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Men’s and Women’s Tennis Competitions
Author: The Crusader Staff Writer, Colin Sadtler
The women’s and men’s tennis teams at the Abbey started nine years ago. The teams have recently become more successful, with the men winning a conference Carolina championship last year. Coach Mike led them to a 22-17 overall record, including 10-0 in conference play. In the conference finals, they played Mount Olive for the deciding match with a thrilling win by Andy G to win it! Coach Mike has created a very successful program by figuring out how to improve the team’s effort, culture, and love for the sport. One of his most significant things is ensuring everyone is accountable for their attitude and action. He is an excellent example of how all programs should run their team.
I asked a couple of returning players who were a part of the team that won conference Carolinas last year what they thought about coming into this year’s first competition. Nicholas Carry said, “I am excited about the tournament but also hoping we can keep the same effort, attitude, and team bond we had last year.” I also asked Coach Mike what he thought about it, and he said, “I love the team’s excitement, but it’s all about being able to carry everything we learned last year to make us better this year.” Last year’s team proved to the Abbey fans and the conference that Coach Mike knows how to run a program correctly.
The teams held a tournament at our tennis courts on Oct. 14 and 15. The top 6 players and all the freshmen played. The freshman are playing to get match experience and their first college tournament out of the way. I also talked to one of the freshmen, Peyton Williams, who said, “We have all been preparing for this tournament, so we know at the end of the day we have put in the work.” All the freshmen seem excited to play but nervous since it’s their first college match experience.
Coach Mike has laid out all the guidelines to be successful for the first-year students in their first tournament, so hopefully, they will use the information and apply it. I asked Preston Johnson what the most significant piece of advice the coach has given him for this weekend was, and he said, “Coach told me to always fight for every point no matter what the score is, even if I’m losing 0-6,0-5. He told me that everyone’s first tournament is hard, but either way enjoys it.”
This article was originally posted in the Fall 2022, Issue 1 of The Crusader Newspaper. Download the full issue.
Cross Country’s Best “Pack” Leader: Meet Coach Dan Finanger
Author: The Crusader Staff Writer, Presslie Mariner
Coach Dan Finanger, a nationally-recognized distance running coach, is the head cross country and track and field coach here at the Abbey. He has coached for 32 years, including five years at the Abbey. He has coached more than 5,200 athletes across 16 states and sent four athletes to the 1996 and 2000 U.S. Olympic trials.
In addition, Coach Dan coached the 1995 Boston Marathon team and served as director and head coach in international clinics in Saudi Arabia. He established his running camp, Finanger Running Adventure Camps, with the intent of promoting running in outdoor settings, such as the Cascade and the Rocky Mountains, as well as the Maine Coast.
Coach Dan began his running career when he was a sophomore in high school. He intended to play football; however, he started talking to some of the cross-country guys and decided to give the cross-country team a chance. He has loved the sport ever since! He would go on to run D3 at the Lutheran College in Iowa, where he was a part of seven conference championship teams, including four cross country and two-track. He also served as captain of the cross-country team during his senior year. He and his family moved from Minnesota to Charlotte in 2011, and he began coaching at Belmont Abbey in 2017. Some of the tactics he uses in order to ensure a healthy runner, physically, mentally, and spiritually, include combining the values of “body, mind, and soul.” Another one of his tactics includes grouping the men’s and women’s teams into “packs,” with each “pack” having a “pack leader” in order to ensure that no one is running alone, and it involves more team bonding!
Coach Dan has a firm Christian faith and believes that it provides him with direction and purpose in life. When asked about how he incorporates his faith into running, Coach Dan replied, “I believe that the freedom I receive from my running comes from God providing me that direction!”. Coach Dan has established a handshake on the team known as the “Abbey High Five.” God is the top corner of our hands, while family is at the lower corner, as well as friends and teammates. When you raise your hands above your head to do the high five, you put all of that above you. It shows our priorities and humbles us to say that others, including God, are more important.
The cross country and track teams are fortunate to have Coach Dan as their head coach. His positive attitude, optimism, and strong faith in the Lord have contributed to the overall kind and friendly environment here at the Abbey. Thank you, Coach, for all that you’ve done for us here at the Abbey, and here’s to making more memories and smiles on the team!
This article was originally posted in the Fall 2022, Issue 1 of The Crusader Newspaper. Download the full issue.
Outdoor Practice for Golf
Author: The Crusader Staff Writer, Lauren Denhard
The Belmont Abbey Men’s and Women’s golf program has added a new outdoor short-game practice facility at their off-campus office. Last year, the golf teams were able to move their office from Sacred Heart to a building off of Woodlawn Street. This move allowed the golf teams more space, including an outdoor area that could house a practice facility.
At the beginning of the fall 2022 semester, construction began at the Woodlawn office of two new practice greens, a bunker, turf, and fencing. There are two greens at the location that run at two different speeds: one faster and one slower. The greens are twenty feet by thirty feet and thirty feet by forty feet, which allows for there to be variety with practice. Also, there is a bunker where players can work on their sand and play with targets at various distances. Finally, the exterior of the greens is lined with artificial turf that varies in thickness.
The area around the building is lined by fencing and mulch, which enhances the beauty of the area. There will be customized banners added with the Belmont Abbey Golf team logo.
The golf teams are continuing to utilize local golf courses as well as use the outdoor practice facility. This transition has allowed the players to be able to practice at convenient times as well as have a shorter commute to practice. The facility is open six days a week, which allows for more consistent practice.
Finally, the team can practice at this location in all weather conditions. In addition to the outdoor facility, the teams have an indoor hitting area with a Flight Scope launch monitor. The men’s and women’s teams have several events this semester from September through October, and the new practice facility will help with the success of the team.
This article was originally posted in the Fall 2022, Issue 1 of The Crusader Newspaper. Download the full issue.
Belmont Abbey College Names Recipient of 2023 Benedict Leadership Award
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – Belmont, N.C. (February 27, 2023) – The Benedict Leadership Institute at Belmont Abbey College is thrilled to recognize Nina Shea as the recipient of the 2023 Benedict Leadership Award. This award highlights the incredible achievements of men and women whose lives reflect the heroic leadership of St. Benedict.
Belmont Abbey College founded the Benedict Leadership Institute in 2016 to develop Catholic leaders and inspire them to transform society in light of their faith. Mrs. Shea is the sixth recipient of the Benedict Leadership Award and has been a human rights lawyer for over 30 years. She works extensively for the advancement of individual religious freedom and other human rights in US foreign policy as religious freedom confronts an ascendant Islamic extremism, and other authoritarian regimes. She advocates in defense of those persecuted for their religious beliefs and identities and advocates on behalf of diplomatic measures in order to end religious repression and violence abroad, whether from state actors or extremist groups.
Mrs. Shea was appointed by the US House of Representatives to serve as a commissioner on the US Commission on International Religious Freedom seven times from 1999 to 2012. During the Soviet era, Mrs. Shea’s first client before the United Nation’s was Soviet Nobel Peace Laureate Andrei Sakharov. Since then, she has been appointed as a US delegate to the United Nation’s main human rights body by both Republican and Democratic administrations. She also served as a member of the Clinton administration’s Advisory Committee on Religious Freedom Abroad. In 2009, she was appointed to serve as a member of the US National Commission to UNESCO.
Mrs. Shea lead the effort of building grassroot support for the adoption of the International Religious Freedom Act (1998). For seven years ending in 2005, she helped organize and lead a coalition of churches and religious groups that worked to end a religious war against non-Muslims and dissident Muslims in southern Sudan. In 2014, she initiated and helped lead a coalition of hundreds of prominent American religious leaders to issue The Pledge of Solidarity for Persecuted Iraqi, Syrian and Egyptian Christians and Other Minorities, which was released by a bipartisan congressional panel on May 7, 2014. In summer 2014, she met with Pope Francis to discuss the persecution of Christians in the Middle East.
At Hudson, she has organized conferences for Nigerian schoolgirls and others who survived Boko Haram attacks, Christian converts formerly imprisoned in Iran, Coptic bishops from Egypt, Catholic bishops from China and the Gulf, Muslim scholars, and many others. Mrs. Shea advocates on behalf of a broad range of persecuted religious minorities around the world. For such work, she was honored by the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community USA with the Community’s inaugural “Ahmadiyya Muslim Humanitarian Award.”
She has authored or edited four widely acclaimed reports on Saudi state educational materials that promote extremist views and in 2011 had an opportunity to travel to Saudi Arabia and speak directly about her findings with the ministers of Education, Justice and Islamic Affairs. Her reports include: Ten Years On: Saudi Arabia’s Textbooks Still Promote Religious Violence (2011), Update: Saudi Arabia’s Curriculum of Intolerance (2008), Saudi Arabia’s Curriculum of Intolerance (2006), and Saudi Publications on Hate Ideology Invade American Mosques (2005), all of which translated and analyzed Saudi governmental publications that teach hatred and violence against the religious “other.”
She is the co-author of Silenced: How Apostasy & Blasphemy Codes are Choking Freedom Worldwide, with a foreword by Kyai Haji Abdurrahman Wahid, the former President of Indonesia and head of Nahdlatul Ulama, the world’s largest Muslim organization (Oxford University Press, 2011). Her most recent book, which she also co-authored, is Persecuted: The Global Assault on Christians (Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2013). She regularly presents testimony before Congress, delivers public lectures, organizes briefings and conferences, and writes frequently on religious freedom issues in leading publications.
For the ten years prior to joining Hudson, Mrs. Shea worked at Freedom House, where she directed the Center for Religious Freedom, an entity which she had helped found in 1986 as the Puebla Institute.
Mrs. Shea is a member of the bar of the District of Columbia. She is a graduate of Smith College, and American University’s Washington College of Law.
Press inquiries can contact Rolando Rivas, AVP of Marketing and Communications, at rolandorivas@bac.edu. For information about the Benedict Leadership Institute, visit https://benedictleadershipinstitute.org/.
