Cooper Union Wins

Cooper Union Wins

We hope everybody’s enjoying a productive and intellectual summer. We know that our scholars are all around the world sharing their knowledge, learning from the best, and gaining tremendous experience that will help them in the future. The study-abroad program that Dean Simon Ben-Avi has helped create and enhanced has benefitted so many of our students. We have students in Iceland, Spain, Germany, Ghana, and several other countries. With respect to our athletic program, we have heard from several of our scholar athletes abroad who will be training at Cape Cod.

We should thank Professor Wolf for offering the Physics E&M course this summer. Professor Wolf spends more hours per student when he not only teaches, but tutors, consults with, and guides each student through the class. Physics is a difficult course, and Professor Wolf makes every effort to help the students understand and have the ability to figure it out.

On Thursday, I observed part of Professor Cusack’s CS102 class. It was filled with 44 people from the class of 2015. That class is a great combination of Professor Cusack’s energy, expertise, and his willingness to get the new freshman class off to a great start at Cooper Union. You cannot disguise the level of sincerity and love for the Cooper Union that Professor Cusack possesses. Professor Cusack and Professor Lent are two of the brightest and most capable Cooper Union professors who enjoy the pressure of being lead-off hitters. They know that in the first class that Cooper Union students take, they should feel welcomed, challenged, and supported in their goals of being intellectually autonomous.

Now, let’s talk about the athletics!

Men’s Varsity Volleyball

Our men’s volleyball team has had a bumpy road to success. The players have worked so hard through criticism, tough evaluation, self evaluation, and high levels of anxiety. This team is in rarified air because of their chemistry and the chemistry of their coaches.

Last year was the first year they competed in HVMAC. They got beaten up by Yeshiva twice, during the regular season and in the finals of the playoffs. Telly and the captains had a plan. The plan was to get better with every practice and every match. They played Yeshiva twice during the regular season this year and Yeshiva won easily, but our team was getting better. Max and Jason don’t know anything about the word, “quit,” and they wouldn’t let the team think of anything but success. They played Yeshiva again in the finals of the championships. Yeshiva was winning early on, but then what our team believed in during practice started to kick in. Our players slowly and diligently started to wear down their opponents with their tenacity and their knowledge of the angles required at this tension-filled level. Andrew Tam became a player possessed, as he executed from the highest atmosphere humanly possible in volleyball. He broke the record for kills in a championship match, and in doing so, became the most valuable player in the tournament, helping Cooper Union’s men’s volleyball win their first championship. From what I’ve heard, all the players and the coaches on the team are as high up as Andrew with this victory- and their feet have yet to touch the ground. We will have twelve men’s volleyball players going to Cape Cod. And we’re sure there’ll be a lot of people wanting to join this successful crew in the future.

P.S. Whatever Andrew did to kill, Sasha blocked.

Men’s Varsity Tennis

We were on a bus going to South Carolina in March, 2010. One of the captains came up to me on the bus and said, “It’s daylight savings tonight, and we’re going to lose an hour during the trip.” I looked him straight in the eye and I said, “That hour’s time is going to be the only thing this team is going to lose this season.” I’m not always prophetic, but the team has been undefeated since-¬ winning two championships in a row. We have now won six consecutive HVMAC championships in Men’s Tennis. Our players go to these championships on the first Saturday in May, while all the other students are preparing for their finals, and they have to play against all the other players from all the other teams in the conference. There are six flights in singles, and three flights in doubles, and in the past two years, we have won 16 out of 18 flights. By winning these last two championships, we have used ten different players, so we share the wealth and the high expectations with the champions and with those who seek to be champions every year. Each player is tested during the practices in September, October, and November, as well as during the spring training week in South Carolina. Steven Seldin, Arch ‘13, won five individual championships in four years, and now his playing as a conference champion is over. Sergey Kolchinskiy, Raymond Wong, and Apoorv Kothari will continue as captains for this year’s team. The three best players at the conference- Anthony Assal, Ed Levshteyn, and Aakash Shah- all play for the Cooper Union. The team is structured with twelve members. Because of the academics and the requirements we have at Cooper Union, no one person can attend every match, but that’s what makes this team even more remarkable because we still have enough players to compete in these matches. This team will only get stronger, and the conference will then need to figure out a way to beat us. We now have several women who are interested in re-establishing our dynamic women’s tennis team. The players have been working since May to get themselves ready for the fall.

Cape Cod

We’re renting 12 houses for the scholar athletes and the coaches. The teams attending Cape Cod will be Men’s Soccer (we also have women on the team!) Men’s and Women’s Tennis, Men’s and Women’s Volleyball, and Men’s and Women’s Basketball. For some reason, our Cross Country guys aren’t coming. Cape Cod is where we formulate and connect all the ideas and planning for the upcoming season. All of our coaches are either Cooper Union graduates, or they are friends who appreciate what it takes to be a Cooper Union person. Cooper Union students are the greatest in the world, and they know that they will have this limited time to digest the work they need on their team and their sport. The players know that their commitments are prioritized. Academics, their fellow students, and the commitment to the academe and the Cooper Union come first. Their relationships with their professors are more important than their associations with their teammates. We approach all these sports with a professor-to-student approach. Cape Cod is the only place during the chronological year for the scholar-athletes when they only have to think about athletics and representing the Cooper Union. We prepare them, and they prepare us, because when they put on that Cooper Union uniform, there is a true sense of pride, knowing that the pure amateurism is at its best. It’s a great feeling when you can see all of the athletes recognized and appreciate what they’re doing, knowing that collectively they represent 10% of the student body, and have a collective GPA of over 3.3. Now we hope that whoever is reading this email globally is still with us, because we want to update you with one final issue. Yoon Shin, Alison Acevedo, and Alice Yang have been working all summer in the office, and one of the things we’re doing is updating our athletics website: cooperathletics.com . Jeff Castellano, and Professor Cusack are helping our office personnel.

Thanks for all your support and interest in our scholar-athletes and endeavors,

Thanks and C.U Later,

Dean Baker