especially on a team, when you have a group of people who really care to be where they are and really care and growing it, not only for themselves, but for the next group of people to come in behind them, you're gonna be in a place that is transformational. And so talking to coaches and talking to girls on teams and seeing like, are they passionate about where they are? And do they care to dig in and make a difference where they are? I think that's huge in college experience. And I've been really grateful to experience that here.

Alan Babbitt [00:24:56] Well, awesome. It's been great to spend this time with you, Caroline. Thank you for sharing your Hope story and wish you and your family a Merry Christmas and everyone listening to this on the Orange or Blue Podcast a Merry Christmas as well. If you want to learn more about Hope College Athletics, just go to athletics.hope.ed you and we'll look forward to watching you on the lacrosse field this spring, Caroline.

Caroline Curnutt [00:25:23] Thank you so much.