Mother's Day and Graduation Celebration -- SUNDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

Mother's Day and Commencement

Today is Mother's Day.  Yesterday was UofL's Commencement.  These are really unconnected events, but they both are a reason for us to stop, take a step back, and do some reflection.

In the past, I have posted about the need to understand the diversity of what the role of "mother" is in our society.  Regardless of your thoughts on what constitutes "motherhood", it's good to take a step back and honor those who fill that role.

Today, we're celebrating Mother's Day, and in the attitude of celebration and honoring, it's a good time to celebrate the accomplishment of 3,000+ now-former UofL students.

Yesterday was UofL's commencement and more than 3,000 students crossed the stage, in various ceremonies, and all of them will be going on to hopefully bigger and better things.  For some, that will involve more education, while for others, it will involve venturing out into the "real" world.

Here at Cardinal Couple, we tend to focus on the women that compete for UofL varsity athletics, and
there were a number of those that were amongst those 3,000+.  We celebrate "Senior Day"'s and we tend to think of those student athletes "graduating" at that point, but it's far from the case academically.  Some student-athletes have more coursework to do, and this is particularly relevant when celebrating a Senior Day for, say, Volleyball, in November.  Those student athletes are still finishing out the fall semester, and a number of them will be enrolled in the spring semester classes as well.  Maggie DeJong, for example, participated in UofL's commencement yesterday after being honored by UofL Volleyball's Senior Day back in November.  (The other volleyball seniors, Tess Clark, Gabbie Wiley, and Colene Coussens, all graduated in December)  On the other hand, some student-athletes, whether through hard work, or having a year of red-shirting in their experience, may have already "graduated" with their undergraduate degree, and be working on a graduate program.

Tia Gibbs, that many of us remember from Women's Basketball, was granted a rare 6th year of eligibility by the NCAA due to injuries, and consequently was nearly finished with her Master's degree by the time she finished her last semester.

So congratulations to all of newly minted graduates of the University of Louisville, student-athlete and non alike.

Your achievements in your field of study are something that will remain with you as you go through life. You have "the paper", you have the knowledge. Go forth and make a difference in whatever your choosing is after college.

Track&Field and other

A quick catch up on athletics events...

Track&Field finished up the ACC Outdoor Championships.  The Men finished in 4th place, while the
Women closed out a 5th place finish.  These represent best ever finishes for the Track&Field teams in the ACC championships.

Baseball won game two of the weekend series against Pitt, 6-5.  Kelly Dickey pointed out that this is the 4th straight come-from-behind win for the Cardinals, which while technically true, does include a come-from-behind win over Cincinnati that they won 24-6, so that stat may not have the same sort of impact that you might normally think.

What will have more impact is that the Cards have climbed 23 spots in the RPI to #26 in less than 2 weeks.  With a few more wins, it's conceivable that UofL will climb into NCAA Regional hosting contention.

Rowing takes part in the ACC Championships today. As of this writing, the Cards were capturing seconds and thirds in their preliminary heats...always tough Virginia dominating everything in the boats so far.

Cardinal Couple Radio Hour

Paulie using some of those "nickles changed into quarters" to
invest in his picks from Handicapping Heroes. The Orange Crush!

OK, now that we're done celebrating, we can bring you some bad news.  The knuckleheads were back on the air yesterday...

No, in all seriousness, even CCRH was able to celebrate some yesterday with the return of Case Hoskins to our midst.  Recovery from tearing his Achilles tendon continues, but he is able to get out and about some, wearing a boot on his foot, and we were happy to have him, and his insights, back in the studio.  Jared was, according to Paulie, "turning nickles into quarters", which really makes me want to go do my banking with Mr. Anderson.

If you missed the show yesterday, you can check it out at least what was able to be salvaged of it. The Gremlins living in the WCHQ Studios ate 42 minutes of the broadcast yesterday:

https://www.facebook.com/WCHQfm/videos/2031250936898179/

It was good fun, and covered a variety of material.  Do check it out.

--
JMcA