3…2…1…Family!
by Roman Kulp
In the Click Center, a group of students huddles up at the end of a tiring practice. Just a little earlier, while the sun began to dip in the evening sky and most Landmark students were settling into their rooms before dinner, the LMC basketball team filed into the Click Center gym.
This is the place where family is formed.
Team Coach Eric Matte believes that “sports are incredibly important to Landmark in terms of helping students with their whole [person].” At a college where all students learn and cope in unique and different ways, Matte says that “sports and competitiveness bring out emotions and [that leads to] learning how to control emotional well-being under competitive duress.”
Additionally, he believes that sports, and more specifically team sports, teach teamwork in a way nothing else really does. “In the classrooms everybody’s out for their own. Th
ey write their own paper; they do their own test. [On the court] it’s about how can we put our strengths together to be the best team possible and that means also compensating for our weaknesses.”
Playing basketball is my favorite thing to do, the best part of my day, every day” said Spencer Morgan, a second semester student from Ann Arbor, Michigan. Spencer has been playing since he was ten. “When you get that high energy, that roller coaster of emotions, it’s really fun.”
“We are a very loud team. I think that’s what we pride ourselves on. And this is really fun to be a part of,” Morgan said, “sometimes on campus I’ll be walking around, and people are just like ‘you’re crazy’ but from a player’s perspective it’s fun to be a part of.”
Another second semester student, Jeremiah Miller, who comes from Clinton, Maryland, has played basketball from the age of five. He offered his own opinion on basketball at Landmark, saying “It’s a challenge cause everybody’s at different skill levels,” adding that, “It’s very creative playing with the team.”
The wide range in experience and ability within the team is something also unique to Landmark. What all the players have in common is a love for the sport. The team is always open to new players of any level of skill so long as they are dedicated to the team.
“You come here, everybody has LDs, [everybody] deals with it differently, but it’s okay to be social. Everybody here is friendly” said Miller.
Originally published in Spring 2020, Volume 1, Issue 3