Issuu

ASCEND The Climb Never Ends

Cover by Chris Burkard / Verb Photo

TABLE OF

ASCEND 2

The Leadoff

Return to Flight

Kōshien

Luke Both Ways

Flow State

Saddles and Skis

Signs to the Summit

Cycling as Ceremony

Heavy Lifting

Quest for Greatness

Photo by Carl Zoch / Red Bull Content Pool

CONTENTS Hurdling Expectations

Poise Under Pressure

Trending on the Track

Framing Northern Latitudes

102

Rules to Run By

Behind the Arc

110

Grasp for Meaning

Echoes of the Stick

120

New Face of the 1500

84 3

Photo by Eric Evans

TEAM Editors-in-Chief Brianna Carrasquillo Ruby Wool Director Ella Durchin Editors Jay Bramhall Kate Cooney Maya McLeroy Becca Weinberg Writers Pierce Baugh V Zach Carver Lily Crane Malya Fass Sophie Fowler Hanna Kalan Grace Mangali Gabriella Sgro Arwen Thomas Eli Thomas PR and Advertising Manager Alexandra Gillette Photo Editors Lucas Carroll Miles Cull Photographers Shane Balian Elise Haverland Ally Thomas Design Editors Gabriela Martinez Contreras Sofia Lentz Designers David Hammel M. McFetridge Avery Wachowiak Adviser Ivan Miller 5

THE

LEADOFF

By Ruby Wool Photo by Lucas Carroll

grew up in the heart of New York City, far away from Oregon’s Cascade Range and endless conifers. My outdoor spaces were often patched between subway stops and high-rise apartments, including my first baseball diamond, which happened to be on the rooftop of a Hudson River pier. Behind the backstop, the Empire State Building sparkled in the sun and twinkled at dusk. From the outfield, the sounds of screeching sirens and honking yellow taxis rose from the streets below. Amidst a bustling metropolis, I stood at second base with a circular scissor cutout in the back of my cap for my ponytail, ready to make the next play. I didn’t know it then, but baseball fields would help raise me. The precise white baselines and manicured pitcher’s mounds provided solace from the contrasting chaos. The game brought me fully into the present; I found purpose and power in myself. From T-Ball to All-Stars to middle school baseball, I committed to the game I loved, unapologetically claiming a space that wasn’t necessarily made for me. My mom told me to fully embrace my fearless femininity when I stepped out of the dugout. I wasn’t flashy by any means, but my ponytail was an eye-catching indication that I was different from the rest of the roster. Eventually, the routine two-stop subway ride from my six-floor walkup to the rooftop diamond gave way to overnight flights across time zones to new continents. I began transforming foreign places into familiar playing fields and turning wins and losses into stories that would chronicle my personal journey. I came to find out that baseball was merely an entry-level introduction to the woman, athlete, and storyteller I would later become. These self-discoveries materialized not from the activities themselves but from the people and places associated with each athletic endeavor. I quickly learned that the world was far larger than the teammates I shared the bench with, or even America’s most populous city. We hope Ascend will, similarly, open our audience to new perspectives and fresh ideas through sports. In its inaugural edition, our stories will serve as a compass, guiding readers through both the relatable

and unknown, and perhaps into deeper self-discovery. Ascend aims to create something that captures the ethos that sports have on the human spirit. By interacting with other people’s stories, we can make sense of our own. Ascend questions what it means to be an athlete while illuminating how sports and outdoor pursuits bring out the best of humanity and create community across cultures. My athletic adventures often provided my most formative education, even after I moved from New York to Vermont. There, I added more sports — soccer, hockey, tennis, hiking — to my portfolio. I didn’t just need a classroom or textbooks to remain curious about the world. I also needed an outlet. Sports transported me to new landscapes where I could engage, ask questions, and formulate opinions all while in a state of motion. The education picked up speed when I enrolled at the University of Oregon. I made the club soccer team as a freshman, and on one of our first road trips we traveled north to a tournament. The views of Mount Hood revealed a scale that made Oregon look like Vermont on steroids. At the end of my first year, I found myself on a plane heading toward the Middle East for the Maccabiah Games, commonly referred to as the “Jewish Olympics.” Competing against high-level international athletes, I made it to the finals of my bracket, where I coincidentally met an Oregon varsity tennis player. I lost soundly, but we later celebrated together by devouring shawarma wrapped in delicate pita on the streets of Jerusalem. Oceans away from Oregon, I was immersed in my Jewish identity alongside a fellow classmate and competitor. I brought home a silver medal from the Games, but it was the stories — of my travels, of the connections made — that become my most treasured souvenirs. While many Olympians tattoo the rings on their backs, these memories will be ingrained in me forever. Sports and the outdoors can take us far away from the first field we’ve played on. They can also return us to our roots. Reading Ascend is a reflective exercise. Its stories will recall where we all came from and spur us to where we want to go. For me, no matter where I go, I always return to where I stood confidently and composed, in the infield of that rooftop diamond.

KOSHIEN Photographer Kai Kanzer Turns His Lens On Japanese Baseball By Grace Mangali

Photos by Kai Kanzer

t Hanshin Kōshien Stadium, the piercing sound of air raid sirens filled the stadium as players sprinted to home plate, bowed to their opponent, and started the game. After a four-pitch walk, Kai Kanzer watched the batter let out a deafening scream of joy, as if he had just hit a game-winning home run. At the end of the game, players gathered on the outskirts of the field to bow and cheer for their loyal fans. “They say there’s no crying in baseball, yet crying after defeat is expected in Japan,” says Kanzer. “If tears aren’t shed, it is sometimes perceived as not being dedicated or not caring enough.” Kanzer’s affinity for baseball is fueled by his family. He played catcher on his Little League team and got his first point-and-shoot camera around age 7. Kanzer photographed throughout his youth, including a road trip from New York to Colorado, stopping at stadiums along the way. Kanzer’s mother, Lynn Aliya, always told him not to fear the shutter button. Upon graduating from the University of Oregon, Kanzer landed an internship with the New York Post. He worked under chief photographer Charles Wenzelberg, who gave Kanzer the opportunity to photograph a Philadelphia Phillies vs. New York Mets game at Citi Field in Queens, New York. Wenzelberg encouraged Kanzer to treat every moment like it could be the decisive one.

Later, working with Zuma Press, Kanzer was hired to shoot the 2025 Major League Baseball World Tour game between the Chicago Cubs and Los Angeles Dodgers at the Tokyo Dome. However, he was denied entry upon arrival due to the high volume of Japanese media. Rather than return home, Kanzer took a three-hour train ride to Nishinomiya, home to the annual Kōshien high school baseball tournament. Baseball (野球), or yakyū in Japanese, was introduced by American teacher Horace Wilson in 1872. Japan’s first professional team, the Great Japan Tokyo Baseball Club, was formed in 1934, and the league followed in 1936. The transition from American baseball to a high school elimination tournament proved comforting to Kanzer. “There wasn’t one thing in specific that changed, but everything around me did,” says Kanzer. “I was surrounded by a language I couldn’t speak and signs I couldn’t read, yet baseball still made perfect sense… The energy, the rituals, the fans. It was a constant reminder for me of who I am and why I do this.”

Photo by Carl Zoch / Red Bull Content Pool

FLOW STATE Extreme Kayaker Nouria Newman Leverages Fear In Pursuit Of Adventure

By Becca Weinberg

urrounded by carefully condensed luggage bags and various colored kayaks, Nouria Newman gazed out from the back of a truck cruising along the Ecuadorian border. The airport lights of her arrival quickly faded as towering trees replaced lamp posts, and welltraveled roads morphed into dirt paths. As darkness fell, only the beaming headlights guided Newman towards her eventual destination of Cocorná, Colombia. En route to Samaná Fest, home of the Enduro Kayak World Championships, Newman arrived a few days early. Her first stop: the Caquetá River in the Amazon basin, where she explored a new landscape for days on end. Encompassed by the vibrant green leaves and acidic soil of Colombia's climate, Newman and her friends entered the country’s rainforests with two kayaks strapped to a donkey on either side. She carried in her bright red sleeping bag, waterproof dry bags, and multiple camping necessities as she traversed the remote terrain, eventually launching her kayak into the river’s murky brown water and working through its rapids. The dangerous nature of kayaking forced Newman out of the water early due to a treacherous section of the river inundated with rocks. After a multi-day expedition, she continued on to her next destination, the Putumayo River. Newman hiked into another remote section of the forest with her helmet already strapped on and paddles clinging to the protective padding on her back. She started down the Putumayo but was again forced out, this time due to pouring rain. Newman’s final run was the upper Verde River, her last stop heading north before Cocorná. Encompassed by smooth rocks, clear blue water, and the beating sun, Newman successfully ran the full river section and reflected on the near-perfect conditions in her fern-covered rainforest campsite after stepping out of the water. The tattered tarp above her had become a familiar sight as she let her clothes dry off in the reflecting heat on top of her blue kayak before hiking out. Exiting the truck after arriving in Cocorná, the expansive mountains and luscious trees carefully housed each raindrop until the eventual afternoon humidity carried them away. Far from where she started, Newman’s kayak carried her through some of Colombia’s most remote rivers. It was 1 p.m.

local time, and after a week-long, 15-hour drive, Newman was itching to get back into the water.

Massive boulders and rushing rapids do not always induce calm when paddling through them, but this is where Newman finds equilibrium: a happy balance of inner peace and heavy adrenaline. Her thrill-seeking nature dates back to her first competition years as a 5-year-old learning to paddle at her local kayak club in France’s Isère Valley. Through national races, local teams, and French training centers, Newman honed her craft for the international stage to become a freestyle and extreme kayaker. Her initial training in the French club system focused on slalom racing, the main Olympic kayaking discipline, in hopes of propelling her onto the Olympic circuit. Newman, however, turned her focus towards extreme racing and kayaking, which, as childhood friend Jules Domine suggests, “fulfilled more of her appetite for adventure.” “I think soon the [slalom] racing became quite frustrating for her, as it is sort of narrow-minded and doesn't allow for much creative expression and sort of blurs the natural connection that kayaking can enable with the rivers,” says Domine. She won her first major competition in 2013, the Ottawa XL Extreme Whitewater Kayaking Championship, and then earned a gold medal in the International Canoe Federation’s Canoe Slalom World Championships in 2014. Newman collected one accolade after another yet couldn’t escape her desire for more meaningful experiences. Although consistently placing herself in dangerous situations, she sought thrilling new adventures. “People often see [fear] as something negative,” says Newman. “I see it as a tool, and I use it to try and make the best possible decisions.” For Newman, taking on challenging rivers creates a deeper connection to the new landscapes she enters and helps her adapt to the uncontrollable aspects of extreme kayaking. It also brings her more presently into the moment, where she is solely focused on what she must do to navigate the river and survive. Whether attempting Iceland’s multi-level waterfalls,

Nouria Newman performs in the lower Indus River in the Himalayas, India.

Photo by Ali Bharmal / Red Bull Content Pool

“I also really like the way it makes me travel and the opportunities it creates to connect with local people and environments. Everyone’s curious, and, suddenly, this weird piece of plastic is a really good excuse to create a connection and learn more about this new place and new people. And sometimes, [you] learn more about yourself.” -Nouria Newman the Patagonian Triple Crown of South America’s toughest rivers, or India’s mighty Indus River on a solo expedition, Newman finds peace in the water.

Each fear-inducing experience from past expeditions built up Newman’s mental toughness and prepared her to face Salto Del Pucuno, Ecuador, in April of 2022. She arrived at the remote location with a group to scout the terrain of an unknown waterfall and waited for ideal water levels. Newman used climbing ropes to reach its base and carefully mapped out a line in its center to follow on her descent. She went through a series of breathing exercises at the top of the waterfall, picturing herself completing the descent successfully. On a rainy morning, Newman became the first woman to run a 100-foot waterfall in her kayak. While many of her expeditions involve rivers and waterfalls that no one has attempted before, she uses fear to guide her through the unknown. Newman’s desire for adventurous expeditions can be broken down by scientific research. University of Delaware physics professor Marvin Zuckerman describes a subset of people that thrive in frightening environments using his Sensation Seeking Scale. The 40-item questionnaire asks participants the amount of stimulation required to produce an exciting experience and results in four primary scales: Disinhibition, Boredom Susceptibility, Experience Seeking, and Thrill and Adventure Seeking. This unique research creates a scale of people who enjoy intense experiences to those who would rather avoid them. Zuckerman’s findings credit sensation seekers on the more thrilling end of the scale with taking new approaches to problems and innovative behaviors. His study also shows that “high sensation seekers” need higher levels of stimulation to be entertained or satisfied with an experience. The pay-off of thrill-seeking can result in a hyper-focused brain locked into the present moment and a euphoric feeling of survival due to the dangers of the activity. The build up of adrenaline, dopamine, and endorphins within the brain in the moments before the activity is followed directly by a flood of mood-boosting chemicals. Most thrill seekers search for the feeling of relief, realization, and joy for what has been accomplished. Many are also interested in controlling the risk rather than the risk itself, which involves detailed planning and translates directly to extreme sports. In a flow state, when one is so immersed in the present moment, time disappears, and individuals completely engage in the task to achieve peak performance. The key to finding a flow state is matching a person’s skill with the challenges of the task at hand. Newman’s training has prepared her to take on dangerous situations, and in return, she is continuously searching for the next big pay-off.

At Samaná Fest in 2025, the competition was coupled with a cultural event involving concerts and communal river floats to unite the local kayaking

ASCEND 18

community. One of the major purposes of the event is to advocate for the protection of the last clean and free-flowing river of Antioquia, the Samaná River. “It was very appealing to Nouria because it’s a new format of racing that highlights the fact that kayaking is a way to travel through pristine areas that are otherwise inaccessible,” says Domine, who is also the main organizer of Samaná Fest. “It also highlights the fact that rivers are freeflowing and can really connect different regions, different ecosystems, and flow for a very, very long time.” The opportunities that extreme kayaking presents to engage with different cultures is an exciting aspect of the sport for Newman. “I also really like the way it makes me travel and the opportunities it creates to connect with local people and environments,” says Newman. “Everyone’s curious, and, suddenly, this weird piece of plastic is a really good excuse to create a connection and learn more about this new place and new people. And sometimes, [you] learn more about yourself.” While competing at the Enduro Kayak World Championships on the Samaná River, Newman participated in a qualifier race in the upper part of the watershed, a marathon race in the lower part of the river, and a final race for the championship. The qualifier races last 15 minutes and determine placement for the marathon, which is a two-and-a-halfhour race. Although used to shorter kayak races, Newman won both her qualifying heat and marathon round and placed next to the top men’s kayakers in the marathon. White water rapids are measured on a scale of one through six, with Class I being small waves that are easy to navigate and Class VI being extremely difficult with a high risk of injury or death. The championship race took place in a Class V gorge, which required crucial knowledge of the rapid’s characteristics. Newman advanced through each stage with great intention and discipline. With over 70 competitors from more than 12 countries competing together throughout the week, Newman won the seven-kilometer final race in the women’s division with a time of 13:18, over a minute faster than the second-place finisher. After a successful Samaná Fest competition, Newman returned home with a deepened appreciation for the new environment she explored. While searching for her next big expedition, Newman continues to use her kayak as a vessel to experience the world and broaden her global perspective while learning more about her personal limits in the process. “I think I really like the idea that a kayak is just a great transportation means, and it can take me places that I can’t go in any other way,” says Newman. “It's a mind opener to different cultures to try to be as connected as I possibly can to the environments I’m in, and that’s what I love about the sport.”

Nouria Newman runs a waterfall in New Zealand's Tree Trunk Gorge.

Photo by Graeme Murray / Red Bull Content Pool

SIGNS TO THE SUMMIT Deaf Climbers Scott Lehmann And Shayna Unger Tackle The World’s Tallest Peaks

By Sophie Fowler Photos by Chad Unger

xiting the Goodwill parking lot with a trunk full of second-hand climbing equipment, Scott Lehmann and his two friends began their drive towards Mount Rainier. The tattered clothing, chipped ice axes, and weathered layers filled the back of his Toyota Corolla on the group’s post-college, cross-country road trip. Lehmann’s impulsive decision to hike up with no prior climbing experience led them to the base of Washington’s tallest peak with curiosity and excitement. The colorful wildflower meadows of the mountain’s landscape were quickly replaced by shimmering slopes of fresh snow as Rainier’s features guided the group’s ascent. Moving his hands quickly to form letters, Lehmann utilized his typical communication method of American Sign Language (ASL) on the mountain to converse with his group. As a deaf climber, his journey to the top involves a more planned approach than most. Standing at 14,410 feet above sea level, Rainier is the most heavily glaciated peak in the United States and offers numerous challenging routes to the top. The climb requires a high vertical elevation gain and travels over 10 miles in distance. The path to the summit requires crampons while belaying with an ice axe, which can prove difficult for beginners. Lehmann and his friends climbed up until they encountered challenges around 1,500 vertical feet from the summit, struggling to put on crampons. The recent college graduates had little choice but to descend. After returning from his road trip, Lehmann searched for

ASCEND 20

mountaineering courses, but failed to find any offered in ASL, let alone any that would provide an interpreter. He resorted to learning through YouTube, the only accessible educational resource at that time. As he started to build his mountaineering skills, his now wife, Shayna Unger, also grew interested in climbing. Today, both Lehmann and Unger are full-time mountaineers and have climbed many of the world’s tallest peaks. In 2020, they were the first all-deaf team to summit Aconcagua in South America. In 2023, they became the first deaf Americans to summit Mount Everest. About 26 hours later, Lehmann and Unger became the first deaf climbers to complete a double ascent of 8,000-meter peaks back-to-back after summiting Everests’ Lhotse Face, the fourth-highest mountain in the world. Born deaf, both Lehmann and Unger were raised in Frederick, Maryland, an hour outside of Washington D.C. Home to over 3,000 deaf and hard of hearing residents, the farm town hosts one of two Maryland School for the Deaf campuses, with over 450 students ages 3 to 21. The couple met at the school when Lehmann was 17 and Unger was 14. Growing up, Lehmann and Unger each played a variety of sports. After Unger graduated from college in 2015, the couple took a trip to Africa. Neither planned to hike a mountain, but once they got to Tanzania, they spontaneously embarked up Mount Kilimanjaro. At

Scott Lehmann and Shayna Unger at Camp 2 on Mount Everest. 21

19,341 feet, the highest mountain in Africa requires an ascent of 4,084 feet with 49% less oxygen. “Scott said, ‘Hey, well why don’t we do Mount Kilimanjaro?’ I had never climbed before so I [didn’t] know if I [could] do it,” Unger says through an ASL interpreter. “He said, ‘No, don't worry, I’ll teach you.’ I just had the attitude where I just said yes to everything.” This climb marked the couple’s first peak together and Unger’s first climb ever. After reaching the summit on November 7, 2015, the impromptu adventure kick-started a lengthy climbing career. In 2021, the couple climbed the 20,310-foot Denali in Alaska. Unger got to climb with her younger brother, Chad Unger, who is also deaf. Chad, a photographer, documented the trio’s journey as they became the first alldeaf team to reach the summit of North America’s tallest mountain. During the 13-day expedition, the group formed a bond being tethered by rope during the climb and endured below-freezing nights together in the tents. With the Alaskan summit complete, Lehmann became the first deaf individual to summit all of the 50 states’ highest points. That achievement took him nine years to complete after starting in 2012 in New Mexico. He traveled over 10,000 miles to complete the milestone. Now, Lehmann and Unger have a unique career together that they never thought was possible. Out of necessity, they learned the importance of planning and preparation through their expeditions, especially when it comes to their communication barrier. “When we’re planning an expedition, it comes with its challenges,” Lehmann says through an ASL interpreter. “There will be people on the expedition and most of them are hearing, so for us to have any sort of conversation or communication is a big challenge.” When planning a new expedition, their first step is to memorize the route, often looking it over 100 times, but knowing that the route alone isn’t enough for them. Without phones or cell service, it can be difficult to receive news on the mountain. Non-deaf climbers rely on radios to hear weather reports and important information for summiting the mountain, but Lehmann and Unger do not have that option. “We really relied on other people who would use the radio to be able to get the weather forecast for that day, or we would look from our tent at the other tents and see if their head lamps were turned on to see if they were going to summit push or not,” says Unger. They rely heavily on their Garmin inReach, a two-way messaging system through a global satellite network. With the device, they can text each other and read weather reports independently. It’s not always reliable, so Lehmann and Unger bring notepads to communicate with other climbers on the mountain, but some are unresponsive towards them. “Some people, they just said, ‘No, we don’t want to be responsible for the both of you,’” says Unger.

When working with a guide, tour group, or the general public, Unger feels that many people already have a stereotypical idea of who a deaf person is and what their needs are, so the couple is forced to overcompensate. “We have to show them our sort of resume of climbs and our experience, and we have to tell them the routes that we’ve studied before we book with them,” says Unger. Lehmann and Unger both agree that one of the most important aspects of climbing is trust, which is established by creating clear expectations and boundaries before starting a climb. If one team member gets sick and needs to go down, the whole team descends. One way to build trust is by working with a team of individuals who have already experienced expeditions together. While summiting Everest in 2023, Lehmann and Unger met twin Sherpas, Mingma Dorchi Sherpa and Mingma Tenje Sherpa. The new friends bonded quickly and developed creative ways to communicate. The following year, the group of four summited Makalu and Manaslu in Nepal. Now, Lehmann and Unger bring the two Sherpas with them for the most strenuous mountains, such as the 8,000 meter (26,247 feet) peak expeditions. At first, the Sherpas only spoke Nepalese and a small amount of English, so Lehmann and Unger worried how they would all communicate. They tried typing on phones using a translation app but struggled with taking off gloves at 26,000 feet. Instead, they taught the Sherpas how to sign using a mix of ASL, group-generated gestures, and Nepali Sign Language. “Many people will just look at us shocked,” says Unger. “We see their eyes wide open, like, how are you all communicating?” When working with the Sherpas, the couple positions themselves in a concise way. One Sherpa leads while the other is the caboose. It can be a game of telephone, but so far, the group has climbed four 8,000-meter peaks together: Mount Everest, Lhotse, Makalu, and Manaslu. “This is why I climb,” says Unger. “This is why we do hard things on mountains, for this amazing view that we can only get by being here.” Outside of their climbs, Lehmann and Unger started a project called Seeing Beyond: Seven Summits, which aims to inspire deaf and hard of hearing climbers to go out on expeditions. By sharing their dream of summiting peaks with the community, the couple hopes they can encourage more people to get outdoors. Supported by brands like Mountain Hardwear and Leave No Trace, Lehmann and Unger travel around the U.S. and Europe to give presentations, placing emphasis on their advocacy for the Deaf community. They also visit deaf schools to present on their many journeys, showing off their gear and letting kids try on equipment. “I hope to inspire our Deaf community, especially the youth,” says Unger. “For them to see a role model, for them to see a deaf person in that outdoor space, for them to say there’s deaf representation in all these other spaces… the possibilities are endless.”

Heavy Lifting Gabi Dixson Finds Her Place In Strongwoman Competitions

By Pierce Baugh V and Lily Crane Photos by Dillon Vibes

hen Gabi Dixson was 5 years old, her father says she grabbed the throttle of his four-wheeler, refusing to let go. Patrick Dixson, a former defensive lineman, tried everything he could to break her grip. Seconds later, they crashed into an irrigation pipe. In that moment Patrick realized his daughter's gift — the unshakable hold she'd have on the world. Nearly three decades later, at the 2022 Giants Live Strongman in Liverpool, England, Dixson displayed her grip strength’s full potential. Waving to the crowd, Dixson made her way to the center of the stage in a bright red Team USA shirt and cheetah-print compression shorts. Ahead of her sat a contraption that looked like a Medieval torture device: the Hercules Hold, which consists of two pillars, each weighing roughly 352 pounds. For many, such a device would appear as corporal punishment. Dixson walked up to the platform and clenched the metal handles attached to the pillars, which tilted in opposite directions. With the clock ticking, Dixson took a short, deep breath. She showed no signs of easing up on her grip. Instead, her eyes were locked on a spot straight ahead. She offered a toothy grin and stuck her tongue out. At the 50-second mark, Dixson was still smiling. At 1:08, she released the pillars and bowed, summoning cheers that filled the stadium.

Her time placed second in the event among both men and women. She only trailed Mark Felix, the world record holder in the event. Dixson also set a new female record for the Hercules Hold that day.

Dixson hails from athletic stock. Her parents, Patrick and Beth, met at Carroll College in Helena, Montana, where they played football and volleyball, respectively. Dixson’s younger brothers play football at Western Oregon University, and her younger sisters play soccer and compete in track and field. Patrick still recalls his eldest’s competitive streak from a young age. “She was playing indoor soccer, and this little girl was getting to the ball before she got to the ball, and Gabi let out this blood-curdling scream,” he says. While attending college from 2009 to 2013, Dixson competed in track and field in both discus and shot put while pursuing a degree in psychology at Concordia University. There, she was coached by University of Oregon legend and Olympic gold medalist Mac Wilkins. However, Wilkins deduced that Dixson was better suited for shot put despite her preference for discus. Dixson wasn't bothered by Wilkins underestimating her abilities — she was determined to prove that she had a body fit for the discus. She eventually won two national championships in discus,

one in hammer throw, and one in shot put by the end of her collegiate career. Just barely missing the cut-off to qualify for the United States Olympic Trials, Dixson felt unsure of how best to move forward. In 2016, she received an email from a 24 Hour Fitness gym inviting her to an event called Finding the Next Olympic Hopeful. The organizers were seeking athletes to try lesser-known Olympic sports, including rugby. Although she didn’t win the competition, her performance showcased her potential. Later on, rugby coach Te Awinha Aranui-Tate noticed her and encouraged her to come to a USA camp. Aranui-Tate amazed by how quickly Dixson adapted, given her limited experience. “She would do things and make it look really easy, and she had only just learned it last week,” says Aranui-Tate. Many people put her and others with similar body types under the stereotypes of “unathletic” or “lazy,” says Dixson. Rugby, a sport she initially had no interest in, opened her up to a whole new world that she felt welcome in because of her size and strength. “That was actually the first time that I felt like my body was not only accepted but needed. They wanted big, strong girls,” says Dixson. Dixson played for a local club team on the North Island of New Zealand before transferring to a team on the South Island that needed someone with her strength and size. In 2020, Dixson tagged along with a teammate, Jamaya Maruariki, to a Strongman gym. Unfamiliar with the competition, Dixson found herself captivated by the lesser-known sport. Strongman shares similarities with powerlifting but is based on endurance and power, with more diverse competition categories. There are the basics, like squatting, but there are also unique events like the frame carry, where a person must stand in the middle of a giant wooden frame and carry it as fast as possible. With only three weeks to prepare, Dixson won the competition, defeating the reigning three-time champion, Shayna Wirihana. “Strongman is the truest expression of strength amongst all strength sports,” says Martins Licis, a former World’s Strongest Man Champion and 2022 The Arnold champion. “We don't discriminate against objects.” While most Strongman competitors are willing to lift any object, Dixson is just as motivated to uplift other people. She is used to entering new spaces and overcoming the odds. As a Black woman, she’s used to being one of just a few — or sometimes the only — women of color in strongman competitions and at gyms, which are “predominantly white spaces.” Dixson deflects the expectations and limitations that society, and even people close to her, have placed on bodies like hers. She sits at a point of intersection, proclaiming herself as “a Black, fat, queer woman.” Some people, Dixson says, look at people like her with low expectations. “I really just want to expand people’s minds,” says Dixson.

During Black History Month 2024, Dixson launched her nonprofit Gym Space Equity (GSE), aiming to make strength gyms more accessible and affordable for people of color. While GSE has traditional forms of fundraising, like sponsorships from local businesses, Dixson’s model also encourages capable strength gym goers to add $5 or $10 on top of their regular gym fees to help make gym membership more affordable. Despite their intentions, GSE has faced its share of pushback. Natalie Smith, Dixson’s GSE partner, says that she and Dixson have received death threats, threats of violence, and criticism because of their work. Yet, Dixson and Smith are motivated to help all people enter Strongman.

Dixson’s first U.S. Strongman competition was at the Rainier Classic in Seattle, Washington. She competed in the trump stones event, where athletes choose from items of varying weights to lift. Points are gained from both how heavy the chosen item is and how many times it can be lifted. Sitting comfortably in third place until the fourth event, Dixson went for a 315-pound trump stone but was unable to lift it. Even with the blunder, others saw Dixson’s raw talent. She started working with a new coach with a dream competition in mind: the Arnold Sports Festival, or “The Arnold.” Despite consistently placing fifth in World’s Strongest Woman, it wasn’t enough to catch the eyes of The Arnold’s organizers, and the competition evaded her for three years. In late February 2025, Dixson achieved her goal of competing at The Arnold for the first time. Despite finally reaching the competition, Dixson placed last out of 12 competitors. “I just can’t even think of a time at really anything I’ve gotten dead last. I am somebody who likes to win, somebody who’s naturally doing the winning,” says Dixson. Even though she placed last, Dixson exceeded the limits of what she thought was possible. One task on the docket was the stone-to-shoulder event, which involves lifting and guiding a 300-pound stone from the ground up one’s torso and to the shoulder. Although Dixson nervously anticipated the challenge, it ended up being one of her strongest showings. She proved to herself that she could do something she never thought possible. Dixson now turns her focus toward securing her next invitation to the Arnold Sports Festival. She knows that competing isn’t just about her, but rather the many people who see themselves through her. “It’s all just about building my platform and my brand,” says Dixson. “And make sure all these little chubby kids know that they can do big things.” Dixson adds, “We are out here. We are making strides. So just keep being that person, and more of us will come.”

Photo by Miles Cull

ASCEND 28

RETURN to FLIGHT Haley Ellis Bounces Back For Senior Season Of Acrobatics And Tumbling

By Alexandra Gillette

her face.

aley Ellis laid face down in the acrobatics and tumbling training room, replaying the previous 20 minutes in her head with tears streaming down

On a crisp fall day in late November, the University of Oregon’s (UO) acrobatics and tumbling team gathered for a tumbling evaluation day. Each athlete took turns showing off the most difficult skills they had practiced for the past 10 weeks. Ellis stood next to the black foam mats in the east practice courts of Matthew Knight Arena (MKA), dressed in Nike from head to toe. With hair slicked back into a tiny ponytail, she took several deep breaths to calm her nerves. Ellis raised her hand to let her coaches know she was ready. She pictured herself successfully landing two front flips that connected to a round-off back handspring and rebounded her into a backflip with a one-and-a-half twist. She performed one perfect front flip followed by another, but when her feet hit the floor to launch into a backflip, a snap echoed throughout the gym. Ellis fell straight to her knees. The coaches turned to each other with a look of devastation plastered on their faces. The practice facility went silent until Ellis’ screams filled the gym as she reached for her leg in a state of shock.

Head coach Taylor Susnara and assistant coach Karly Nowak led the team in prayer while Ellis sat somberly. Wiping her tears away with the athletic trainer, Bri Dixon, Ellis tried to move her toes. They were stagnant. Dixon carried Ellis to the training room and conducted an Achilles tear test. Ellis lay with the injured leg in the air while Dixon and her staff applied pressure on the area and waited for Ellis’ toes to wiggle. Once again, no movement. The sound of her Achilles tendon snapping echoed in Ellis’ head, but the noise came to a halt when she saw her teammate, Blessyn McMorris, being carried into the training room with the same injury not even 10 minutes later. That day, Ellis and McMorris both lost their junior competition season.

A few minutes after the incident, Ellis’ mom, Amy, remembers receiving a heartbreaking call from her daughter. Amy answered the phone from their hometown of Rapid City, South Dakota, and sat listening to her daughter in hysterics from over 1,000 miles away. “I’m so sorry to my team,” Ellis said to her mom. Up until that point, the 5-foot-1 athlete dedicated her

Photo by Lucas Carroll

childhood to competitive gymnastics. With her mom as her coach, Ellis practically flipped out of the womb. The family created a rule that Ellis would refer to her mother as “Coach Amy” in the gym and “mom” at home. She concluded her high school gymnastics career as a Level 10, the highest level in the sport. One of her hometown teammates was part of the acrobatics and tumbling team at UO and fondly spoke of her experience in Eugene during school breaks. After Ellis’ commitment to a Division III school for gymnastics fell through, she considered acrobatics and tumbling, which in its simplest form is as if cheerleading and gymnastics had a baby. A little over 20 years ago, the University of Maryland intended to create a competitive female cheerleading team and wanted the NCAA to recognize it as a sport. Some saw this movement as an opportunity to expand women’s college athletics, while others criticized Maryland’s idea as a simple way to fulfill Title IX requirements. A few years later, Oregon looked to follow in Maryland’s footsteps. Felecia Mulkey became the head coach, and she worked with the other coaches at different schools — though there were only a few — to create rules and regulations for the emerging sport. The official name, acrobatics and tumbling, was not coined until 2011. Acrobatics and tumbling meets are comprised of six different events: compulsory, acro, pyramid, toss, tumbling, and team. Each event

ASCEND 30

contains different heats, adding up to 20 total. Each heat receives a score of up to 10 points, not including the team event, which can total 110 possible points. Combined, each team can score up to 300 points, which is determined by a panel of judges. The sport’s next goal is to have 40 competing institutions and obtain championship status via the NCAA. At this point, acrobatics and tumbling is present in all three divisions of collegiate athletics. “More people are aware of it, and there is more talk surrounding the sport, but there is still growing to do for sure,” says Nowak. Acrobatics and tumbling athletes put their bodies on the line and have advocated for more attention to their dedication to the sport. The daytime broadcast of the Paris 2024 Olympics for the women’s gymnastics team final averaged 12.7 million viewers, with little girls all over the world seated in their living rooms to watch the athletes dominate the sports world. “We are getting there slowly but surely,” says Susnara. “UO does a good job of media coverage for our sport, but I think there could always be more. The more we get it out, the more opportunities there are.” While viewership for women’s athletics continues to skyrocket, the lack of streaming hinders opportunities to increase the sport’s awareness. The acrobatics and tumbling championships are streamed on ESPN+, which requires a subscription and limits access to the sport.

On November 28, 2023, Ellis underwent surgery to repair her achilles tear. Her foot was wrapped in a splint and propped up on a scooter for the next five weeks. After winter break, Ellis exchanged her splints for a boot, allowing the foot to gain more flexion. She also began rehabilitation to maintain the strength in her leg muscles.

McMorris remembers starting the recovery process before she could even move her foot. She would spend nights in her room doing abdomen workouts that Dixon sent her. This process was taxing on more than just her body. Learning how to tumble again was more mentally challenging for Ellis than the injury itself. This past summer, she decided she wanted to try a standing backflip for the first time since the injury. She recalls her legs shaking and the mental exertion it took for her body to remember how to do the skills that once felt like second nature. The recovery process can be isolating, so Ellis and McMorris’ unfortunate coincidence provided each athlete a shoulder to lean on.

One heat later, the team huddled around Ellis as she got ready for her solo six-element tumbling pass. Ellis’ walkup song, Justin Bieber’s “Never Say Never,” echoed through the arena, and the entire Oregon sideline started clapping to the beat and swaying back and forth. As everyone in the audience held their breath, Ellis successfully propelled herself through all six tumbling elements.

“Some days were really hard, so when Blessyn or I recognized that one of us was having a bad day, we would try to smile a little bigger,” says Ellis.

She scored a 9.725, which helped the Ducks secure their first win of the season that night, beating the Bears with a final team score of 281.205.

“Rehab was not a walk in the park, but we got through it together,” says McMorris. “Haley was there pushing me and reminding me that it would be over soon.”

Ellis went on to score a 9.850, a 9.750, and a 9.625 on her six-element pass throughout the rest of the season. McMorris helped the Ducks score not one, but two perfect 10s in the open pyramid heat.

After a year on the sidelines, both athletes were ready to get back on the mat.

On February 15, 2025, Ellis and McMorris finally made their return to the roster and put a long year behind them. The Oregon Ducks faced Morgan State University in their first competition of the season. Ellis and her teammates showcased Nike’s first-ever acrobatics and tumbling shoe with the word “power” inscribed on the right shoe and “unity” on the left. Amy Ellis sat in the stands of MKA for the first time in her daughter’s UO career to watch her senior season debut. “I used to be down on the floor with her, and now I’m in the stands,” she says. “I don’t even know how to give corrections, and I love it. I get to keep my mouth shut and cheer.” While she waited for her heat to start, Ellis began rubbing her earlobes, something a former coach once told her helps with relaxation. The three athletes in her heat listened to a countdown from their team and then began running in synchrony. They

ASCEND 32

hurdled into their tumbling passes and made it to the last skill when Ellis fell to the floor. The crowd let out a quick and quiet gasp but erupted in ecstatic cheers when she bounced back up and ran to the sideline with a smile on her face. After some encouraging words from her coaches, Ellis made her way through the celebratory teammate tunnel.

“It was really special to watch [Ellis and McMorris] accomplish these things on the mat together,” says Nowak. “I’m super proud of them.” The Ducks finished their regular season with five wins and two losses, both being against Baylor University. Oregon faced the Baylor Bears for the third and last time at the NCATA National Championship in South Dakota. “It was a very encapsulating experience,” says Ellis. “Being back home for the last time on the mat was so full circle. It forced me to remember why I did all this in the first place.” The score was close up until the final team event, where Baylor secured the win over the Ducks with final scores of 276.015 and 266.355. “Although there were hiccups, I couldn't have asked for a better way to go out,” says Ellis. “The trials and tribulations of it all makes it feel more special.” At the end of the long competition weekend, an athlete from Fairmont State University approached Ellis and asked to take a picture with her. The girl revealed that she had been watching Ellis since her freshman year. Ellis was taken aback, stunned that someone had admired her from across the country. She turned to her sister and said, “I don't need a trophy. That is all I need.”

Photo by Miles Cull

Haley Ellis flexes in a straddle L-sit during a meet against Morgan State University at Matthew Knight Arena. 33

Luke Jackson (left) and Luke Ridnour (right) support the University of Oregon men’s basketball team.

Photo by Ian McFarland

LUKE BOTH WAYS Luke Ridnour And Luke Jackson Turn Small-Town Dreams Into Lasting Legacies

By Zach Carver

idway through the first half of the 2002 Sweet Sixteen, the University of Oregon (UO) men’s basketball team held a 2313 lead against the University of Texas at Austin. Hometown hero Luke Jackson led Oregon’s offense with 12 of those points. The Ducks’ up-tempo play proved too strong for the Longhorns throughout most of the contest. Still, the Longhorns stampeded their way back to tie the game at 68 with 1:20 remaining. Oregon guard Luke Ridnour slowly dribbled the ball up the court, dished the ball to Jackson, and retreated to the corner. Jackson drove towards the basket, pulling defenders in towards the paint. Filling the space, Ridnour dashed to the top of the key, caught the ball, and fired a shot without hesitation. The ball whipped through the nylon, sending the crowd into a frenzy. Texas big man James Thomas responded with an and-1 opportunity but missed the free throw, giving the Ducks the ball with the game tied. With seven seconds left, Oregon’s Freddie Jones exploded towards the basket, jump-stopped in the paint, and laid the ball up. It took a bounce off the rim and backboard before falling through the net, sealing Oregon’s 72-70 victory and advancing them to the Elite Eight for the first time in 42 years. While Jones’ basket was ultimately the game-winner, it was Oregon’s two Lukes who played the biggest role in the victory. Jackson converted 10 of his 17 shots on his way to 25 points while recording six rebounds and eight assists. Ridnour orchestrated the offense, only sitting for a single minute while scoring 20 points with five assists and three steals. Jackson and Ridnour led Oregon basketball to a place it hadn’t been since 1960. While Oregon’s NCAA tournament play demanded national attention, it was nothing new to the Eugene, Oregon faithful. Jackson made a name for himself at nearby Creswell High School. He averaged 24.2 points, 12 rebounds, over eight assists, and five steals per game during his senior season, leading the Bulldogs to an Oregon state 3A district championship in 2000. Gonzaga University and Oregon State University recruited Jackson

for his unique ability to score and make plays at 6-foot-7. Gonzaga’s legendary head coach, Mark Few, attempted to use his own Creswell beginnings to persuade Jackson, but Jackson’s grandfather made it clear where he wanted him to play. When schools conducted home visits, his grandfather was covered head to toe in Oregon gear. Meanwhile, Ridnour grew up in Blaine, Washington, a small town along the United States and Canada border. His father, Rob, coached Ridnour and the Blaine High School basketball team. Although Blaine had under 4,000 residents at the time, the basketball scene was, and remains, highly competitive. “It’s like the movie Hoosiers,” says Ridnour. “A bunch of small towns close by, and everybody loves basketball. There are so many state championships that come out of this area. It’s pretty crazy.” Ridnour’s high school average of about 23 points and seven assists ushered Blaine to two state titles, earning him McDonald’s AllAmerican honors. Playing in the Pac-10 was a big deal to Ridnour, which narrowed his list of schools down to the University of Washington and Oregon. He opted for Eugene and the raucous McArthur Court. Both Lukes remember fans jumping up and down until the baskets would shake, forcing the occasional free throw miss for the opposing team. Referees often stopped the game to calm the crowd, but as Jackson remembers, it only made the fans rowdier. Jackson and Ridnour were roommates for three years at Oregon. While they briefly met before college, the two spent countless hours together once they became Ducks, most often perfecting their craft on the hardwood. Sneaking into McArthur Court at all hours of the night to play 2-on-2 was routine for the Lukes, but they were never satisfied. Ridnour started every game of his freshman season, finishing the 2000-01 season averaging over seven points and nearly four assists. Jackson, however, never had guaranteed minutes. As the 35

Photos by Shane Balian

season dragged on, he felt his practice performance was worthy of significant playing time and confronted head coach Ernie Kent after practice. “I said, ‘I think I'm gonna be a big part of the future here. Will you play me?’” says Jackson. Kent gave him the start against Washington, and Jackson made history, recording 14 points, 11 rebounds, and 10 assists in a win. He was only the second player to record a triple-double in Oregon men’s basketball history and the first in 28 seasons. Delivering on his promise, Jackson averaged roughly eight points and four rebounds in just 18 minutes on the floor by the season’s end. Both Lukes were named to the Pac-10 All-Freshman team. Oregon finished the 2000-01 season with a 14-14 record, missing out on both the National Invitation Tournament (NIT) and the NCAA tournament. The disappointing season only fueled the late-night runs. “I think that’s what helped us turn the corner the next season,” says Ridnour. “We all had a little chip on our shoulder and outworked everybody.” Oregon won each of its first four games of the 2001-02 season by at least 27 points. The Ducks’ 30-point win over the No. 11-ranked University of Arizona Wildcats in December garnered national attention. Oregon ended the season with a 26-9 record and as Pac10 champions — its first outright regular season crown since 1939. Oregon finished the regular season ranked No. 11 in the nation and looked to make a splash in the NCAA tournament. As the second seed in the Midwest region, the Ducks dominated the University of Montana in the first round 81-62, with Ridnour and Jackson combining for 36 points. With Montana in the rearview, the Ducks took it up a notch against Wake Forest University. In 40 minutes, Ridnour knocked down seven three-pointers on his way to 28 points in a 92-87 win. Jackson scored 29 points of his own, helping Oregon secure a spot in the Sweet Sixteen. After Oregon’s historic win against Texas, they lost to the University of Kansas in the Elite Eight, 104-86. Ridnour was named to the 2001-02 All-Pac-10 first team and the NCAA All-Region team. Meanwhile, Jackson averaged just under 20 points, six rebounds, and over four assists in the tournament. The success came just after Oregon’s football team won the Pac-10 Championship, with both teams attracting sold-out audiences. It was a level that called for promotion. Following the accomplishments of the Ducks in the early 2000s, Nike worked hard to promote Oregon athletics, offering recruits the best gear and flashy uniforms. Jackson believes the 2001-02 team played a huge part in establishing Oregon’s notoriety in athletics today.

In his junior season, Ridnour was a candidate for the men’s John R. Wooden Award, given to the most outstanding college basketball player. In response, a billboard with Ridnour’s name modified to “Woodenour” appeared in Times Square. “Looking back on it, it was a pretty cool deal to have a small kid like me up in New York like that — just to be able to represent our university and everything that we were trying to go after,” says Ridnour. “But at the moment, I was a little shy about it. I won't lie.” Whether Ridnour wanted it or not, Oregon was now a top program in the minds of college basketball fans across the country, and that attention came with expectations. The 2002-03 season saw the Ducks win 23 games, their first consecutive 20-win seasons since the 1930s. Ridnour rose to another level, averaging nearly 20 points and seven assists during the regular season while leading Oregon to its first conference tournament championship in program history. Ridnour was named MVP of the tournament and Pac-10 Player of the Year. Despite its March Madness hopes, Oregon suffered a defeat in the first round against the University of Utah. Ridnour left for the NBA and was drafted 14th overall by the Seattle SuperSonics. “I just had to pinch myself every once in a while, that [I was] playing basketball and getting paid probably way too much money,” says Ridnour. The average career length for NBA players is about five years, but Ridnour played for 12. During his professional career, he averaged over nine points and four assists per game. For Ridnour, the relationships he built during his career are what he looks back on the most. Playing with all-stars like Ray Allen and Rashard Lewis made a big impact. While Ridnour left to fulfill his NBA dreams, Jackson stayed for his senior season at Oregon, finishing with a record of 18-13. Jackson averaged over 21 points, seven rebounds, and four assists, earning a spot on the All-Pac-10 team and as a unanimous All-American. In an NIT game against the University of Colorado, he scored 40 points for the Ducks, including an impossible 29 straight. Jackson was drafted 10th overall by the Cleveland Cavaliers in the 2004 NBA Draft. He thought, “This is gonna be a dream come true. I'm playing with LeBron [ James].” Unfortunately, Jackson only played 10 games in his rookie year due to injuries, which plagued him throughout his career. He played in just 73 games over four seasons. “My back was so bad that I couldn't even feel my feet,” he says. “I went from being one of the best athletes in the world to a guy that dreaded even trying to put my shoes on or get dressed.”

“

I feel like, honestly, my whole life, I've kind of been a coach as a point guard. I've always been around it with my dad being a coach, so it's a pretty natural fit for me.“

Jackson watched opponents he played against have success, filling him with the desire to establish himself as a player, but his body wouldn’t cooperate. “I remember I had a 30-point game in Toronto, and I just went home and cried. I played that whole game, and I could barely feel my right leg,” says Jackson. “My back was hurting so bad from the nerve pain. I just knew that I had the ability to be a special player in the NBA — it just wasn't ever going to happen because my body was failing me.” Jackson played eight seasons professionally, including time in the D-League (now G-league) and overseas. Despite injuries holding him back, Jackson remains grateful for his time in the NBA. He had a front-row seat in watching James become the face of the league. He guarded Michael Jordan in summer workouts, shot around with Larry Bird, and picked the brains of legendary teammates like Shaquille O’Neal, Chris Bosh, and Dwayne Wade. “Having had the experience that I did — I think maybe one of the most unique basketball experiences ever,” says Jackson. “You go from the limelight and being on top and being a lottery pick to playing in the D-League. Not very many NBA players went there, and I was just like, ‘I have nothing to hide. I just want to play.’”

When both of their playing careers came to an end, their coaching journeys began. Shortly after retiring from the NBA, Ridnour moved back to Washington and bought a church building in 2019. Ridnour converted the church, the same one his parents once attended, into a basketball court. He named it the Ridnour Athletic Complex and started his own Amateur Athletic Union team. “I feel like, honestly, my whole life, I've kind of been a coach as a point guard,” says Ridnour. “I've always been around it with my dad being a coach, so it's a pretty natural fit for me.” One state below Ridnour, Jackson took the head coaching job at Northwest Christian University in Eugene, now called Bushnell University, in 2013.

ASCEND 38

-Luke Ridnour

He led the school to its first conference championships in 2016 and 2017, earning back-to-back Cascade Collegiate Conference Coach of the Year awards. He tallied 88 wins in four seasons, including a school record 28 wins in the 2015-16 season. Stepping down after the 2016-17 season, Jackson wanted to focus on his children. Then, last season, he volunteered at Pleasant Hill High School — just a 15-minute drive from Eugene. Jackson became the head coach heading into the 2024-25 season, leading his team to a 26-4 record and a spot in the 3A district playoffs final. Jackson is also the color analyst for Oregon Sports Network’s men’s basketball broadcast.

Oregon’s early 2000s basketball teams laid the foundation for its future prominence in the sport. The Ducks have made it to the NCAA tournament 11 times since the Lukes left, appearing in the Elite Eight three times and making it through to the Final Four once. “I like to think that we helped put the Ducks on the map,” says Ridnour. “They haven’t looked back since those years.” Before Ridnour and Jackson stepped foot in McArthur Court as freshmen in 2000, Oregon appeared in just six NCAA tournaments. That number is now 19. Since 2000, Duck fans have endured only two losing seasons — vastly different from the five losing seasons a decade prior. Oregon has earned 15 consecutive 20-win seasons in a row under current head coach Dana Altman. Since the Lukes’ arrival in Eugene, the Ducks have been crowned Pac-10 and Pac-12 regular season or tournament champions a total of 11 times. Ridnour and Jackson were inducted into the Oregon Athletics Hall of Fame in 2014. From their small-town beginnings to playing on the biggest stage, the two Lukes cemented their names into Ducks history. As their individual paths continue, their legacies in Eugene remain strong. The era of the two Lukes set a new standard for Oregon basketball — one that continues to shape the program today.

Photos by Shane Balian

SADDLES

& SKIS

Niche Winter Sport Surges Adrenaline Of Skiers, Cowboys, And Spectators

By Gabriella Sgro Photos by Laura Domingue

ined with old-school diners, outdoor gear shops, the town’s general store, and a cozy dive bar, Leadville, Colorado’s, normally bustling main street was nearly empty. In the early hours of February 28, 2025, 125 truckloads of snow were dumped onto the pavement of Harrison Avenue. A small group of volunteers operating heavy machinery shaped the icy powder into an 800-foot track. They carved out tall ramps and set up safety fencing. Before noon, the sidewalks were packed with thousands of red-faced and runny-nosed spectators who cheered for athletes racing down the street. When Savannah McCarthy crossed the snowy finish line at the end of the street, some people knelt down, honoring the fan-appointed “Queen of Harrison Avenue.” Dressed in her signature competition look, she sported a fuchsia denim jacket and black chaps feathered with decorative fringe. Her waist was cinched with a glittering champion belt buckle from the 2024 Leadville Skijoring competition. The outfit was coordinated with her horse, Tank, whose legs were taped up in magenta and pastel pink polo wraps. McCarthy wasn’t the only person crossing the finish line. Trailing right behind her was skier Bruce Stott. Together, they were the Open Overall winners of the 2025 Leadville Ski Joring competition and one of over 140 teams that competed. Self-proclaimed as the “Grand Daddy of ‘em all,” the competition is the second oldest of its kind in

ASCEND 40

North America, running for 77 years. Spectators and competitors return to Harrison Avenue year after year, creating a tight-knit family that's well-versed in the sport and its culture. Skijoring combines horseback riding and skiing, putting a Wild West twist on a classic winter activity. The sport originated as a mode of transportation involving reindeer in early 20th-century Nordic regions, and has since evolved into an equine sport. Practiced primarily in the western United States, about 40 competitions occur annually in North America. As an unconventional sport, skijoring had one solitary exhibition appearance at the 1928 Winter Olympics in St. Moritz, Switzerland. The logistics are precarious. The skier holds onto a rope tied to the saddle of a horse and is pulled behind the horse and its jockey. Together, the team of two people and one horse races through a snowy course, complete with ramps that can launch skiers up to 50 feet in the air. The aim of the race is to finish the course as quickly as possible, with some skijoring horses reaching speeds up to 50 miles an hour. Although athletes are separated, one on the horse and one on the ground, they act as one unit. Riders must monitor their speed to ensure their skiers can pull themselves from side to side and maneuver around the course. The course can feature obstacles like jumps, slalom gates, and rings. Skiers must hook their arms through

the rings, dropping or missing them results in a time penalty. Skijoring requires finesse, and success in the sport comes down to being comfortable with one’s partner and horse. Long-term partnerships with skiers and cowboys take time to form. Due to the intensity of the sport, most jockeys prefer to compete with skiers who match their experience. Once pairs are formed, they can stick together for decades. Stott has skied behind McCarthy for 12 years. They met at the Leadville competition in 2013, when McCarthy was only 13 years old, and Stott was 41. The timing for the pair couldn’t have been better. Stott was looking for a faster horse to race with, and McCarthy wanted a skier who could handle her horse's speed. She found that Stott was a good match for her, and the duo has been racing together ever since. The pursuit of adrenaline unites cowboys and skiers, and the thrill of skijoring is unparalleled. According to McCarthy, “Any time I think about maybe skipping it for a year, I’m like, ‘Where else am I going to get that kind of rush?’” For 2025, she held the second fastest time on the Leadville course, completing it in just 16.16 seconds. The average time was 21.25 seconds. “There are a lot of courses where you have to kind of slow your horse down for turns or certain jumps, but that course is just built for going as fast as you can,” says McCarthy. Stott’s status as a longtime competitor has allowed him to design skijoring courses for races in Steamboat, Colorado, and Red River, New Mexico. He says that the Leadville course stays nearly the same every year: a straight line down Harrison Avenue. This opportunity to achieve maximum speed is what attracts many competitors. Safety is a priority at Leadville Ski Joring. Although the course is kept consistent, its organizers and competitors still prepare for unexpected accidents. The sport is risky for those participating, including the animals. There are event veterinarians on site, and some jockeys will outfit their horse’s horseshoes with snow pads or bell and splint boots to protect their legs from muscle injuries. McCarthy’s biggest concern before a race isn’t her own safety, but rather her horse’s. When healing from leg injuries, horses can face various complications like hoof inflammation and poor circulation. Full recovery for the horses can be difficult. In instances of a broken leg, a horse will often be euthanized. “If I get hurt, I'm going to get taken to a hospital, and everything is going to be done to try to save me,” says McCarthy. “There’s a lot less that we can do to help them.” In 2017, McCarthy’s horse, Tank, ran into the crowd after being spooked by a drone at a skijoring competition in Silverton, Colorado. She could tell Tank was already nervous at the starting

line. He tensed up and was hesitant to walk forward. A moment later, someone filming a documentary flew the device overhead to get footage of her run. It scared Tank, who took off into the sidelines and trampled several spectators, including one woman who had to get her hip replaced. Skiers risk their own safety while competing as well. In 2002, Stott participated in a separate long jump division at a competition in Cascade, Idaho. In the new division, skiers competed to see how far they could propel themselves off a specific jump. Stott flew 88 feet, landed sideways and woke up in the hospital with a broken shoulder. Yet, he was still awarded the first-place buckle. These accidents in mind, fear and anxiety flash through McCarthy’s mind before a race. These nerves are more than precompetition butterflies. In skijoring, skiers can let go of the rope if they feel unsafe, but jockeys do not have the same independence. They are strapped into the saddle, and if something goes wrong, they can’t dismount their horse. Before McCarthy’s turn to race, she is often overcome with nerves. “I'll be hyperventilating, crying. Like, I don't want to do it. I'm too scared. I'm going to die,” she says. Traumatic events, changes in ability, and overall anxieties don’t seem to prevent athletes from pursuing the sport. Regardless of pre-run anxieties, McCarthy returns to the competition circuit annually to test the limits of her horse's speed. Stott says he’ll keep coming back as long as he has a competitive edge. There is one unexpected element of the sport that makes moments of adversity easier to face: community support. Due to the niche nature of the sport, participants and fans become familiar with one another after repeated attendance. The fans are responsible for creating the most important part of any sport, which is the energy and excitement that helps motivate those competing. “I see people in the crowd,” says McCarthy. “I met some girls in the crowd maybe four years ago, and we have become friends since then. And they come every single year.” The Leadville competition is the second oldest and one of the most attended skijoring events in the nation, but it still maintains its “rodeo family” feel. Competitors and community members volunteer their time to ensure the event runs smoothly. Course building, timekeeping, and event clean-up, among other tasks, are owed to the people of Leadville. Social media marketing has become an important tool for the cities that host competitions. Many athletes create content on their TikTok or Instagram accounts, posting short videos of thrilling runs. Duffy Counsell, the event organizer for Leadville Ski Joring, says

ASCEND 42

the difference in public interest pre- and post-social media marketing is clear. He remembers when the director of the tourism panel for Leadville pointed out skijoring’s impact on their social media presence. “He sends me a screenshot of all sorts of little videos that they’ve done… the skijoring one says one million,” says Counsell. Talus Schrieber, the communications director for Leadville Ski Joring, tracked the event’s growth from previous years and reported a 70.8% increase in weekend attendance, with 13,700 visitors in 2024 and 23,400 visitors in 2025. The growing spotlight on skijoring opens the door to a larger base of support and invites aspiring adrenaline junkies to give the sport a try, turning the local tradition into a nationally known activity. Increasing numbers positively impact the local economies of the cities that host competitions, but not all cities are equipped with the appropriate resources. In Leadville, prices for hotels and AirBnBs increase dramatically during competition weekends, and many of them are fully booked months in advance. McCarthy and her parents stayed in the nearby town of Silverthorne, Colorado, because they were unable to find housing in Leadville. The towns that Western skijoring was designed around may no longer have enough room to accommodate both new and old fans. Reaching a balance between popularity and localism is no easy task. As the social media audience for skijoring expands, preparing for continuous growth in attendance and involvement at Leadville Ski Joring is critical. However, it’s important to remember the small-town charm and celebratory nature that keeps cowboys and skiers coming back.

On the evening of March 2, 2025, around 300 Leadville Ski Joring competitors and spectators crammed into the Elks Lodge to watch the closing ceremony. The crowd buzzed while waiting to see who had the best times of the weekend. Following tradition, Counsell hosted and handed out gag gifts to a few good-humored athletes. Cash prizes were given to winners of the various divisions, and the big titles were saved for last. Counsell announced the Open Overall champions of Leadville Ski Joring and called McCarthy and Stott’s names. Audience members shouted and cheered as the pair went to the front of the crowd. Hands shaking and face twitching, McCarthy accepted the prized Carhartt jacket and belt buckle. She says it has been her favorite year so far. On stage, Stott smiled wide and held his jacket and buckle. It was only his fourth time winning the Open Overall category in 22 years of competing. Although the competition had just finished, Stott was already thinking about teaming up with McCarthy and Tank next year and how to defend his title in front of an even larger crowd.

CYCLING AS CEREMONY Bikepacker Alexandera Houchin Finds Empowerment Through Ultra Racing

By Arwen Thomas Photos by Eszter Horanyi

lexandera Houchin spends her summers pedaling thousands upon thousands of miles. At the starting line of a bike race, she can be found in cutoff jean shorts, work boots, and handmade indigenous jewelry. She stands out in a sea of spandex and clip-in cycling shoes. Houchin is a bikepacker. An ultra racer. An extreme athlete, in every sense of the word. She is also an Ojibwe woman, a daughter, a friend, and a citizen of the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe in northern Minnesota. Over the last decade, the 35-year-old has been racing and touring throughout the United States. She has racked up records and returned year after year to routes that have inspired, challenged, and ultimately shaped her into the person she is today. She cycles through steep mountain ranges, across rocks and roots, in thick snow and under the blazing sun, and she clears most of this terrain on a singlespeed bike. For Houchin, bike racing is an opportunity to practice her interpretation of ceremony. From her jewelry and the way she does her hair, to how she carries her medicine, sings, or decorates her bike, all of these are elements of ceremony for Houchin when she races. Ceremony isn’t a grand or elaborate event, but rather integrated into the minutiae and interwoven into her movement and process. “I know what I think ceremony used to be, and I still know what the colonized parts of my brain think of ceremony,” says Houchin. “But the reality is, I’m just any old run-of-the-mill person having this experience, and I give it the title of ceremony, and I think those are the kind of stories that I want to share. We can be cultural and have ceremony… and it can look a lot of different ways.”

Houchin began biking in her early 20s. At the onset of her journey, utility and solitude were at the roots. She bought a bike for her 10-mile commute to work at a hospital in Madison, Wisconsin, appreciating the alone time it gave her. She went on to deliver Jimmy John's sandwiches via bike, then became a bike messenger, and eventually a bike mechanic. In 2012, Houchin embarked on her first multi-day trip, traveling from her home in Madison to her tribal community in Cloquet, Minnesota, and then riding south to Boulder, Colorado. She wanted to see how it would feel to ride her bike for days on end and how far she could go. She did not bring a water bottle, carried only a handful of printed-out maps that proved futile, and blew through most of her money in the first week. She ended up hitching a ride back home from Boulder. Despite the challenges, Houchin planted the seeds of something far greater than she could have ever imagined. “I loved the freedom of adventure and travel and problem solving and being vulnerable and needing help,” she says. “I worked out a way where I could have the summers off of work, and I would just work all winter long and save up for bike travel.” Growing lonely on the road and tired of riding through rainstorms and over mountains all by herself, Houchin began participating in competitive bike racing to find community. After hearing about longdistance races, she imagined herself showing up to the starting line surrounded by people she could ride alongside. Now, Houchin may ride upwards of 3,000 miles during a trip with everything she needs to survive tethered to her bicycle. She’s driven to do so partly by a desire to create more expansive notions of what sport is and what an athlete looks like.

“I never saw somebody who looked like me or had a similar background to me in a sports narrative,” says Houchin. In October 2023, Houchin completed the Triple Crown Challenge, which is considered the ultimate test of fortitude and resilience in off-road bikepacking. The challenge requires bikepackers to complete three races in the same calendar year: the Tour Divide on the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route, the Arizona Trail Race, and the Colorado Trail Race. The Tour Divide measures roughly 2,700 miles and 200,000 feet of elevation gain and loss. It stretches from Alberta, Canada, south to the U.S. and Mexico border in Antelope Wells, New Mexico. The Arizona Trail encompasses about 800 miles of desert and mountain ranges from Mexico to Utah, and has bikepackers disassemble their bikes and carry them on their backs for a 21-mile stretch across the Grand Canyon. Finally, the Colorado Trail reaches 500 miles between Durango and Denver, interweaving through the Colorado Rocky Mountains with an average elevation of 10,000 feet. Completing all three of these trails in a lifetime is a feat in itself — only 48 people have reported doing so. Suffice it to say that completing all three in a single calendar year is nothing short of extraordinary. Of the 23 finishers to do so, only six are women.

When Houchin first started riding long tours, she was struggling with her body image and was mainly concerned with how much weight she would lose. Nearly a decade later, Houchin is in a different place with her body. Instead of seeing cycling as a vehicle to change herself, it is an act of empowerment. “It really shifted from this kind of like mildly sinister form of punishment and working through my self-worth to becoming this really unique way to display what a body like mine can do,” she says. Houchin never saw herself becoming an elite athlete. Now that she is one, she feels she has a responsibility to explore herself at the highest possible competitive level through bike racing. In order to exhibit peak performance through these competitions, Houchin has to stay attuned to her physiological needs. This relationship to self and connection with her body, in part, make up the intangible ceremony Houchin speaks of when riding. “I don’t really have a prescription for how it looks, I just go off of gut things I know in my heart,” she says. “I love dressing up for my bike races. I love feeling beautiful and powerful. I wear jewelry that I buy from Indigenous artisans specifically for these events.” The abstract yet omnipresent practice of ceremony flows into Houchin's time spent on the trails. During one of her races last year, she set out to process and reflect on not having a cultural guide when she was growing up.

ASCEND 48

Alexandera Houchin climbs a section of the Colorado Trail Race.

“I never learned how to make a jingle dress… I never learned how to make moccasins,” she says. “And I didn’t ever let myself have permission just to be sad about that.” Instead of judging herself for feeling upset about the experiences she felt she had lost, Houchin used the long days of riding to feel those emotions without shame. Time and space are abundant on the trail. Setting intentions and being present with her feelings along the way allows Houchin to turn the trails into an act of ceremony. “A lot of my relationship to ceremony, especially in bike races, has been this healing,” she says. “Just taking up space, as I am, as a contemporary Native person.”

Since her first long-distance race in 2017, Houchin has made a name for herself in the world of ultra racing and off-road bikepacking. She came in first place for the Women’s Tour Divide in 2018 and 2019, and first place for the Women’s Colorado Trail Race in 2019, 2021, and 2022. She set a new women’s single-speed record on the Tour Divide in 2023, beating the record she set in 2019. In 2023, she completed the three trails of the Triple Crown Challenge in 34 days, 22 hours, and 33 minutes, setting the women’s single-speed record. In 2024, Houchin set the women’s single-speed record for the 365-mile Grand Loop in southwest Colorado and Utah, as well as setting the fastest women’s time overall. Riding single speed has become a trademark of Houchin’s. One of her earliest bikes was a fixed-gear bike, so she’s not unfamiliar with the mechanism of having only one gear ratio. But riding singlespeed in ultra races adds a layer of difficulty — whatever gear she sets at the beginning, she’s stuck on for the entirety of the race. This may seem unnecessarily grueling, but Houchin sees it as a means of maintaining simplicity and a testament to her early days on a fixie. The summer of 2025 will see her attempt the Triple Crown Challenge for the second time, where she will pedal her bike for about 4,000 miles. Houchin never predicted excelling at this niche sport, but she’s doing it. She’s breaking and setting records, pushing herself year after year, and showing up at the start line with intention and a hope to empower others. “I can go into these spaces and races with what I know as a native person and how I know to interact with the land, and how I can relate to stories of the past, and then use the bicycle and physical performance as a conduit to elevate our stories,” she says. “It’s just bike racing really, but because it’s bike racing, there’s a winner, and with a winner there’s an opportunity to shift the narrative.”

Photo by Eric Evans

QUEST FOR GREATNESS Innovation Guides Oregon To The Big Ten Football Championship

By Kate Cooney

n tales of the past, the number 12 is often associated with legends and power. In Greek mythology, 12 gods and goddesses sat atop Mount Olympus. The Oracle of Delphi assigned the mortal-born Hercules 12 nearly impossible tasks to atone for the killing of his wife. By a stroke of luck and a twist of fate, Hercules managed to complete each quest and regained his standing with the 12 gods. As a reward, he was granted immortality and earned the right to spend the rest of time on Mount Olympus, solidifying his standing in the history books. The 2024 University of Oregon football team shared a fate similar to the Greek hero. In the Ducks’ inaugural season as members of the Big Ten Conference, they were slated to face 12 highly competitive football programs in the regular season, including teams they had never played nor beaten. Preseason polls ranked the Ducks No. 3 in the nation, but speculation circulated through social media channels and the college football fanbase with even some diehard Duck fans wondering if Oregon was cut out for the Big Ten.

Around 500 B.C.E., the philosopher Heraclitus wrote just one book which was lost to history, but fragments remain. "Out of every one hundred men, ten shouldn't even be there, eighty are just targets, none are the real fighters, and we are lucky to have them, for they make the battle,” wrote Heraclitus. “Ah, but the one, one is a warrior, and he will bring the others back." For the Ducks, that one warrior might be Dan Lanning, Oregon football’s head coach. Born in Missouri, Lanning’s football journey began as a linebacker at William Jewell College, home to less than 1,000 students. During his senior year, Lanning was third on his team with 57 tackles and tied for first in sacks with 4.5 on the season. After graduating in 2008, Lanning worked as a high school physical education teacher and football coach.

In the years following, he became a graduate assistant coach at the University of Pittsburgh and then Arizona State University. Lanning worked his way up the ranks coordinating defenses at Sam Houston State University, and the Universities of Alabama, Memphis, and Georgia. Amid his early coaching career, Lanning married his wife, Sauphia. The young Lanning family moved around the country following the call of football. Lanning balanced countless hours on the field with his role as a husband and father to three boys. In 2016, Sauphia was diagnosed with osteosarcoma, a rare bone cancer. She battled through treatments for a year, which was a period of struggle that greatly inspired Lanning. The Ducks had a vacancy on their staff in 2021 after former head coach Mario Cristobal came up 28 points short of a Pac-12 Championship, and left to pursue a head coaching job at the University of Miami. Just 35 when he accepted the job, Lanning became one of the youngest head coaches in college football, resulting in a great deal of skepticism surrounding his credentials. He became one of three coaches in Oregon history to win at least 10 games in his first season. For a moment, even Lanning’s fate at Oregon was in question, with rumors stirring of his candidacy as a replacement for Nick Saban, Alabama’s long-time head coach. Lanning silenced the rumors via a social media post, declaring, "The grass is damn green in Eugene," a moniker that became synonymous with Duck success. “In coaching, you dream to be at a place where you can both raise your family and win at a high level,” says Lanning in regards to his extension. “Oregon has more than exceeded those expectations for my wife, Sauphia, and our three boys, and this will ensure our boys can all graduate from the same school as we continue to grow roots in the community.” In preparation for the 2024 season, Lanning readied his forces for an entirely new battlefield: the stages and stadiums of the Big Ten Conference. After nearly 60 years in the Pac-12, Oregon officially

Photo by Eric Evans

became a member of the Big Ten as part of a major conference realignment. Many questioned Oregon’s ability to hold its own.

One Greek goddess has been sitting on the shoulder of Lanning’s army for many years: Nike. The patron of victory has been good to Oregon, with her likeness appearing on each uniform in the form of a swoosh. For the Oregon faithful, the team uniforms are almost as important as the game itself. Never repeated, each uniform holds pieces of the past, present, and future of Oregon football. For wide receiver Tez Johnson, the vibrant green and yellow jerseys sparked his interest in Oregon years before he arrived in Eugene. Playing for Oregon was a lifelong dream for the Alabama native, but at 15, Johnson experienced challenges at school and home. His mother, Shamika, moved the family from Birmingham to Pinson in hopes of a safer life for her children but struggled to keep her family afloat. During a chaotic childhood, Johnson found peace in playing football under coach Pat Nix at Pinson Valley High School. Addressing Johnson’s struggles at school, the coach sat down with Shamika and suggested Johnson temporarily stay with the Nix family. It was not uncommon for Pat and his wife to take teenagers in for a few weeks, but Johnson stuck around. “It wasn’t necessarily the plan for me to stay. It was a plan for me to go over and stay two or three days and leave,” says Johnson. “I knew when I walked in, I didn’t want to leave. They took me in from all the stuff that was happening with my biological family, and it was something they wanted to do.” ASCEND 54

As a result, Johnson earned a football scholarship at Troy University, where he was an All-Sun Belt third team selection. But, he transferred to Oregon in 2022 to play with his brother-by-association, former Oregon quarterback and current Denver Bronco Bo Nix. In his first year as a Duck, Johnson broke the single-season record for receptions while racking up 1,182 yards and 10 receiving touchdowns. Johnson does not wear the Nix name on his jersey but instead has it tattooed on his thigh. Even after Nix made his way to Denver to play in the NFL, Johnson continued to propel the offense at Oregon. In October 2024, the Ducks trekked up Interstate 5 to meet their in-state rivals, Oregon State University. Johnson made seven catches for 110 yards in a dominant 49-14 victory over the Beavers. Everyone knows that the game with Oregon State is about more than score. The winner holds state-wide bragging rights until the next football season rolls around. For Eugene native linebacker Bryce Boettcher, who led the defense with a season-high 11 tackles that game, it was the biggest game of the year. “In my opinion, this is the most fun game of the year,” says Boettcher. “Other people are looking forward to Ohio State, Michigan, some of those bigger games down the road, but this [was] my Super Bowl.” Boettcher grew up watching the Ducks and has since been dubbed "Mr. Eugene." Boettcher was a two-sport athlete at South Eugene High School, and momentarily thought he might have to hang up his cleats after graduation. Instead, he walked on to the Oregon baseball team, eventually earning a starting spot in center field. Football wasn’t in the picture for Boettcher until Lanning joined the staff and offered him a scholarship.

Photo by Jackson Fisk

Photo by David Hammel

After leading the baseball team to the NCAA Super Regional in 2024, he became the fifth player in Oregon history to win a Gold Glove, one of the most prestigious awards in college baseball. It wasn’t until that fall he also became a star on the gridiron, which he attributes to Lanning’s guidance.

A penalty was called against the Ducks, and Ohio State gained five yards toward their endzone. They gave up yards, but Oregon used up a precious five seconds of the remaining time. Moments later, Buckeyes’ quarterback Will Howard slid across the turf, unable to make a final play.

“He’s an incredible man. He’s super consistent with the energy he brings every day, which is what you want in a coach," says Boettcher. “He’s definitely got a good amount of psycho in him, which is important with a football coach.”

“There are some situations that don’t show up very often in college football,” says Lanning. “But this is one that obviously was something we had worked on. So, you can see the result.”

The first true test of the 2024 season came in early October when Ohio State University came to town. No. 3 Oregon led the No. 2 Buckeyes by one as the clock wound down, but 12 seconds remained and the defense needed a big play. With a flash of genius, Lanning sent 12 men out onto the field. Flags were thrown as officials’ whistles pierced the deafening crowd. A hush fell across the 60,129 fans packed into Autzen. ASCEND 56

When the clock expired, the entire stadium seemed to take a collective breath, which was followed by mass chaos. While Oregon fans rushed the field, Lanning stormed through the crowd to the locker room. Two weeks later, the Ducks rose to No. 1 in the rankings, where they would remain for the rest of the regular season. Near the end of the season, the Ducks were 10-0 when they made a trip to Madison, Wisconsin. Oregon ended the third quarter on a fourth down

with nine yards to gain. The Ducks were down 13-6 when House of Pain’s "Jump Around" filled Camp Randall Stadium. To the surprise of everyone watching, the entire Oregon sideline rose to their feet, jumping and dancing. It was later revealed that Lanning orchestrated the theatrics. Ivan Pavlov, a 19th-century Nobel Prize-winning physiologist developed the concept of classical conditioning. Pavlov discovered that by ringing a bell before feeding his dogs, they would learn to anticipate a meal, converting a neutral stimulus into a positive one. Lanning applied the same tactic to his team, playing “Jump Around” in practice all week. When the opening notes played in Madison, Oregon suddenly seemed out for blood. On the first play of the fourth quarter, Oregon converted the fourth-and-long and generated enough offense to win the game. With the Washington Huskies scheduled for the last week of the regular season, Lanning turned to Boettcher’s baseball bat as a mode of inspiration, tapping into Boettcher’s character as a two-sport athlete to rally the team. This time, referencing the film “Inglourious Basterds,” the battle plan sprang into action. Boettcher knocked out a warning toll with his bat as the team walked down the tunnel and came out swinging for the fences.

Photo by Kallie Hansel-Tennes

The Oregon defense demolished the Huskies, tying a program-high ten sacks, matching the most by any Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) team in the 2024 season. One of those sacks came from Boettcher, who paused to celebrate and then mimicked the motion of a home run being hit into the Autzen crowd. At halftime, Oregon bludgeoned a Washington helmet with a sledgehammer. The final score: 49-21.

From the crafty, 12-man penalty in the final moments of Ohio State, to a fake punt or a two-point conversion from an offensive lineman, Lanning’s unique approach kept opponents guessing. Oregon stood alone as the only undefeated FBS team through 12 regular season games in 2024. “That's something coming from us, something we started at the beginning of the season, talking about how you get an opportunity to invade a new environment,” says Lanning. “Somewhere, maybe you didn't belong and get the opportunity to take over that environment. We said this is the last step for us to become that.” On December 7, the Ducks traveled to Lucas Oil Stadium, home of the Indianapolis Colts. Their trip from Eugene marked the farthest a team has ever traveled for a Big Ten Championship. The stadium was

Photo by David Hammel

"HE’S DEFINITELY GOT A GOOD AMOUNT OF PSYCHO IN HIM, WHICH IS IMPORTANT WITH A FOOTBALL COACH." -Bryce Boettcher

filled with Penn State University’s fans clad in white, but there was no shortage of Duck fans willing to make the trip. Oregon broke through the Nittany Lion defense with six touchdowns and 283 passing yards. Johnson’s 11 receptions and career-high 181 receiving yards marked the most by any Duck in a conference championship game. It was the first time his biological family had ever seen him play in-person. “I told them, this is the first game y’all coming to; I’ll give you all a show. I promise you that," says Johnson. “For me, it was just, I don’t know if words can explain it, my mom, just seeing the tears in her eyes being able to watch me play on a stage like this." Johnson played the game of his life, for his team and his family. To make the moment even sweeter, he was named the championship game’s MVP. “Games like this for us are expected,” says Johnson. “We know it's not going to be handed to us. We go out there like it's a Tuesday practice every Saturday... The coaches prepare us each week [for] games like this.” Oregon held a 45-37 lead with just 1:54 remaining on the clock, and the Ducks knew they had all that they needed to secure a victory. Penn State quarterback Drew Allar sent a pass spiraling down the sideline and right into the hands of Duck cornerback Nikko Reed, eliminating any remaining doubts. For the first time ever, Oregon was 13-0, tying the program record for most wins in a season. As midnight fell on Lucas Oil Stadium, Lanning raised the Big Ten trophy to the Oregonian fandom as green and yellow confetti fluttered from the rafters. “Words can't explain it,” says Johnson. “It's something you dream about, and when it happens, being able to get that checked off your bucket list, you don't take it for granted." In the championship game, Boettcher added seven tackles to his team-leading total of 94 for the season. Now owning a conference title in both baseball and football, he went on to win the Burlsworth Trophy, awarded to the nation’s most outstanding walk-on athlete. “It means everything. People ask me if it feels better to win the Burlsworth or the [Gold] Glove. Both are awesome, but I would say the Burlsworth definitely takes the cake,” says Boettcher. “The stuff you have to go through as a walk-on is tremendous. The amount of adversity and disrespect that you get. Once you are able to show that you belong and what I’ve been able to achieve in the three years playing football here has been pretty amazing. It’s a dream come true.”

Oregon became one of a coveted few teams to defeat traditional Big Ten powerhouses at the Universities of Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State, and Penn State all in the same year. Lanning and his team adapted to a new conference and took it by storm. Hours after the press had conducted their interviews and the players had snuffed their cigars, an eerie silence filled the stadium. A patch of green, yellow, and silver coated a corner of the grass, the only evidence of the celebration that had just occurred. In a matter of hours, the field would be swept up and restored to the Colts’ silver and blue.

In his two years as a Duck, Johnson earned his spot as one of the all-time greats. To the surprise of the Eugene-faithful, Boettcher announced he would place his contract with the Houston Astros on hold and return for one more year of Oregon football. “Given the season I had last year and my love for the game and Eugene as a whole, I feel like I’d be doing myself and my family and the community a disservice if I didn’t use all my eligibility,” says Boettcher. “We graduated a lot of guys. We don’t have a lot of experience coming back, but we have a lot of talent. [I’m] excited to see what leaders step up, and I’m going to try to be a big part of that.” With the 2025 season rapidly approaching, Lanning solidified one of the best recruiting classes in the country. Building a program based on veterans supplemented by immediate-impact transfers, Oregon football turned to the future. With Boettcher in the fold as a leader, the next task is to train his new army of athletes into an elite football team. “The standard of play has gone up here, and that means the caliber of athlete that we're trying to target, to play for us, has gone up,” says Lanning. “It starts there, not lowering your standard and making sure that you're going to get guys that you feel like give you a competitive edge when you step out there on the football field.” For years to come, fans will tell the tale of Oregon in a new college football landscape, when Lanning earned his first conference championship. Oregon’s approach remains rooted in the process. Four words line their practice field: connection, toughness, growth, and sacrifice. If a fifth could be added to the wall, it might be innovation. Each day, they make a step towards improvement, extending their reach towards the ever-changing measure of greatness, searching for their seat atop Mount Olympus. 59

Photo by Eric Evans

HURDLING EXPECTATIONS Kenyon Sadiq Rises Through The Ranks Of Oregon Tight Ends By Eli Thomas

he Oregon Ducks faced a second-and-15 from the Penn State 28-yard line on their first drive of the 2025 Big Ten Football Championship. Oregon quarterback Dillon Gabriel dropped back and found tight end Kenyon Sadiq on a wheel route near the sideline. Sadiq had a fraction of a second to size up Nittany Lion cornerback Jalen Kimber before instinctively exploding into the air and hurdling him. He timed his jump so that Kimber had no inkling of what was happening until Sadiq was up and over him. Sadiq sprinted into the endzone for the game’s first points, screaming triumphantly as his teammates swarmed him, and Duck fans erupted.

offers from major football programs like Michigan, Texas, and Oregon. Sadiq describes himself as a late bloomer, but Mehringer believes that it’s more about using his perception of being overlooked as a source of motivation. Michael Jordan famously got cut from his high school varsity team, and Tom Brady was drafted in the sixth round. Every great player needs a chip on their shoulder –– and for Sadiq, it’s the lack of early recruiting attention that continues to fuel him.

At 6-foot-3 and 245 pounds, Sadiq is the kind of athlete who makes spectators reconsider the physics of a hurdle. For perspective, he is roughly the same weight as Olympic gold medal hurdler Grant Holloway carrying a full-grown Dalmatian. Football is not considered an elegant sport, but the effortlessness with which Sadiq glides over defenders gives it that quality.

“Joe [was] in my office probably every 10 days and saying, 'This kid out at Skyline High School right outside Idaho Falls, man, I'm telling you. This kid's really, really good,'” says Mehringer.

Sadiq added another touchdown on the ensuing drive when he leaked out of the backfield and found himself open in the front corner of the endzone. Two drives, two Sadiq touchdowns. He not only became the first tight end in Big Ten Championship history to score multiple touchdowns, he also accomplished the feat with 3:21 left in the first quarter. Sadiq’s performance set the tone for an eventual 45-37 Oregon victory, a fitting conclusion to an undefeated first regular season in the Big Ten.

Mehringer credits the Ducks’ special teams coordinator and Idaho recruiter, Joe Lorig, with helping them land Sadiq.

When he arrived at his first winter workout in January of 2023, Sadiq was a 6-foot-3, 218-pound freshman who still looked like a wide receiver. Two years later, he’s gained nearly 30 pounds and is moving with the same fluidity. Even at a program with some of the best athletes in the country, Sadiq stands out. He has been tracked at 22.37 miles per hour, faster than the top ball carrier speed in the NFL last season. “You know, I don't know how many 247-pound, 22-and-a-half-plus mile-an-hour people there are out there in the world,” says Mehringer.

Five months before that historic season, head coach Dan Lanning took the team on a jog to Hayward Field. Co-offensive coordinator and tight ends coach Drew Mehringer delivered a history lesson about the 47 years that Oregon football called Hayward Field home to connect players to something bigger than themselves.

For two years, Sadiq had to sit behind two experienced tight ends, Terrance Ferguson and Patrick Herbert. As a freshman, he only had five catches for 24 yards and one touchdown. But in practice, he consistently showed flashes of superstar potential: winning contested catches, pulling away with his speed, and leaping over defenders.

“There's a hundred million distractions, but you have to understand the history of the program that you play [for],” says Mehringer.

In the transfer portal era, many in his place would have left Oregon for greener pastures and more playing time. From the veterans in the tight end room, Sadiq learned consistency and leadership and is now looking to clear the high bar they have set.

The Remember the Titans-inspired speech had a similar effect for the Ducks as it did for the T.C. Williams Titans, as Oregon had a 13-0 record after the Penn State win for the first time in program history. But their storybook run fell just short, ending in a heartbreaking loss to eventual champion Ohio State in the College Football Playoff. Even so, Sadiq’s best game coming at such a huge moment in the season speaks volumes to the confidence of the coaching staff in their young player.

Most recruits who end up at high-profile schools such as Oregon attend showcase camps before committing, and some hear from colleges as early as middle school. Coming from a town of 69,000 people in Idaho, Sadiq had no one to guide him through the college recruiting process. Without pursuing the typical recruiting avenues, Sadiq let his high school numbers speak for themselves. He put up nearly 2,800 yards and 44 touchdowns in his final two years, leading Skyline High School to three straight state titles and winning the Idaho Gatorade Player of the Year award as a senior. It was only a matter of time before the offers came in. He received his first Power Five (now Power Four) conference offer on March 18, 2022, from Iowa State. Less than two months later, he had

ASCEND 62

The marquee play of Sadiq’s freshman year came against the Liberty University Flames in the Fiesta Bowl. Oregon led 17-6 with 3:54 left in the second quarter. The Ducks were lined up at the 3-yard line for second-and-goal when former quarterback Bo Nix sent Sadiq in motion, calling for the snap when Sadiq was almost to him. Nix tappassed the ball to Sadiq, who quickly bounced outside of a defensive end trying to corral him and used his speed to scamper into the endzone. It was his first collegiate touchdown, but the play itself was popularized by the Kansas City Chiefs and is usually called for the smallest and fastest player. Sadiq is far from the Ducks’ smallest player, but he very well may be the fastest. In Sadiq’s sophomore year, offensive coordinator Will Stein found ways to get the ball into his young playmaker’s hands — jet sweeps, a fake punt run, direct snaps, and a heavy dose of screens. The Ducks try to get the ball to Sadiq in space, where he has averaged over 10 yards after the catch per reception. Sadiq was given a chance to prove what he could do in a bigger role when Ferguson was sidelined mid-year for an appendix removal. Playing increased snaps against Purdue University and the University of Illinois, he had five touches for 112 yards. Against the Boilermakers, Sadiq stood out on one highlight play, fooling the defense into thinking he was blocking for a screen before turning upfield and

Photo by Max Unkrich

Kenyon Sadiq hurdles a cornerback to score the first touchdown of the Big Ten Football Championship.

Photo by Cam Woods

catching the ball on the left sideline, then cutting back inside on his way to a 40-yard catch-and-run. The Ducks game plan against Illinois prioritized getting Sadiq involved, with two of his three touches coming on the first drive. On his first touch, Sadiq’s coaches trusted him to pick up the necessary seven yards on the first third down of the game. He caught a screen and took two steps inside before planting his left foot and exploding outside, losing a defender on his way to a 13-yard gain. As he was running, CBS play-by-play announcer Brad Nessler mistook Sadiq for Tez Johnson, Oregon’s leading receiver and one of the most explosive players in the country. Sadiq’s career thus far compares favorably to other great Oregon tight ends. Ed Dickson and Justin Peelle both had lengthy NFL careers, while Ferguson was recently drafted 46th overall by the Los Angeles Rams. Dickson had four catches for 45 yards in his second year at Oregon, Peelle had five for 65 in his second year, and Ferguson 32 for 391. Sadiq’s sophomore season finished with 24 catches for 308 yards. Stein loves Sadiq’s talent, calling him one of the best players in the country, and says that it’s his job to get Sadiq as many touches as possible. Those outside the program echo Stein’s lofty praise, as Pro Football Focus graded Sadiq as the ninth-best tight end in 2024.

The 2025 Oregon Spring Game was the first chance for fans to see Sadiq as a focal point of the offense with Ferguson, Herbert, and Johnson gone. On the opening play for the “Combat Ducks,” quarterback Dante Moore found Sadiq wide open for a 25-yard gain. On the first third down of the game, the two connected again for the conversion. Sadiq and Moore were neighbors last year, and Moore attributes the close relationship they have off the field to the chemistry they demonstrated on the field. The duo also started the second half together. Early on the first drive, Moore found Sadiq on a short dumpoff. Sadiq took one step outside then cut back in, evading a defender and then finding himself 1-on-1 with a linebacker. Sadiq leaped up and over the defender, landing with only a slight stumble and gaining a couple more yards for the first down. “Just give 18 the ball, and he’s going to make a play,” says Moore. Early in the fourth quarter, Sadiq converted a 38-yard gain. It was the same route as the first play of the game, a corner route. The deep targets show his evolution, as his average depth of target was only 2.4 yards. He finished with seven catches for 102 yards, the most of any player in the game and 60 more than anyone else on his team. Apart from the statistical dominance, he also showed that his game is evolving. Adding the truck stick to his arsenal of hurdles, quick juke moves, and stiff arms makes the job of would-be tacklers nearly impossible. The Spring Game may not count in the standings, but it offers an early testament to the breakout season Sadiq could be poised for in 2025. Sadiq is aiming for more than a typical breakout. His goal: claim the title of best Oregon tight end ever. Now, he must deliver on the promise he has shown and make the leap to stardom.

TRENDING ON THE TRACK Oregon Heptathlete Gianna Bullock Redefines The Collegiate Athlete As Content Creator

By Ruby Wool

unning a few minutes late after track practice at Hayward Field, Gianna Bullock slowly opened the back door to her Communication Law class. The creaking entry and click of its latch forced a pause in the professor’s lecture. The University of Oregon (UO) senior heptathlete placed her electric scooter beside the entrance and quietly weaved through rows of students and sprawled out backpacks, proceeding to a fourth-row seat. She pulled her chair out from under the desk, and the friction between the chair’s legs and the tiled floor produced a faint squeak. She found a seat beside her roommate, who gave Bullock a soft smile while the teacher continued talking about the Tinker v. Des Moines Supreme Court case. Donning all black, with hints of Oregon green and yellow, Bullock opened her computer and absorbed the discussion about student speech on school campuses. Her professor explained the precedent set in the landmark case, where the justices established that school officials cannot censor student speech unless it materially and substantially disrupts the educational process. Just a few minutes into the lesson, Bullock’s backpack vibrated, and her alarm sounded across the room. The clock read 2:50 p.m., signaling her 10-minute reminder to post a TikTok video. According to the social media app’s insights, Bullock has the best chance to engage with her 139,700 TikTok followers, 70% of whom are females between the ages of 15 and 23, at that time. Bullock’s cheeks turned a slightly redder pigment than the post-practice flush. She silenced her device but quickly opened the draft folder in the app. The then 21-year-old prepared her post and finalized her caption, hashtags, and cover photo. By 3 p.m., the five-second, pre-recorded video began attracting views and receiving likes.

ASCEND 66

Photo by Evan Poulsen

Bullock’s journey to becoming a four-time collegiate conference champion, public relations major, and social media entrepreneur began in 2010. As an ambitious, multiracial, 8-year-old athlete in Mount Juliet, Tennessee, Bullock started her sports career as a soccer player. But by her sophomore year of high school, she had made a name for herself on the track. Bullock didn’t just excel in one event. She shined across multiple disciplines — running, jumping, and throwing. Eventually, she found her footing as a heptathlete and pentathlete. Hoping to jump to the next level, she solicited coaching support from Gary Kinder, a 1988 Olympian decathlete and 10-time United States National Track and Field Team member. In the spring of her senior year, already committed to UO, Bullock won five state titles at the 2021 Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association Division II-AA Championships and scored a personal best of 3,535 points to win the pentathlon at the state meet. She additionally collected individual titles in the 100 and 300-meter hurdles, high jump, and long jump. Freshman year at UO presented significant changes, yet Bullock achieved personal records and seized on name, image, and likeness (NIL) opportunities amid the backdrop of the changing college sports landscape. In 2021, the NCAA enacted rule changes that provided athletes with varying degrees of protections and the possibility to monetize their NIL.

ASCEND 68

Under the current policy, student-athletes can make deals with businesses and profit from their NIL without risking their eligibility to compete. While Bullock primarily focuses on accessing NIL benefits through social media and brand partnerships, other student-athletes sell custom merchandise, pursue paid speaking engagements, host youth training camps, and more. While this change is intended for the entire Division I, II, and III demographic, male athletes, particularly those on football and basketball teams, disproportionately reap the benefits of the NIL economy. According to a 2024 Washington Post investigative report, male college athletes, who earn 82% of the total value of all NIL payments, are more often paid for their potential performance, whereas women must focus on growing substantial social media followings to earn comparable compensation. Thus, female college athletes like Bullock must take it upon themselves to build their personal brand beyond the bounds of their sport. They’re following a different playbook to earn equal pay. “Being a female college athlete has gotten progressively better in the four years I’ve run track here,” says Bullock. “But in everything I do, I am still working twice as hard to get half the attention.” Bullock started her career for the Ducks by putting up impressive numbers in the long jump, earning a top measurement of 5.63 meters

and posting a time of 8.83 seconds in the 60-meter hurdles. In her second year on the team, she became the No. 8 pentathlon performer in UO history. Bullock competed in the heptathlon and helped Oregon win its third consecutive, 14th total, and final Pac-12 title during her junior season in May 2024. In January 2025, she topped 4,000 points for the first time, moving up to the No. 5 pentathlon performer in program history. Two months later, Oregon claimed the Big Ten Conference Women’s Indoor Track and Field Championship title, with fourth-year Bullock contributing significant points to the team score. These achievements and accolades are impressive, but Bullock has been building something even bigger that will fuel future success outside of Hayward Field. Elevated by the well-recognized Oregon brand and supported by her impressive athletic ability, she uses social media to capitalize on her influence and inspire young girls. Her career in the social media space took off after she posted a video on TikTok during her first year of college — receiving over 25 million views. Since then, Bullock has grown her following by

documenting her journey at UO, repurposing her TikTok posts for Instagram to her combined 360,000 followers. Beyond amassing followers, Bullock has learned valuable business skills and how to pitch herself to companies that resonate with her personal brand — one she defines as “relatable, light-hearted, and honest.” This past summer, Bullock participated in the inaugural 2024 @Inflcr NIL Summit and joined the NCAA x Meta NIL Empower Program. She also signed with the William Morris Endeavor (WME) sports agency, joining a collegiate player roster of Louisiana State University gymnast Olivia Dunne, Texas Christian University guard Olivia Miles, and several others. ON3, a leading college sports and NIL news network, ranked Bullock No. 1 in NIL Valuation in November 2024 for NCAA women’s track and field athletes. The star athlete holds partnerships with Reebok, McDonald’s, PSD Underwear, and more. WME helped Bullock seal her first deal of senior year — a campaign with Uber for $30,000, slightly up from her average contract of $20,000. The campaign entailed posting a 30-second reel of her using the Uber app. Bullock has hit the $50,000 endorsement mark twice, in collaborations with Dick’s Sporting Goods and Beyond Meat.

Photo by Evan Poulsen

Gianna Bullock competes in the long jump during the 2023 Pac-12 Championships at Mt. San Antonio College.

Photo by Eric Becker

When preparing to upload a TikTok, Bullock does the work ahead of time, creating and editing drafts before bed. She makes sure never to post the same thing twice, something she tries to emulate on her platforms and the track. Whether it’s race times, like a 14:03-second stunt in the 100-meter hurdles or app interactions, such as millions of views on her most-watched TikTok video, it’s a learning process where she strives for constant improvement. Female college athletes are changing the game and attracting attention not just to their profiles but to women’s sports in general. Their achievements challenge traditional beliefs about the commercial viability of women's sports and pave the way for future generations of athletes. By creating authentic content and forming strategic brand partnerships, women continue to outperform their male counterparts in terms of social media followings and engagement. According to the athlete marketing intelligence platform, Out2Win, on average, there were 2.67 million TikTok plays for the top five women’s college basketball players in the 2023-24 season, which was 80% more than men. Women athletes are leveraging social media to build direct fan connections and raise their visibility in unprecedented ways. Out2Win also reported in its 2024-25 Women’s College Basketball report that 52% of NIL deals are with women. Companies are eager to create new projects and startups that include female athletes at the forefront of their business model because the investment into gender equality is proving profitable — women are a good, revenue-generating product. While lots of brands want to take

advantage of the marketing potential, Bullock remains conscious and deliberate about her brand partnerships. For instance, she partnered with Serena Williams’ husband and tech entrepreneur Alexis Ohanian Sr. and his app InnerCircle: Athletes First. On December 2, 2024, Ohanian took to Instagram to publicly welcome Bullock as InnerCircle’s newest athlete addition. Bullock helped Ohanian and his team test out new app concepts and has begun giving subscribers what they came for: an exclusive look into her training, daily routines, and behind-the-scenes moments. Bullock has transformed her college athletic career into her own content creation lab. In this past year alone, Bullock earned six figures from NIL while continuing to amass more followers. Her social media presence isn’t just for entertainment purposes, nor are the posts meant to be aimlessly scrolled past. Her self-expression on TikTok — digital, entrepreneurial, athletic, and unapologetically visible — reflects how students today continue to assert their voices in new, meaningful ways. She is a modern case of Tinker v. Des Moines in action, four rows before her professor's eyes. Tinker established that students have the right to express themselves, even in public school settings, so long as it doesn’t disrupt the educational environment, save the occasional alarm. Bullock has made the jump from student to professional, creating a personal brand that inspires the next generation of female college athletes to take advantage of the opportunities most accessible to them: their name, image, and likeness.

Photo by Meron Menghistab

Rules To Run By Chris Bennett Creates Nike Run Club For Every Athlete

By Maya McLeroy

n the spring of 2014, Nike asked Chris Bennett to plan a guided run for a group of runners meeting up at some of its stores along the East Coast. Bennett was a good choice to work with the shoe powerhouse, having devoted most of his life to running. He delivered his pitch: on Monday, they’d run to recover; on Tuesday, they’d run fast; they’d take a break on Wednesday, then repeat it all over again on Thursday and Friday. On Saturday, they’d all get together and go for a long run.

going to ask me to move to Oregon, you gotta ask me now. I’ve seen too many ’80s movies to be the dad who moves his kids in the middle of high school.”

“This is just a random group of people coming together to go on a run,” said Nike representatives. “They aren’t elite athletes.”

Nike Run Club — part app, part community, fully Bennett’s brainchild — is a supportive nudge to get everyone, from the newbie runner to the marathoner, to lace up their shoes and start running. The app has a library of over 300 guided runs recorded by Bennett and other running coaches. Bennett often peppers in a rotation of catchphrases throughout his guided runs, including, “Every finish line is really just a starting line in disguise” or “When you can’t do the run you want, do the run you can.” All Nike apps have a usership of over 100 million people, and Nike Run Club makes up a portion of those subscribers. The free app outlines plans ranging from running a 5K to training for a marathon.

“I know, but I’m going to treat them like elite athletes,” said Bennett. Later, Bennett found himself in a conference room with a group of executives sitting around the table. Nike was offering him a job. Bennett grabbed a legal pad and a black marker and wrote down a bulleted list of seven rules. “This is what I stand for,” he said. “If you ever ask me to go against any of these things, I am going to say no. If you want me, then you need to want this, too.” Nike wanted Bennett on its team, and it wanted to live by his rules, too. The shoe company posted a slightly modified list of the seven rules on the wall of its 5th Avenue store in big, black letters for all to see. Soon, Bennett was flying to Boston, Toronto, and Los Angeles, training pace runners and developing more guided runs and plans. Between 2014 and 2015, he traveled to 45 cities in 15 months, actively creating what is now known as the Nike Run Club. It was never-ending meetups, runs, and coaching. But Bennett had a life back in New Jersey. “It got to a point where I had to tell Nike, 'Look, I’ve got three kids, and eventually they’re going to be high school age,'” he says. “So, if you’re

He has lived in the Pacific Northwest ever since.

At the heart of Nike Run Club is Coach Bennett’s seven rules. While rule number one of Fight Club is don’t talk about fight club, Bennett wants people to talk about these rules. More than that, he wants them to live by the rules, to sit with the rules and run with them, and hold onto them long after a run has ended. Bennett’s first rule: we are meant to be runners. Before Bennett was the mustachioed head coach and voice in the ear of millions of Nike Run Club users, he was a little boy running as hard as he could to keep up with his three older siblings through their suburban New Jersey neighborhood. “They were older than [me], stronger than [me], and better than [me] at everything,” says Bennett. "I knew that in order to stay up with them, I had to run.” Bennett knows he’s not the only one who first met running through play. Many people, if they reach back to early memories, might remember running through neighborhoods or playgrounds, pumping their little legs

and feeling, briefly, as if they had just taken flight. Those early memories around running often fade. Some start seeing running as a chore, another thing to put on the to-do list. Some might say the first time they ever ran was on their middle school cross country team, or during soccer practice, or across the basketball court. They forget that running first felt like freedom, often accompanied by a smile. That’s what Bennett is here to remind everyone of, first and foremost. All people are meant to be runners, and all runners need to be athletes, which is rule number two. Perhaps this is really the rule Nike Run Club was truly founded upon, harkening back to Bennett’s insistence on treating all runners as elite athletes. “Growing up, I played soccer and danced, so I always saw myself as an athlete, but I would never dream of calling myself a runner,” says Izzy Jones, a senior at the University of Oregon (UO). When she started at UO, she no longer had an organized sport to rely on. “I downloaded Nike Run Club, and the first time I used it was the first time I can genuinely say I enjoyed running,” says Jones. “I remember after I ran my first 5K, Coach Bennett’s voice was in my ear, and I felt so strong. I still didn’t feel like a runner at the time, but I felt like I was an athlete again.” Rule number three: every single day has a purpose. Every single day, whether good, bad or fiercely mediocre, adds to the greater story of a person’s life. Bennett argues that every single run adds to that story, too. The mark of a successful run for Bennett has always been more than stats outlining time and distance. Each run served as a meditation on who he was becoming. As he got older, Bennett noticed that other sports got slow-motion montages that exploded into action. They got Friday nights and blazing white lights. They drew crowds, choruses, cheerleaders, and chaos. But for most runs, the story was kept between the runner, their team, and the track, trail, or treadmill beneath them. Still, Bennett never saw running as a solitary sport. From as early as fifth grade, Bennett recognized he was part of something bigger than himself. He knew he wanted to show up for his teammates. Bennett ran through childhood into high school, where he started to stumble. “If there wasn’t practice, I wasn’t running,” says Bennett. “I would play basketball in the yard. I would hit a tennis ball against the wall, but I wouldn’t go for a run. For years, I convinced myself that I hated running. It was much easier for me to say running sucks than to admit that I was lazy.” Despite claiming that he hated running, he added more of it to his

ASCEND 74

plate. While studying history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, he trained with both the cross country and track and field teams. In college, Bennett was a miler, discovering he could run relatively easily while putting in relatively little work at that distance. If there was an optional practice run in the early hours of the morning, Bennett often chose to stay in bed rather than lace up his shoes. During one of his first practices back from winter break in his junior year, he did a short and easy workout. He was dating someone on the team, and she ran longer distances, like 5 and 10Ks. When she got back from a practice run, he asked her how it went. “This bullshit’s got to stop,” she said and walked off the track. Bennett realized two things: he was about to get dumped, and he needed to wake up. “I was 100% making her a worse version of herself,” says Bennett. He was taking time away from both of their running practices, and he wasn’t pushing either of them toward their full potential. “She became a stark reminder, if I’m not making her better, I’m probably not making any of my other teammates any better,” he says. “I felt ashamed. I hadn’t just been lazy. I had been wasteful with the talent I had.” Bennett started putting in more work, and he began to run faster. The effort he gave in his running started to ripple into all areas of his life, and he noticed himself showing up as a better boyfriend, teammate, student, and friend. Bennett’s fourth rule: respect the run, but never fear it. On the other side of fear, there is a lesson waiting for the runner, and for Bennett, it was a lesson in humility. After college, he moved to California to run for the Nike Farm Team, an Olympic training team based out of Stanford University. “I moved out there to be the best I could be,” says Bennett, “knowing I was probably going to set myself up to never, ever win a race again. I was good, but I wasn’t great. I was training with athletes that wanted to make the Olympics. I was trying to make the Olympic trials.” Rule number five is embrace your weaknesses. Bennett went from being the fastest kid on the track to not even the fastest kid in his apartment building. He worked in finance and wasn’t even the fastest guy in his office. “I realized if I was going to be my best, I had to put myself in a situation where there was a very, very good chance I was never going to be the best,” says Bennett. This forced Bennett to adopt a growth mindset. He constantly dreamt up new goals that seemed wildly out of reach but continued to work toward them anyway. For instance, Bennett really wanted to break a four-minute mile. He got close to that

Photo Illustration by Lucas Carroll

time but never did break it. He almost qualified for the Olympic trials, but he didn’t quite make it there. “I’m really proud of the fact that I went after these goals that were never guaranteed,” says Bennett. “If the goal is great enough, there’s a big chance you might never reach it. And that was an important lesson I held onto as I began coaching high schoolers,” he adds. In the fall of 2007, Bennett moved back to New Jersey to coach cross country at Christian Brothers Academy, his high school alma mater. He felt a strong allegiance to the boys he coached, realizing he had to help coach them in more ways than just running. “If they leave practice and they’re only faster,” says Bennett, “then you’ve failed [as a coach].” While coaching, Bennett began a business venture with Tammie, the girlfriend who pushed him to make a change in college. Now married, they created a running company aptly named Bennett Running. They organized races, clinics, and community runs for high schoolers across The Garden State. They hosted summer camps marked by thick slabs of watermelon in between long runs and lessons in community building. These camps were how executives at Nike first caught wind of the work Bennett was doing. Members from Nike’s team visited the running camps and gave kids new shoelaces and presentations in between runs. Bennett didn’t know then that he’d soon be hired by this sportswear giant to move across the country and start recording guided runs for runners he’d never meet on trails he’d never tread upon. All Bennett knew was that he wanted to coach. “Bill Bowerman said, ‘If you have a body, you are an athlete.' And what I say to that is, 'If you have a heart, you are a coach.' You don’t have to carry a clipboard and wear knee-high socks and a whistle. You can be a coach to yourself, and you can be a coach to other people,” says Bennett. Bennett’s heart has spanned the miles he’s covered, from coast to coast and back again.

Having helped build a running empire, Bennett now devotes his attention to the roles in his life where he’s more than just a

ASCEND 76

coach. He is a father, a husband, a brother, and a friend. He loves listening to music from the ’80s and speaks with such a rhythm it sounds like he may start reciting a poem. He is a writer and podcaster, and he explains how sometimes, he must give 100% of himself in all these different areas of his life, which adds up to way more than 100%. The math doesn’t always make sense, but that’s because most of life can’t be whittled down to neat calculations. “He is such a giving person," says Tammie. “When we were in college, the coach used him to be the host when recruits came in. And I remember one of the recruits once told me, 'Chris makes me feel like I’m the only person in the room.' He has this way of seeing you and making you feel important." Bennett became the best version of himself by helping others become the best versions of themselves. The sixth rule is to measure success as many ways as you can. Bennett believes a person brings every version of themselves to every run. “The good, the bad, the in-between,” he says. “There are certain things I’m going after now, but I wasn’t going after before, and there were certain things I was going after before that I’m not going after now. I think you’re always bringing everything to the line.” The seventh and final rule of Nike Run Club is sometimes, you need someone else to make you believe in yourself. “It’s crazy how [Coach Bennett] seems to always know what to say and when to say it," says Nathan Williamson, a junior at UO who used Nike Run Club to train for the 2025 Eugene Marathon. "[I’d] be eight miles into my run, and the rain [would] be pelting my face, and [I’d] think to myself, 'I can’t do this anymore.' And then all of a sudden, Coach Bennett is telling me, 'Actually, you can do this.’ Which makes me keep running, just to see if he’s right.” This rule has been proven true time and again in Bennett’s life. It was true when Tammie told him to cut the bullshit, which put some pep in his step and transformed how he approached running. It was true when Nike asked Bennett to join its team, paving a path for runners worldwide to run with him. And it’s true every time Bennett assumes the role of that “someone else,” his voice in the ear of millions of runners, reminding them that every finish line is really just another starting line in disguise.

Photo by Meron Menghistab

Margo Hayes looks to her next hold on a kilter board at the Grotto Climbing Gym.

Grasp For Meaning Margo Hayes Rebuilds Her Relationship With Climbing

By Malya Fass Photos by Lucas Carroll

argo Hayes is at the nail salon.

The nail technician tactfully coats rosy polish onto her fingernails. “My hands are so dry,” Hayes says to the woman painting her nails. Light from the table lamp reflects on her peachy lip gloss and illuminates her hands, her most valuable instrument. Her skin is often torn, and her nails are kept short and dull. But today, her nails are bright and polished — disabling her from working the next week. The tangy, dizzying scent of polish, acetone and flowery lotion swarms the room, stinging every nostril in the place. Hayes slides her hands under the curing light. The glow heats her fingertips for a moment before illuminating the bottom of her face with a blue hue. As she walks up to the counter to pay, she accidentally smudges her new manicure. Two women walk up and insist on fixing the smudge. Hayes politely refuses, remarking that it'll just get messed up eventually. The glossy and now flawed manicure signifies something more than style. She’s not attending a party or speaking at an event. She’s taking time to rest. “If I get my nails done, I won't climb for that week,” says Hayes. “80% of the time, my hands and my nails are all torn up, but I feel like I can really embrace that period of rest when I have them done.”

Eight years ago, Hayes’ hands were bloodied, worn, and certainly unmanicured. Exhausted, standing at the bottom of the crag in Siurana, Spain, she faced the 135-foot La Rambla, a 5.15 graded climb that was considered one of the hardest in the world in 2017.

She almost packed up and left after a full day of climbing, but the then 19-year-old Hayes tried the route one last time. La Rambla has been described as three climbs: a 5.13c crack, which follows a traverse to the left, becoming 5.14b as it moves to the right, and finishing with 35 feet of 5.13c climbing. A climber must preserve their energy tactfully throughout the route, utilizing rest holds while comprehending their own body’s needs. There's no one-size-fits-all way to complete a route, as each climber must assess their own height, personal strengths, and movement to make it through each section without falling. They must memorize each handhold, exact foot placement, and precise movement as they scale the wall. In the meantime, they must find moments to clip their rope into each quickdraw, ensuring a short fall if the climber slips off the wall. She had been trying the route all day. With each attempt, her skin became more torn and wounded. “My fingers were bleeding so badly. I was slipping on my own blood,” says Hayes. “I thought, 'I need to rest.' But I thought, 'What if I just send it? Then I can rest for a long time.'” That sentiment carried her through her final attempt. Hayes climbed to the top of La Rambla, making history. She was the first woman and the 15th person in the world to climb the 5.15 grade, which wasn't even achieved in rock climbing until Chris Sharma climbed a route called Biographie in 2001. A year after Hayes' La Rambla ascent, she too climbed Biographie, making history in the sport not once but twice. Then, in Oliana, Spain, she conquered Papichulo — her third 5.15 route. She was

“

I've had to accept more periods of rest because of my health as well. Life sometimes, you know, gives you beautiful lessons in a way that it breaks your idea if what you should be doing.“

the first woman to climb the 9a+ trilogy: La Rambla, Biographie, and Papichulo.

“I fell in love with it,” says Hayes. “I did both, and then eventually moved into just climbing after a few years.”

The climbing community spotlighted her records. The looming question was what she'd do next.

She moved quickly through the ranks of the sport. Just one year later, she climbed her first V10 route, Dead Serious, in El Paso, Texas.

“When I sent La Rambla and I gained 60,000 followers overnight, I cried,” says Hayes. "People asked me, ; 'Why are you crying?' Before then, I had 11,000 followers, and that was the perfect number. I just thought it was so many people, and I was so afraid of the pressure.” At that point, climbing began to feel like a job, the pressure taking over.

Hayes has a commanding presence. She doesn't look like your typical dirtbag rock climber. Her speech is high-pitched and bubbly — but assertive. Bobby pins keep her hair slicked back into a ponytail, and her tan makeup blends into her hairline. She often dons a smile complimented by peachy lip gloss and eyes wide with mascara. Her matching black and white yoga pants and sports bra set are covered by a heather gray zip-up, draped tactfully around her arms, and Air Force 1s with white socks scrunched around her ankles. It's not a big training day for Hayes, but she's at her local climbing gym. She hugs the man working at the front desk. People are happy to see her. Hayes is embedded in the community, not in a particular local hero way, but in an older sister to the younger kids and a close friend of the staff kind of way. She walks with conviction, her shoulders tucked back. On and off the wall, the way she moves through the world shows that she's incredibly comfortable in her body. She's been honing that skill for a long time. At 10 years old, Hayes’ focus was mostly on gymnastics. One of her elementary school classmates in Boulder, Colorado, was Shawn Rabatou, another future pro rock climber. While recovering from a gymnastics injury, Hayes was invited to try climbing by Rabatou’s mom, the coach of the local climbing team.

ASCEND 80

-Margo Hayes

“When I climbed that route, I realized I could be in that 1%,” says Hayes. Despite climbing a V10 at age 11, she still considers herself a late starter by the sport’s standards. “When I see kids climbing at the gym at 3,” says Hayes, “I think, 'Oh my god, you're on a hang board at 3 years old?' When I was 3, I was naked in the dirt.” In middle and high school, Hayes watched the clock and waited for the bell to ring because she couldn't wait to climb. “I didn't have to go through anything for anyone. I was climbing for myself,” says Hayes. “Within climbing, I think I've come full circle to my inner child of climbing. And that has been really beautiful.” She's a high-powered athlete, but she's taken the pressure off of herself and put that energy back into self-care. In the corner of the gym, Hayes finds a pool of sun to warm herself up. She goes through a stretching sequence without a particular routine — she just listens to her body. Hayes moves to the hangboard and does five pull-ups with ease. Then, a pause, she stretches her arms and neck and completes another five. After 10 more pull-ups, she's ready to get on the wall. She looks like a regular California girl who's into pilates and yoga, which she is, until she gets on the rock wall to train. Her movement effortless, Hayes pulls her weight up the wall, gripping onto tiny handholds and calculating her next swift motion. She looks like a ballerina, moving around the kilter board like it's a dance, effortlessly making up the choreography as she swiftly swaps feet and reaches for the next hold. She’s 27 now, and her big sends of La Rambla, Biographie, and Papichulo are in the past. She’s a legend in the climbing community,

but she’s had to shift her focus over the years. In 2018, Hayes took time off from competing. She realized she needed to go back to the roots of why she started climbing. “When there was so much pressure, I lost sight of why I was doing it in the first place,” says Hayes. It was an internal choice — she was burnt out. The expectations placed upon her felt heavy. When she took time for herself, she removed the pressure for the first time since she was 19 years old. She climbed for herself — blocking out the noise, the pressure, and the expectations. It reignited her love for climbing. Having time to rest during that competition circuit helped her learn that rest is necessary for her. It’s a principle she’s carried into the rest of her career and one that she’s had to come back to recently. In the summer of 2024, Hayes discovered she'd been struggling with Lyme disease. As she’s navigated this change in health, it’s been incredibly important to Hayes to take control of her own narrative. People on the internet, who know her only through her professional career, have passed judgment on Hayes’ progression through the sport over the last seven years. “Why isn’t she climbing as much?” one person wrote. “Why hasn’t she sent something lately?” another asked. For Hayes, Lyme disease has changed her life and routine as a professional athlete in many ways. She deals with chronic fatigue, struggles with temperature regulation, and gets severe migraines. The disease is sporadic, the symptoms varying every day. With that comes the internal battle of dealing with a chronic illness while climbing. Hayes had to update her goals based on her body's new limits. Now, she describes her balance as going at 90% rather than her regular 120%, which she says makes life more enjoyable. “I've had to accept more periods of rest because of my health as well,” says Hayes. "Life sometimes, you know, gives you beautiful lessons in a way that it breaks your idea of what you should be doing.” For her, advocating for her health is about more than just her own narrative. It’s about setting a precedent within the climbing

community — one that can help uplift others to do the same. “We all have our own struggles, whether that be within our family, within society, within our health. You never know what someone is dealing with,” says Hayes. “When people comment about someone’s accomplishments, their health, their body, whatever it may be, there are probably already people in their life who actually know them and can help them manage the problem. Talking about it online is not the answer.” Hayes often faces adversity online — body shaming, bullying, and even sometimes stalking. “I think the internet is really not a safe place for women,” says Hayes. "I’m honestly praying that some satellite crashes or something, and there’s no Instagram, no internet for like a month. We need an internet pandemic.” Her solution: two phones. One with her social media and emails and another with 10 contacts total. “You can’t get away from your phone, and from the internet, and from the judgment,” says Hayes. “I think all of our brains need a reset, so I really try to have moments in my life where I’m really focused on being present and not on screens.”

At her favorite running trail, the internet can’t follow her. The path leads to a tree-covered cove, facing a stream that ripples over rocks and cools the air around it. Hayes stops and perches on a rock in a spot of sun, where the trees part and leave a spotlight on the stones. She lets the sun shine on her face and watches the running water. Her period of rest has given her time to reflect on her success and the things that she wants to accomplish. Hayes describes herself as a dreamer, even a bit delusional at times. “If I know I can do it, it's not as exciting to me,” she says. She wants to show the world that she’s more than just “Miss 5.15,” as the internet coined her. Hayes has already made a big impact. Her time away from the sport has made her less inclined to keep chasing the high and instead focus on the people around her. Hayes is pursuing her bachelor's degree. She wants to give back to the climbing community that has done so much for her. She’s planning on coaching a few girls at her local climbing gym to create a positive training experience for young women in the sport. At the top of her to-do list is finding ways to be present and mindful and maybe spend a little more time sporting those bright, rosy nails.

New Face

of the 1500 Cole Hocker Outkicks His Opponents For Gold By Becca Weinberg

Photo by Jeff Cohen

ole Hocker stands tall yet restless, staring down the first straightaway of the lavender track that his racing spikes have already befriended at the start line. His signature bun rests on the back of a head brimming with meticulously rehearsed racing scenarios at the overflowing Stade de France. Sandwiched between a multi-year, bitter rivalry. He’s a pesky afterthought to his surrounding competition. Each flashing scene of the archetypically hostile interviews that illuminate the stadium’s video board brings focus to the two athletes on either side of Hocker, Norwegian Jakob Ingebrigtsen and Great Britain's Josh Kerr, and pushes him further offstage. Anticipation of national records, world records, and eight seasons of racing building up to the present moment accompanies intentional disregard for the remaining lineup of competitors. The watchful eyes of the racing world are vigorously fixated on Ingebrigtsen and Kerr, the intended main event. While he appears stoic, internally, Hocker has never been more anxious. He jostles impatiently as the racers’ introductions conclude, keeping his eyes focused on only the track directly ahead. Each deep breath and leg shake represents an attempt to relax, which he knows will only be truly possible when the starting pistol erupts. When the familiar starting sound finally begins to ring through each competitors’ ears, the glow of the retreating Paris sun guides Hocker around the track’s curves, his muscles pumping and legs churning at a historically fast pace. Ingebrigtsen takes the early lead with Kerr directly behind, while Hocker falls quickly towards the back. Hocker’s name won’t enter the announcers' mouths until 43.1 seconds in when he breaks out of the pack to the outside lane to strategically move up towards the front. The group condenses, and Hocker edges back into the inside lane, where he will remain until thrusting his bright orange Nike spikes across the finish line. Behind the concentrated eyes, pre-race angst, heaving chest, and fitted Team USA uniform is a University of Oregon (UO) product by way of Indianapolis, Indiana, who is achieving his dream of competing in a men’s 1,500 meter Olympic final. A four-time NCAA champion, two-time Olympian, daring 23-year-old who is about to hold a gold medal in his hand and never let it go.

The sunlit trails of Indianapolis' Geist Reservoir supplied countless training miles in Hocker’s early years. For the determined eighth grader who ran a 4:36 mile, reserved high school sophomore who finished fourth in the state in the 1,600 meters, and composed high school senior who claimed

ASCEND 86

first place in the Foot Locker National Cross Country Championships, each lap around the reservoirs’ algae-covered waters provided a presence of solitude among the building pressure. The Cathedral High School graduate quickly filled his trophy shelf as state and national honors piled in. Yet Hocker’s training mantra remained the same as when he won his first national meet in elementary school: work in silence and let his training show up in races when it mattered most. It wasn’t long before collegiate coaches took notice. Hocker was no stranger to Hayward Field’s prestigious legacy and enduring history when he committed to racing on the UO track and field team in 2019. Although in the form of a construction site when he first arrived, the stadium’s new renovations were completed at the end of his first season, and Hocker felt its presence immediately. “Steve Prefontaine was my introduction to running, so I knew I would get to be a part of history as soon as I got to Eugene,” says Hocker. “And as soon as I ran at Hayward Field, that was just amplified to the highest degree.” The sheer dominance of Prefontaine’s career ignited Hocker’s passion for racing. Setting American records at every distance from 2,000 to 10,000 meters, and winning 120 out of his 153 career races with seven NCAA titles, Prefontaine is widely considered one of the best long-distance runners ever. Much like the black and white image of Prefontaine in Hocker’s childhood home, dozens of Oregon track and field’s biggest names line the interior and exterior of Hayward through photographs. Prefontaine’s legacy as one of the sport’s most influential figures is highlighted more than most through Hayward’s numerous exhibits, artwork, and other special displays of quotes, training logs, and racing footage. Hocker’s Olympic ambitions were immediately present in his first collegiate years, driving himself to new heights with his unmatched closing speed. Known to outkick opponents on the backstretch, Hocker brought a unique intensity to every race. He would preface a monstrous sophomore season with the 2020 United States Olympic Trials in Eugene. Donning the green and white Oregon singlet in the men’s 1,500 meter final that countless Olympic hopefuls had worn before him, Hocker stayed in optimal position the entire race, clinging to reigning 2016 Olympic champion and Oregon Hall of Famer, Matthew Centrowitz. In the 18 seconds between when he started around the final curve and crossed the finish line, an astonished Hocker kicked past an equally stunned Centrowitz to claim first place and a plane ticket to Tokyo, Japan, for the 2020 Olympics. Against a star-studded field at the Olympics that included

Photo by Vegard Grøtt / AP

Cole Hocker crosses the finish line at the 2024 Paris Olympics to secure his first gold medal.

Cole Hocker rounds the curve in the 2022 U.S. Outdoor Championships at Hayward Field.

Photo by Matt Parker

Ingebrigtsen, Kerr, and distinguished Kenyan racer Timothy Cheruiyot, the 19-year-old Hocker qualified for the 1,500 meter final, and secured yet another impressive finish to take sixth place with a personal best time of 3:31.40. “[The Olympic final] was a goal I couldn’t even comprehend at the beginning of the year,” says Hocker, “but at Tokyo, I learned there was a whole other level to where I’m at right now.” By winning both the mile and 3,000 meter race at the 2021 NCAA Division I Indoor Track and Field Championships, and the 1,500 meter race at the 2021 NCAA Division I Outdoor Track and Field Championships, Hocker showed he was capable of taking it to another level.

Three months later, a succinct Instagram post on June 2, 2022, announced that Hocker was turning pro with Nike. The post included a small highlight reel of a young Hocker progressing through the stages of racing development, overlaid with presentday Hocker gliding across a paved trail in Nike shoes. Thanking his coaches, teammates, and agent, the day Hocker had been working towards since his early days on the track had finally arrived. “Most of the best competition in the NCAA was on my own team. We always had national contenders, so there wasn’t too much of a step in between,” says Hocker of forgoing the remainder of his NCAA eligibility and turning pro. Initially, he feared that he had jumped too quickly into a new reality, but he knew his time at Oregon had prepared him for his future of professional racing. As a Eugene-based runner, Hocker continued to train with his Oregon teammates and head coach Ben Thomas after signing with Nike. His ability to take the next step forward while not having to make significant lifestyle changes made the decision even easier. “I always believed he could be great, but I didn’t think it would come so quickly,” says Thomas. “Like winning the Olympic Trials during his sophomore year, he always had that mindset about being mature and consistent with his training. He seemed to always know he wanted to do everything he could to get there.” Continuing to build on his success, Hocker strode confidently through the finish line to win the men’s 3,000 meter race of the 2022 USA Indoor Track and Field Championships in February. One day earlier, on another winter afternoon in snowy Spokane, Washington, he set a meet record in the men’s 1,500 meter race with a time of 3:39.09. Hocker’s path forward included securing a qualifying time in the U.S. National Track and Field Championships in June, which he entered as a heavy favorite. An expected walk in the park, shortly turned into the hardest race and most difficult year of his career. Halfway down the home stretch, something went wrong. The five runners over his right shoulder uncharacteristically passed Hocker en route to the finish line, sending a wave of shock around the Hayward Field seating bowl. When the pressure was on, and Hocker had shown previously that he was one of the best, the

Nike favorite failed to qualify for the U.S. Championships. A media session absence eventually revealed that an injury prevented Hocker from executing his typical race strategy of a strong finishing kick, and would keep him off the oval for several months following.

Each cross-training day on the stationary bike felt like an eternal slow burn, with weeks of rehabilitation ahead. Racing in meets he felt his skill level was above, utilizing short volume intervals mixed with speed training to bring his tempo back up, Hocker put his head down and strived for each small, attainable goal he could find to rebuild himself. Starting first with easy mileage that eventually helped him work up to Olympic standard race attempts, his unique mindset of determination and grit continued to set him apart from the pack. “The collective memory of track and field is so short,” says Hocker. “If you’re not good for a month, you're just a memory at that point.” It wasn’t just public perception that affected him. The whole basis of the life he’d worked so hard to build was quickly dismantled, and the only way back to the top was to keep pushing forward. “A lot of runners in that position would second guess themselves, question things, and want to change everything,” says Thomas. “Cole knew it was temporary and wanted to stay the course. We didn’t change his training and focused on getting better.” With SOVA, his training group in Blacksburg, Virginia, Hocker utilized speed work, altitude training, paced long runs, hill strides, and various timed track workouts to continue working back up towards the level he knew he could reach. Logging numerous hours at Virginia Tech’s outdoor track and its neighboring paved trails, Hocker remained set on building back his strength and speed following the injury. “My time in the limelight wasn’t going to carry me through multiple years. I needed to get to the next level. It was really hard, but I did my best to zoom out and say there’s another Olympics on the horizon,” says Hocker. On the road to recovery, Hocker faced a rocky 2023 season, which was closed out with the Diamond League final at the Prefontaine Classic. Hocker competed in the most anticipated event of the meet, the Bowerman Mile, and matched up against other Olympic hopefuls. In a field flooded with the year’s blue and yellow dipped Nike kits, Hocker found himself amidst a world record chase that would place him sixth overall in the final with a personal best of 3:48.08, the fourth fastest mile time ever run by an American. Hocker’s training now shifted to the only thing on his mind: the 2024 Olympic final in Paris.

Hocker’s footprints grew quite fond of the paved hills, luscious grass trails, wooden footbridge paths, expansive fields, and treetopped walkways of Blacksburg. He clocked hundreds of miles in

the buildup to Paris under Thomas’ continued guidance. Aiming three years of training at one race could appear absurd, but Hocker knew what he wanted to accomplish and made every possible move to get there. “I always had speed and a fast finishing kick, that's been my quiver as a runner,” says Hocker. “It got me to the Tokyo final, but that’s all it did. It just got me to the final. It didn’t allow me to compete, so I had to bridge that gap by identifying weaknesses and finding my strengths.” Hocker remained focused on how he could make himself uncomfortable during training to bridge the gap. Tested first through 300 and 400 meter speed work and additional shorter reps to increase volume, mixed in with pool cardio for crosstraining, and later with multiple weeks of altitude training in Utah, Hocker attacked his Olympic preparation head-on. He continued through low-effort, long-distance runs, bounding hill strides, and paced trail intervals in the build-up to his first meets of the season. At the Los Angeles Grand Prix in May, Hocker ran a 12:58.82 5,000 meter race, a new personal record and an Olympic standard time. He concluded the month with a seventh-place finish in the Prefontaine Classic’s Bowerman Mile with a time of 3:48.95 and prepared for his first stop on the road to Paris, the U.S. Olympic Trials in June, 2024. It took only 3:30.59 for Hocker to speed across Hayward Field’s finish line in the men’s 1,500 meter final, propelled by a kick so long it started way before the final turn, and capped off by a meet record and his signature raised arms celebration. “In the races leading up [to the Olympics], training was coming so easy, he made fast intervals look so controlled,” says Thomas. “I knew from how he raced at trials that the speed and strength were there to do something he’d never done before.”

The closest thing to an out-of-body experience Hocker ever felt was at the start of the Olympic final. Heart racing, ears ringing, eyes blurred, Hocker positioned himself perfectly through the first laps. “I was strong, sharp and experienced. And I still had that finishing kick,” says Hocker. “With all of those working together, I knew I was going to be really hard to beat.” Slowed by only the wait of an opening window, Hocker decided instantly who he was going to be when his chance to take an inside lane finally came. With the crescendoing cheer of the crowd propelling him forward, and the weight of each past career

ASCEND 90

obstacle forcing him back, one final stride across the finish line revised every pre-written storyline. Hocker had taken many victory laps in his racing career, but ringing the victory bell reserved for gold medalists was an experience he thought would never arrive. Each carefully processed scenario that rushed through Hocker’s head at the start line was focused on simply finishing the race. There was no scenario that ended with Team USA 1,500 meter champion Cole Hocker holding a gold medal in his hand. “I’d given the medal zero thought. I’d never rehearsed this,” he says. With arms lifted in triumph, no one in the entire stadium was as surprised at the win as Hocker himself. Former Oregon teammate and fellow Team USA Olympian Jaida Ross watched Hocker’s win from her hotel room and was excited to see a member of the Duck family achieve his goal. “I remember seeing him go around the final corner and it got my own adrenaline going,” says Ross. “It was so awesome seeing someone I know and who was a Duck win. We were all yelling.” Thomas sunk into his hard plastic stadium seat in disbelief, with one hand covering his watering eyes and another still grasping his bright yellow stopwatch. “It was not something I ever dreamed of,” says Thomas. “I’d coached NCAA champions and seen many do well at the Olympic trials, but not this.” Surrounded by his own family who had flown out to watch with him, Thomas was overcome with emotion. “To share that moment with them and to see him reach every runner’s dream, it doesn’t get any better,” says Thomas. In exactly 3:27.65, a forgotten afterthought became the event’s most sought-after opponent. Hocker had just become the new face of the men’s 1,500 meter race. And his plan, following the biggest upset of the year to secure an Olympic gold, is to continue pushing for more. “It’s a scary thought, but in the best way possible, that I could be even faster than last year,” says Hocker. Hocker now toes the start line of every race with an even heavier load to bear: a new set of expectations and an even brighter spotlight. Yet, the shiny plated hardware he’s worked his whole life to adorn will be the last thing to slow him down.

Photo by Anderson Bobo

Poise Under

PRESSURE Sophomore Point Guard Jackson Shelstad Commands The Court

By Brianna Carrasquillo

n the opening 2:18 of the game against the University of Southern California on December 4, 2024, University of Oregon’s Jackson Shelstad exploded from behind his matchup to intercept a pass from Desmond Claude. With nothing but hardwood and rim ahead, the 6-foot, 180-pound point guard zeroed in on the basket and finessed the first two points of the evening. At that moment, the sophomore made a statement of riveting intent and set the tone for the game. Despite his two turnovers and less-than-ideal stat line –– going 5-13 from the field, 2-of-8 from three –– Shelstad capped the night with 24 points. It was a slow burn, his performance, one rooted in poise, patience, and a short memory. But it was written in the hesitation move he pulled on a Trojan defender — down six with 13 minutes to play — as he rose up and connected on a mid-range jumper. Charting his own course is nothing new for the West Linn, Oregon, native, especially in defining moments when the outcome hangs in the balance. “In the second half, I just came out and played more aggressive, just trusted myself,” says Shelstad. “That just goes into the work I've put in.” Following the footsteps of former Oregon point guard and reigning NBA Sixth Man of the Year Payton Pritchard, Shelstad is stepping into the impressions left behind by his predecessor. In his second season as a Duck, Shelstad looked hungry to continue a legacy of dominance with a strong foundation of in-state roots. Five years after Pritchard’s departure, the point guard position in Eugene, Oregon, feels haunted in the best possible way. What Pritchard left behind was more than highlight reels. He left a

ASCEND 92

standard. In the 2024-25 season, Shelstad embodied that same crucible, carrying the weight, the swagger, and the late-game magic that defines an Oregon floor general.

On January 12, the Ducks set their sights on a northeast showdown. Lights dimmed, and highlighter yellow and charcoal uniforms emerged, engulfed by a white sea of “We Are.” The Penn State Nittany Lions jumped out to an 8-2 lead, but a three-pointer from Shelstad helped the Ducks reclaim momentum. Weaving through defenders, Shelstad was in complete control, setting up teammates and scoring from wherever he pleased. As the Ducks clashed with the Nittany Lions in front of a national audience, Shelstad set the stage for yet another chapter in his remarkable ascent. He put 17 points and eight assists on the board, one of which included the go-ahead jumper with 47 seconds left on the clock. Shelstad wasn’t just answering the call –– he was dialing it, shot by shot. Basketball is a belaboring art. It wasn’t luck that brought Shelstad to this moment, but the product of relentless effort — a system set up by a brother-like mentor. “I feel like he’s trained for this moment,” says Pritchard. “He’s been around a lot of pros, so that’s definitely an advantage for him. He's quick, has a very good jump shot, and a good handle. It allows him to get anywhere on the court and be able to affect the game in many ways.” “He’s always had a lot of confidence. He’s always won a lot of games,” says Oregon head coach Dana Altman.

Photo by Ryan Yamasaki

Photo by Eric Evans

Jackson Shelstad goes up for a jump shot against the University of Illinois.

“Last year, I let him off the hook… I didn’t think that Jackson was able to use his quickness. But he’s really trying to focus in on it, and I think that's the key defensively for him.” Under Altman’s tutelage, Shelstad has not only flourished as a player but also embraced the responsibility that comes with running the point. As the play-caller of the offense, Shelstad’s leadership has been instrumental in Oregon’s success, especially as he navigates the challenges of being a young player on a team with high demands.

On March 4, 2025, the Matthew Knight Arena (MKA) lights dimmed, signaling a high-stakes college basketball showdown. Out from under the bleachers surfaced a team clad in a white template with apple green detailing in its plumage. It was atypical of the traditional Pantone 356, but the Fighting Duck spirit was unmistakably alive. The spectacle fired up 9,584 Duck fans gathered on Oregon’s senior night against the Indiana University Hoosiers. Wearing the same No. 3 once donned by Pritchard, Shelstad’s formidable presence spawned into action with 9:21 left in the second half, stinging a three-pointer and tying it up at 55. “He has that little extra something that you can’t put your finger on,” says Oregon guard and teammate Keeshawn Barthelemy. “That clutch gene,” echoes senior guard TJ Bamba. In the 33 minutes on the court, Shelstad executed with cold-blooded confidence. Each Oregon possession garnered inches of credibility when the game tightened. With surgical precision, nearly half of Shelstad’s 17 points came in the last 90 seconds of the game. Though his crunch-time rally proved triumphant, the journey was not linear. Between flashes of heroism, he found himself in a precarious spot. With his feet rooted in MKA’s glistening new hardwood and the ball clenched at his side, the shot clock blinked zero. Turnover. Indiana ball. The crowd bellowed in disdain, and within moments, Shelstad was watching from the sideline. Timeouts came and went like quick breaths. In true competitor fashion, Shelstad rose from the bench less than a minute later with the quiet purpose of someone who already knew what came next. Stepping into a rhythm, he commanded the ball in a redemptive effort, sinking a three from the logo, inches from where he checked in off a substitution. No rim, no doubt. For those who know him best –– it comes as no surprise. It’s a spark, not a ceiling, and Altman sees a player just scratching the surface of his potential. “Jackson has shown tremendous growth in his time here and has really embraced his role as a leader on this team. He’s proven countless times this season that he’s not afraid of the big stage or the spotlight,” says Altman. Sophomore year can be a trapdoor, a period of growing pain many athletes experience. Momentum slips, the leash tightens, and

Photo by Ian McFarland

has shown tremendous growth in “Jackson his time here and has really embraced his role as a leader on this team. He’s proven countless times this season that he’s not afraid of the big stage or the spotlight.

“

-Dana Altman

Jackson Shelstad attacks the basket in the second round of the NCAA tournament against the University of Arizona.

Jackson Shelstad extends for a layup through traffic.

Photo by Brendan Merkle

Photo by Ian McFarland

Dana Altman (left) and Jackson Shelstad (right) embrace in mid-game conversation.

confidence wavers as the novelty of being a Division I athlete settles. It hangs over some, but not Shelstad –– he crossed it up, stepped back, and outscored his first act. This season, Shelstad averaged 13.7 points, 2.9 rebounds, and 2.7 assists per game. He shot 45.1% from the field, 37.9% from the three-point range, and 83.5% from the free-throw line. The former Oregon High School Basketball Player of the Year has been a steady contributor for the Ducks for the past two seasons. West Linn is a conduit for Oregon men’s basketball prodigies, or so it seems. Blending his hometown heroics into his collegiate play, Shelstad is accustomed to the limelight. Point guard to point guard, he possesses traces of Pritchard’s poise and clutch gene, but does so under a modern blueprint, perhaps with more athleticism. “I’ve known Jackson for a long time. Our families are very close. I’ve seen Jackson as a ball boy when I was in high school for West Linn,” says Pritchard, who recognizes Shelstad’s innate ability to stay level-headed under pressure, even in the biggest of games. “[I’ve] probably never seen him mad, so I feel like on the court, he’s obviously competitive, but he has composure.” That patterned calmness shows up in his pregame routine, too. “I really like to listen to some mellow stuff. I don’t really like the loud,

hyped-up kind of stuff. I just like to chill down before the games,” says Shelstad. Rather than feeding into the chaos, his routine –– complete with a 30-minute workout and light lift –– reflects the discipline he carries onto the court. In their freshman seasons, Pritchard averaged 7.4 points per game (PPG) to Shelstad’s 12.8. Pritchard nearly doubled his stats as a sophomore, accruing 14.5 PPG to Shelstad’s 13.7. Both made leaps in their rebounds and steals, with Shelstad converting at the free-throw over 83.5% of the time this season to Pritchard’s 77.4%. Shelstad has big shoes to fill, but he’s steadily carving his own success. While their numbers tell a story of two guards with bright futures, it’s the maturity in their decision-making that connects them. Shelstad had a bevy of Division I offers to choose from coming out of high school, but being close to home was the basis for Oregon’s appeal. As a child, he frequented Duck games, seeing himself in those players and patiently waiting his turn. “It’s been a blessing to be able to be here, just a childhood dream, and the coolest thing for me is just having my family and friends be able to come to all my games,” says Shelstad. “Playing in front of the fans here, just being in-state, it kind of gives it a different feeling.” As a leader for the Ducks, he uses his energy and position as a grounding tool for the benefit of the collective.

“Whether we're down or up when other teams are going on their runs, I kind of have to be the coach on the floor,” says Shelstad. Pritchard’s presence in Shelstad’s life has been invaluable. The confidence Pritchard instills in him is rooted in their shared experiences. Learning under the same voices, the two share an unbreakable West Linn bond. Pritchard is a role model for Shelstad, but the support comes at a distance. “Honestly, it's not necessarily just telling him to always be confident in himself and believe in himself,” says Pritchard. “He works very hard, and he's dedicated to the game, and he's obviously very talented. There's not much you need to say, but just go be him.” The two often exchange sentiments, turning to Instagram to repost in solidarity with each other's achievements. “Payton is one of the best workers I’ve seen,” says Shelstad. “People just know that about him. He’s a really hard worker.” For Shelstad, it’s about trusting his process and seeing how far his work can take him. “Coach Altman has shown a lot of faith in me, which is, you know, [what] every player kind of wants to see from their head coach,” says Shelstad. “So it was easy for me, even last year as a freshman, seeing that from him, just to kind of play.” His presence is more than just making the right pass or hitting a big shot. It’s about maintaining a steady hand and helping his teammates stay focused on the present moment. Shelstad’s moment came on Friday, March 21, when the NCAA March Madness tournament extended their season. No. 5 Oregon was set to play No. 12 Liberty University. Oregon was hot, which comes as no surprise given Altman’s undefeated 7-0 record in first round NCAA tournament games. The Ducks capped the victory off in dominant fashion, putting out the Flames 81-52. In 25 minutes of play, Shelstad tallied 17 points, going 7-11 from the field. With 15:26 in the first half, he hit a three-point basket off of a Bamba steal. In transition, Shelstad hastened towards the three-point line, paused, and let the ball glide off his fingertips just outside the arc. His arm stayed suspended in the air, then moved down to his face, where his fingers motioned the sign for “three goggles,” a statement that peeled back a new layer of depth to his character. Two days later, Oregon faced a former Pac-12 Conference

ASCEND 100

rival, the University of Arizona. While an 87-83 loss ended their tournament run, there was much to be proud of from this squad, led by Shelstad’s stoic but soft-spoken supremacy. At one point, he knocked the ball loose from Arizona’s KJ Lewis not once but twice, gaining possession and triggering the fast break with a push-up and quick two-pointer to top it off. Minutes later, against a settled defense, he capitalized on a Kwame Evans Jr. pick and blazed past both defenders to nail a clean three. He backpedaled, nodding in quiet affirmation, keeping the tone and the 13-point lead sharp, but his solo efforts weren’t enough. “Losses like this hurt a lot. It’s going to hurt for a while,” says Shelstad. “We were right there last year and this year. A couple different plays, free throws, rebounds, it could have gone a different way. So it’s going to sting for a little bit.” Concluding their regular season with a 24-9 record, the Ducks finished seventh in their Big Ten debut, but Shelstad’s confidence is an intangible edge that extends beyond the box scores and the headlines. He exudes Pritchard’s leader-like qualities but is also rewriting his own standard, defined by mental acuity and speed that every coach dreams about. Pushing past the growing pains, it’s Shelstad’s fearlessness that sets him apart as a leader for the present and the future of Oregon basketball. The tournament wounds won’t heal overnight –– that much is certain. With seniors graduating and others transferring amid the ever-changing dynamics of Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL), Oregon’s roster makeup will shift, rebuilding on the fly. With Shelstad at the helm, the rising junior gives Oregon every reason to believe this program can make a monumental tournament run. Shelstad’s postseason play revealed an emotional maturity, which encapsulates a newfound sense of purpose. Online, he takes to Instagram to highlight his play and brand deals, most recently sharing his NIL partnership with Mondelēz in a Ritz commercial that aired during their March Madness campaign. From hometown collaborations to national campaigns, Shelstad is a domestic sensation. Building off last year’s NIL, he paid homage to the Ducks who paved the path before him, including Pritchard and WNBA icon Sabrina Ionescu, with custom Oregon letterman jackets. It’s a way of saying thank you to the ones who wrote the chapter of the book he hopes to finish. A third team All-Big Ten selection for the 2024-25 season, Shelstad will always be a kid from West Linn, one whose reputation hinges on his work ethic. Now a cornerstone of Oregon men’s basketball, greatness means putting in the work. For No. 3, former and current, pressure isn’t granted, it’s claimed.

Photo by Daniel Lee

Pete Devries looks on as Alex Gray finds a nice inside section while Josh Mulcoy paddles out to join in on the fun in the Alaskan fringe.

FRAMING NORTHERN LATITUDES Chris Burkard Shifts His Perspective To Unfamiliar Landscapes By Jay Bramhall and Hanna Kalan

Photo by Chris Burkard Studio / Verb Photo

he cold takes more than it gives. Calling the bitter chill unforgiving is incorrect because it assumes any intention of mercy. Dancing along the snowflake’s edge between danger and thrill promises nothing but the threat of frostbite and rattled lungs. The cold is a hurt that lasts. The cold also rejuvenates. Many incorporate cold water into their daily routine as it is known to reduce inflammation, strengthen immunity, boost energy, and minimize anger. Sitting in cold water walks the line between pain and enjoyment. It demands focus and deep breathing to work through the burning sensation. Cold is an understatement in Norway’s Lofoten Islands, where winter temperatures can range from bleak to below freezing. Less than 100 miles from the Arctic Circle, the archipelago’s sprawl pokes out from the coastline of Norway, threatening any who dare brave its waters. The “islands of the gods” are not a typical beach vacation destination. The water lingers around 40 degrees Fahrenheit, requiring a thick wetsuit, gloves, and booties. In March 2012, not even seven millimeters could protect photographer Chris Burkard from the cold shock of water trickling through his wetsuit’s seams. With his hands slipped into neoprene gloves, Burkard gave no mind to the water seeping in when the Norwegian Sea’s waves blustered over his head. He breathed deeply to focus on the warmth inside his body. Rhythmic inhaling merged with a lopsided, one-armed swim that lined him up to photograph surfer Dane Gudauskas. Fingers stinging with the cold, Burkard held up his camera to take the shot he’d spent years chasing. Bobbing in the violent thrashing of arctic waters, he raised the viewfinder to his eye. Days before, Burkard and his team — a videographer and six surfers, including Gudauskas — tucked themselves inside the lounge of a cruise ship from mainland Norway. They prepared to chase a monstrous swell that would meet them at Unstad Bay, Norway, in two days. The group set up a makeshift weather station of laptops and phones to monitor the aggressively swirling weather. Unstad was popularized for surfing in the 1990s for its consistently large waves, but in March, the bay was barren. Wearing wetsuits thick enough to look like armor, Burkard and his team faced storming waves. In his 20s, he secured contracts working for SURFER and Surfline, shooting big name surfers all around the world, but his hot tropical paradise quickly turned lukewarm and stagnant. The bright excitement of his surf photographer aspirations became selling the mere idea of adventure in places where the high-rise resorts around the beaches outshone the waves. At a loss, Burkard turned to cold water in search of meaning. Unstad was his answer. The group didn’t have much time to rest after their boat ride to the islands. The surfers needed to get comfortable with the waves in order to stay safe during peak swell. They established a routine to maximize their time in the water. Once the driveway was shoveled, fatty breakfasts were consumed, and the outdoor hot tub was set up for end-of-day thawing, the rest of the day was free for surfing.

ASCEND 104

Photo Chris Burkard Studio / Verb Photo Photo byby Chris Burkard Studio / Verb Photo

Eric Soderquist boards a float plane docked on Lake Cushman in Washington.

Photo by Chris Burkard Studio / Verb Photo

Chris Burkard in his element in Alabama Hills, California.

On March 13, the morning after Burkard’s impromptu 26th birthday party — catered with classic Norwegian grilled minke whale and a cake with a single candle — Gudauskas shouted, “The waves are firing.” The air was chilling at negative 10 degrees, which felt like negative 23 with the wind, and the water flirted with freezing. The first lapping of waves against Burkard’s face provided relief, as he was sweaty from the blasting heat of the drive to the beach. Each bite of cold pushed him into the moment and intensified every sensation: the pulsing water around him, the curtain of snow melting against his face on impact, and the winds choking the cries of seagulls above. When he had to jump out of the ocean and take off his gloves to fix his fogged viewfinder, Burkard was deeply aware of his core temperature lowering. Outside of the crest of water, his body remained exposed to the wind and snowfall. No amount of huffing and puffing over his knuckles could change that. Diving back in provided no relief. The nine-foot-tall waves pounded his skull. Focusing on deep breathing quelled the rush of a migraine, but his face continued swelling. Burkard’s ecstasy treaded a thin line with misery, and his tanned skin burned red with the cold. As each wave breached, so too did the pain. He bobbed up and down with the sea, taking pictures between each wave bursting overhead. On his left hand, a seven-millimeter mitten and on his right, a threemillimeter glove to free his trigger finger. In his own swell of joy, Burkard captured the surfers with his camera. When facing extreme temperatures, the body constricts blood vessels to protect vital organs. Fingers and toes can be lost to frostbite as the body focuses on what is most important. When Burkard grew so cold he could no longer press the camera’s shutter button, he realized the time to leave the water had come and gone. Burkard tried announcing his departure, but the cold stole his voice. The snowfall had turned into a full-frontal attack. Arms cramped by his side, his backstroke sputtered like a rusted motorboat’s engine. He watched a seagull struggle against the winds with his face to the sky. Burkard forced what he could feel of his head down from the blurring white of the sky toward the horizon. Disoriented by the cold, his lackluster paddling had pushed him further out to sea. His progress only served to suck out the remainder of his energy not used up by shivering. Cold-induced delirium aside, Burkard was conscious enough to panic. His first son would be born in a month, and he was drifting unbidden into the Arctic, as lively as a block of ice. Finally, adrenaline kicked in. Disregarding the borderline hypothermia, he slowed his breathing again and managed to make it back to the beach. His friends had to pull him in from the surf. When Gudauskas helped him back to their car, Burkard was smiling. Unburdened by the fear of failure, Burkard was free to explore a world beyond right and wrong. Beyond vanity shots and tourist-trampled paths was a life where pain could be therapeutic.

An ocean and continent away from Lofoten’s mountainous shores,

Burkard was born in the sunshine and sand of San Luis Obispo, California. His mother, Maile, was 16 when she gave birth in 1986. As a single parent, her fight to organize their lives while working full-time meant Burkard searched for stability within her sacrifices. In elementary school, Burkard latched onto his school friend William Nau’s family. Compared to home, where making ends meet was a struggle, the Nau household meant full snack cupboards and family dinners. It meant constant play and companionship, offering the stability of a cohesive family unit. It also meant church. The Naus were Latter-day Saints and spent Sundays at church. Burkard found a place that exemplified the core feeling of family that he craved, and he was baptized. A maturing Burkard had to find the balance between the moral codes he chose as a child and his innate desire to explore the world and himself. When life got difficult, he escaped to the ocean. “Sometimes it takes being in the ocean to pull myself away from all of life's clutter,” says Burkard. Despite preferring the beach to the classroom, he graduated high school with straight A's and enrolled in San Luis Obispo’s Cuesta College. Burkard continued cultivating an interest in art through painting and drawing, but sitting at an easel indoors felt stifling. He loved to create, but didn’t know what that meant for someone like himself. Someone who's constantly in motion. “I realized that [photography] enabled me to do art in a mobile state, to explore and adventure, and show people the beauty in the world around me,” he says. The camera became an extension in a way the paintbrush never could. He could take it everywhere. His art was a constant act of exploration. In 2005, Burkard quit his job and dropped out of college, giving himself five years to chase waves as a surf photographer. If he didn’t make it, he’d reevaluate. Using film he bought with his last financial aid check, Burkard escaped to the beach to photograph surfers. For a steadier income, he picked up freelance jobs, shooting manicured weddings and staged business interiors. “That obviously wasn't my end goal, but I had to start somewhere,” he says. Burkard, who had never owned a passport, wanted to chase a career of adventure. He’d scrounge expired drugstore film for 25 cents, saving the quality film for the best lighting and waves. Every day followed the same routine: shoot at the beach, develop the film at the local photo shop, then appraise the images on the light table he kept in the truck that he lived out of. In 2006, Burkard was granted $5,000 from the Follow the Light Foundation. The money supported Burkard and surfer buddy Eric Soderquist during a two-month road trip down the coast of California, resulting in The California Surf Project. Cruising down the Pacific Coast Highway in a 1978 Volkswagen bus,

107

Burkard and Soderquist ventured from California’s northern border to Tijuana, Mexico. They encountered a variety of waves, from the great choppy monsters at Ocean Beach in San Francisco to smooth, long, glassy lines at First Point in Malibu. “We wanted to inspire people to rediscover California for themselves, hoping that they would sort of follow in our footsteps and take a look into their backyard and see what they're missing,” says Burkard. Burkard and Soderquist’s book made its rounds in the surf world and eventually sold at Urban Outfitters. The success of the book put Burkard's name on the map, but completing the chaos of 57 days on the road stoked Burkard’s restlessness more than anything else. Living with the bare essentials for so long made the excess of modern life feel like a burden. At 20, Burkard had married, explored California, and earned a few stamps in his passport, but still had to choose between purchasing new camera gear and a washing machine. When Surfline offered him a job as their first-ever staff photographer, his reservations about accepting were overcome by necessity. In his first international assignment, he went to Australia to shoot the Hurley Pro junior competition on the Gold Coast. Flip-flop tan lines, easy access, and WiFi failed to provide comfort and instead signaled to Burkard that his art was losing meaning. Stranded among empty bottles of self-tanner and board shorts, Burkard lost the spirit that called him to photography to begin with. If Burkard wanted to continue chasing true adventure, he needed a change of scenery.

Burkard embarked on his first trip to Iceland in 2008 with Men’s Journal for a story about the surfer and filmmaker Timmy Turner, who had survived a life-threatening staph infection and six brain surgeries. Burkard’s task was to document Turner taking videos of surfers navigating the Arctic Sea. Following the trip, Burkard spent the next decade seeking surf adventures in Alaska, Iceland, and Russia, searching for perfect waves, often paying his own way. After returning from Lofoten, he produced a TED Talk about the release he found in the cold and his "crusade against the mundane." He’d built his dream and then lived it. Continuing to support his aspirations meant learning to leverage other modern means of monetization. Securing deals with brands like Sony and Apple created gateways to his freedom as an artist, and fostering a presence on Instagram allowed him to share his art with 3.9 million followers. Maintaining a varied income allowed for the same variation in his work.

ASCEND 108

“I am a photographer, director, explorer, speaker, and author,” says Burkard. “I find joy in all these areas and continue to strive to tell more meaningful stories through these lenses.” It also opened new avenues of adventure, especially in Iceland, where only 20% of the country is habitable. Burkard's photography works to expose the rest. “It was always my goal to see the world, and I love every second of being in these places, but sharing it with people who don’t have that opportunity is the best part,” says Burkard. To truly see Iceland in all its beauty, he needed to get above sea level, and not just as a photographer, but as an athlete. In 2021, for his 44th trip to Iceland, Burkard biked through the country, from the northern coast to the south and documented the entire expedition. Burkard, with two other cyclists, completed the firstever unsupported, coast to coast, bikepacking trip during the dead of winter. For 327 miles and six days, the trio glided over ice and pushed through snow, cranking their gears through miles of vast nothingness. Burkard says winter in Iceland is “freedom.” In years prior, Burkard had circumnavigated Iceland, riding from the easternmost point to the west. He knew that in order to experience Iceland at its most authentic, he would have to fall into his typical fashion of embracing the cold. The coda to their ride was biking over the Mýrdalsjökull Glacier, beating a storm brewing behind them by a few hours. Iceland was the place for Burkard. After searching for reasons to revisit the country, like documentary projects or bike expeditions, in 2023, he uprooted his life in California and made the move to Iceland’s capital, Reykjavík. Exploring northern latitudes like Iceland transformed Burkard from the documentarian into the documented. Chasing adventure in places that stole his breath away, both from their beauty and the chill, he found a way to channel his restlessness into resolution, bringing his faith into focus. Now a father, his priorities have shifted. “If I’m not out on a project taking photos, I’m usually back at my studio in Reykjavik planning for the next trip. I also try to spend as much time as possible being around my family. Going on little excursions with my boys and wife around Iceland,” he says. On rocky shores, a lifetime away from the sand and strife of his youth, he hopes to guide his sons to chart their own paths through the wilderness of the world. “I try to teach my kids the same way I have taught myself,” says Burkard, “to fall in love with nature and spend time in the places that inspire you.”

Chris Burkard ripping through the icy roads of North Iceland.

Photo by Chris Burkard Studio / Verb Photo

BEHIND

THE ARC Sabrina Ionescu Creates A New Blueprint As A Global Basketball Icon By Ruby Wool

Photo by Brandon Todd

Photo by Hannah Kevorkian

ied at 77, the Minnesota Lynx had a foul to give with 16 seconds left in Game 3 of the WNBA Finals. All-star guard Sabrina Ionescu was fouled immediately, leaving the New York Liberty just 10.9 seconds for a last shot.

With chants of “defense” echoing throughout the Minneapolis Target Center, Ionescu tuned out the home crowd’s audible distraction as she waited on the sideline for the referee's whistle. She stood ready in her seafoam green jersey, slick back ponytail, and University of Oregonthemed shoes, knowing it was her moment. An inbound pass to teammate Leonie Feibich quickly landed back in Ionescu’s hands. With nine dribbles and a side step, Ionescu launched a 28-foot-long three-point swish. It was a shot she’d practiced thousands of times in her head and on the court, but never had the stakes been so high. Turning back around to her bench, Ionescu gestured emphatically à la Kobe Bryant with her tongue extended out towards her chin. She chest-bumped teammate and two-time MVP Breanna Stewart on her way down the court and almost smiled but quickly changed her expression back to stone-cold concentration. Ionescu still had to secure a defensive stop on her way to victory. Her dagger capped an 80-77 comeback win for the Liberty, who erased a 15-point deficit, the third largest in WNBA Finals history. Ionescu’s game-winner, the biggest shot of her career, put her team within one win of the franchise's first league title and left the Minnesota record crowd of 19,521 with their hands atop their heads. “Sabrina’s just different, you know, built different,” says Oregon women’s basketball coach Kelly Graves. “When the biggest moments are there, that's when she steps up the biggest. She's not afraid to miss the big shot, as well as make the big shot. She has the Mamba Mentality, you know, that even if one didn’t go in, the next one would.” It’s that Mamba Mentality, as Bryant called it — a lifestyle, work ethic, frame of mind for the ultimate competitive spirit — that invigorates

Ionescu’s intensity. Her signature look of seriousness and slight scorn makes an occasional smile much more noticeable.

For Ionescu fans, the Game 3 shot resulted in déjà vu dating back to November 9, 2019, when she drilled a triple from near the halfcourt “O” against the United States Women’s National Team in Matthew Knight Arena (MKA). Oregon, then ranked No. 1 in the country, stunned Team USA, 93-86. No college team had beaten the national team in 20 years, which was longer than some of Ionescu’s teammates had been alive. Ionescu finished with 30 points, 20 of which came in the third quarter. She defeated legend and future Olympic teammate Diana Taurasi in front of over 11,000 people. The upset was not a fluke. Ionescu texted her teammates the night before the game and said, “We have nothing to lose. Go out and play our way. Don’t let another team come to our home floor and dictate our system.” Regardless of the opponent or formidable obstacle, Ionescu always finds a way. Bryant nicknamed her the puppet master, “Geppetto,” for this reason. She has the ability to create what her team needs at any time. Her hunger and will to win have often allowed her to control the outcome of games. Years after putting her collegiate team on the map, Ionescu is now a global phenomenon. In 2024, Oregon’s greatest athlete won her first Olympic gold medal with Team USA in Paris, extending the U.S. women’s winning streak to eight. Two months later, the 27-year-old helped clinch the New York Liberty’s first-ever WNBA championship. This victory marked New York City’s first basketball title since the Knicks won the NBA championship in 1973.

113

Photo by Brandon Todd

“I’ve had the best year of my life with everything that I’ve won and accomplished off the court,” says Ionescu. “It definitely is something I am not going to forget.” The medal and trophy are that much sweeter for a star who was stripped of the chance to win an NCAA championship in her senior year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a tragic ending that still stings. The California native finished her four-year stint at MKA as the first Division I NCAA player — male or female — with 2,000 points, 1,000 rebounds, and 1,000 assists and the NCAA all-time leader with 26 career triple-doubles. But she still left with unfinished business. The Ducks were coming off a Pac-12 tournament crown and a national No. 2 ranking when the pandemic’s unprecedented circumstances cut her historic season short. With a talented team expected to make a deep March Madness run, Ionescu was primed to play a regional matchup on her home court. Instead of taking the court, she did not step outside her apartment. She has since taken control of her narrative. Although the WNBA title “will never truly fill the void of not being able to win a championship for this university,” says Ionescu, on-air at Oregon’s Big Ten Tailgate on November 9, 2024. “A part of that championship is for the University of Oregon.” Four years later, after overcoming debilitating ankle and thumb injuries, Ionescu kept her head down and continued training with Stephen Curry’s director of performance, Carl Bergstrom. Through all of her challenges, however, she has plenty to celebrate, especially with her new husband, Hroniss Grasu, who has been by her side and cheering her on every step of the way. After playing with Heisman Trophy winner Marcus Mariota, Grasu was drafted by the NFL’s Chicago Bears in 2015. He spent two seasons there and played for multiple teams before eventually signing with the Las Vegas Raiders in 2022. Grasu met Ionescu for the first time as an alumni, and they started dating shortly after. The couple tied the knot in March of 2024. “They’re unbelievable people,” says Mariota, who is currently signed with the Washington Commanders. “My family is very privileged to know them and are thankful for our relationship.” Grasu has always been committed to fulfilling Ionescu’s goals and aspirations. “I just wanted to be there for her, support her, and do what I can to make her as happy as she can be,” says Grasu. “That’s why I didn’t sign with the team this year.” When Ionescu made her second appearance of the 2024-25 college football season in Autzen Stadium to show off her latest accolade, this time her shining WNBA championship trophy, Grasu was there beside her. While used to leading his team out of the pregame tunnel in previous Ducks’ seasons, Grasu now assumed his supportive position behind Ionescu to carry the hardware.

In November of 2019, during Ionescu’s final year at UO, Nike made her one of the few female college athletes to have her jersey sold and massproduced. The jerseys sold out in one day. Four years later, Ionescu now sports a multi-year Nike contract reportedly worth an estimated $24 million. The point guard then became the first women’s basketball player to launch a unisex signature shoe and complementary apparel collection with Nike. A remarkable 77 NBA players were spotted wearing the Sabrina 1s during the 2023-24 season, with Jrue Holiday of the Boston 115

Celtics rocking the shoes in 53 games. New York Jets running back Breece Hall sported custom Sabrina 1 cleats during a game in the 2023 season. According to Boardroom Sneaker Game statistics, the Sabrina 2s were the second most-worn sneaker model in the NBA for the 2024-25 season, behind the Kobe 6s. Ionescu’s shoes are modeled after her style of play — shifty, quick, and constantly controlling the pace of the game. Nike Basketball included the Sabrina 2s in its limited-edition February 2025 “Black Label” collection, which featured the brand’s biggest signature stars, including Lebron James, Kevin Durant, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Ja Morant, Devin Booker, and Victor Wembanyama. A month after the “Black Label” release, Ionescu embarked on Nike's infamous globetrotting excursion, the Asia Tour, further solidifying her brand status internationally. With this rite of passage, Ionescu joined the likes of Bryant, James, and Michael Jordan, each of whom brought their basketball messaging East. Her shoes are a reminder that “anyone, anywhere” — the two words engraved in capital letters on the inner side of Sabrina 1s — can achieve greatness. No matter what you look like or where you come from, Ionescu wants to make the basketball court an equal playing field. And most importantly, a welcoming space for every gender, including her younger self, who preferred playing with leather orange spheres over dolls. Ionescu’s SI20 Foundation works to help eliminate the major obstacles that keep young people from accessing sports while providing them leadership Photo by Brandon Todd

training, cultural inclusion, and relationship building that will serve them throughout their lives. While her charitable youth camps help cultivate the next generation of champions, they also remind Ionescu of where she came from and the work she put in. “It’s important to give back to communities that mean a lot to me, obviously New York where I play and here in Eugene,” says Ionescu. “Knowing that I am providing an opportunity for the younger generation to fall in love with the game like I did and to be able to have a role model, that is obviously what I want to accomplish.” In middle school, Ionescu wasn’t allowed to play on her brother’s basketball team, so she recruited six girls who had never played basketball before and formed a team. From a young age, her parents, who emigrated to the U.S. from Romania, reminded her not to look at the person next to her but rather concentrate on her own development. Ionescu chose to become the best version of herself. The Mamba Mentality was instilled in her long before she was ever introduced to Bryant.

Ionescu’s lifelong dedication to the craft and uncompromising commitment to excellence meant that high-pressure moments or three-point contests were just another practice round, where she would apply the same competitive mindset and dialed work ethic. During her 2023 WNBA Three-Point Contest debut, Ionescu wiped her palms on her shorts, anxiously waiting for the DJ’s music to start — her cue to shoot. After missing the first shot, she made necessary adjustments and drained 20 three-pointers in a row. Ionescu approached the final five balls with a slight grin on her face after the last ball bounced off the back iron, ending her streak. She sank all five, grabbing the next ball before the last had fallen. Ionescu notched 37 points, the most ever in WNBA and NBA history. Fellow All-Stars, coaches, and contestants rose from their seats and crept up to the basketball racks along the arc to get a closer look at Ionescu splashing threes. It was such a blowout that after she apologized to Seattle Storm’s Sami Whitcomb, who placed second with 22 points. Ionescu’s impressive onslaught inspired her to challenge Curry to an NBA vs. WNBA Three-Point Challenge just minutes after she won. The event took place the following year at the 2024 State Farm All-Star Saturday Night in Indianapolis, akin to when tennis legend Billie Jean King (BJK) beat former No. 1-ranked men’s player Bobby Riggs in the “Battle of the Sexes” exhibition match in 1973. King’s victory, along with the passage of Title IX, sparked a surge in women’s sports participation and empowered women to demand equal pay — not just in athletics but across the workforce. “The Battle of Sexes was about establishing a basic respect for female athletes,” says Haley Rosen, CEO and founder of Just Women’s Sports, the leading women’s sports-focused digital media company. “Sabrina vs. Steph was about showcasing just how elite these women athletes are. BJK opened the door. Sabrina stole the spotlight.” Alongside arguably the greatest shooter ever, Ionescu made the statement that it doesn’t matter your sex: “If you can shoot, you can shoot.” As Ionescu went around the NBA-standard three-point arc, Curry nodded his head in respect and threw out his arms in disbelief. After her score was tallied, it was time for Curry to perform under pressure. This time, it was Ionescu clapping for Curry throughout his turn. The Golden State Warriors guard edged the Liberty’s guard 29-26 in the shootout. Curry did a playful victory dance to half court, where Ionescu graciously conceded the contest and congratulated him with a hug, embracing a moment far bigger than basketball. With her 26 points, Ionescu tied Damian Lillard, the NBA’s Three-Point Contest winner that year.

Photo by Brandon Todd

“That was more than just a friendly three-point shootout,” says Rosen. “That was a young woman calling her shot — and then going out and announcing herself to the world.”

“Everyone watches women’s sports” was printed on T-shirts that went viral at the height of the 2024 Paris Olympics. When Ionescu was a freshman at Oregon, the average attendance at MKA was around 2,000 fans per game. By her senior season, the average attendance was over 10,000. Now, Ionescu is playing in front of over 18,000 fans at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn. Last year, the WNBA achieved its most-watched regular season in 24 years, saw its highest attendance in 22 years, and broke records for digital engagement and merchandise sales. The league also announced it will debut three new franchises within the next two years. “I feel like right now is the time for professional hoops, college hoops, high school hoops — everything is just going in the right direction,” says Ionescu. “And I’m excited to be a part of that.” Before there was the “Caitlin Clark effect” — a term that defines the former University of Iowa guard’s influence on the popularity of women's basketball, including sold-out ticket sales and recordbreaking viewership — there was the Ionescu impact. Both Clark and Ionescu have further inspired progress towards gender equality and increased opportunities for women in sports. The two were featured alongside Jordan Chiles, Sha’Carri Richardson, A’ja Wilson, and Sophia Wilson in Nike’s brand anthem “So Win,” which aired during Super Bowl LIX. The campaign showcased the athletes’ strength, beauty, dominance, confidence, and influence, highlighting the power of sport and its ability to break long-standing, gender-based barriers. In 2024, Ionescu joined Unrivaled as the 36th and final athlete in the inaugural three-on-three league co-founded by fellow WNBA superstars Napheesa Collier and Stewart. Hosted in Miami, Florida, the league ran for nine weeks, including playoffs, and featured six starstudded teams. Unrivaled breathes the essence of what Bryant preached and championed: invest in women’s hoopers because women’s basketball matters. Bryant’s stamp of approval and commitment to growing the game for girls, starting with his late daughter and Ionescu’s eventual mentee, Gianna Bryant, helped shift the paradigm in women’s sports. His validation and belief in women’s worthiness influenced others to do the same. The business case behind Unrivaled focuses on supporting its female athletes by offering equity stakes and the highest average salaries in women’s sports history. Beyond compensation, Unrivaled provides toptier amenities and services, such as fitness and recovery rooms, content creation studios, saunas, personalized chefs, childcare, and more. But it's not just about the athletes the league supports; it’s about the young

girls Unrivaled inspires. Now, young girls grow up in the amplified and expanded presence of professional women’s basketball. The new league’s opening weekend amassed more than three million viewers, according to TNT Sports. With momentum growing, women are taking ownership of their future because, as Bryant believed, they are the future. “As far as women's sports, they’re going to continue to evolve and continue to blossom,” says Kenjon Barner, a three-time Super Bowl champion and former All-American running back at UO. “Participation, attendance, and sales are going to continue to grow because the talent level is constantly getting better and better.” Mariota agreed. “Sabrina is an elite competitor, and she is setting the bar for other athletes,” he says. “She wants to be the best, and, in doing so, she makes the people around her better.” Ionescu commands attention not by being loud and obnoxious but by stepping up in the moments that matter.

Signaling for their players to foul Ionescu, the Belgium women's basketball coaches were hysterically jumping on the sidelines of Pierre Mauroy Stadium in Lille, France, a town on the French-Belgian border. The heavily pro-Belgian crowd was rooting against Team USA for the entire high-scoring and physical Paris Olympics’ Group C matchup. With 12 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter and USA up 84-74, Ionescu’s instincts told her to dribble until the clock ran out. However, her bench encouraged her to shoot and build on their point difference, which satisfied the Olympic scoring structure. Ionescu quickly took the call to action — receiving, internalizing, and executing the command. She efficiently nailed a three-pointer, shushing what was effectively a home crowd. The first-time Olympian pulled a Bryant, who 16 years earlier made a “shh” gesture after sinking a three with just over three minutes left in the 2008 Olympic men’s basketball gold medal game between the U.S. and Spain. By raising an index finger to his lips, Bryant silenced the doubters and sealed the win. Becoming a legend is not bestowed on name and likeness — it requires a resume of worthy achievements to solidify one's place among the greats. Ionescu shares the legacy player DNA with Bryant, Curry, James, Jordan, and Taurasi, and she has repeatedly risen to the occasion when the curtain is drawn. Teammates, fans, and organizations look to her in the most clutch moments. With significant expectation comes increased pressure, yet her confidence in her ability to succeed makes aspirations and goals attainable. In the words of King, “Pressure is a privilege,” and Ionescu embodies that statement. She’s an innovator, a creative, a disruptor, and a baller from the Bay Area who’s helping transform women’s basketball into something Bryant truly believed in. Humility, hunger, and heart underline her cultivation of the modern game of basketball, in which she is currently the ultimate ambassador.

119

Photo by Ally Thomas

ECHOES OF THE

STICK Editor-In-Chief, Brianna Carrasquillo, Reflects On Her Lacrosse Journey

By Brianna Carrasquillo

athed in the faint glow of overhead lights flickering above the Rocky a High School (RPHS) football field, my dad and I appeared as shadows –– no, moths –– drawn relentlessly to the pregame tuneup. My defiance, combined with my dad’s teachby-discourse approach, created tension that added a certain flare to family practices. The bickering built the attitude I carry into every gameday: a killer instinct. From the bleachers, I looked like a tiny speck on the field below, heralding towards a worn-out lacrosse net in sub-30-degree weather on a chilly northeastern night. Dancing between cones, it was an early lesson on how to leverage light to read a defender’s stick. The result of the late practice was a busted lip. But my dad’s impeccable throwing skills were well worth the temporary lip filler. By intermediary, I was shifting past defenders and earned the nickname “the girl with the green goggles.”

Island’s standard, I had little time to master a fearless approach to the small, dense, unassuming yellow ball that drove every play. My childhood boiled down to eternal van life summers. The robin egg blue Honda was littered with turf beads, and road trips were six to eight-hour drives along the East Coast to desolate farm towns. Carb loads were a voluntary all-you-can-eat pasta night at Carrabba’s or Olive Garden. My parents gambled not just their life’s savings, but years of their time, nervously hoping what they spent on custom lacrosse sticks, elite camps, college visits, and individual training sessions would someday pay off. With five hundred reps a day, each new stick skill inspired a surge of confidence that filled the spaces where doubt once lingered. The grass patch of progress between the house and the sump was my pocket of peace. In this gap, a black and orange STX rebounder was an eyesore to passing cars, but my love for it was a blinding benefactor.

Years later, I was at a sunny spring practice at Oregon. The first drill was 1v1s, “gauntlet-style.” The sun threw my defender’s silhouette across the turf, and I worked within its dim halo. Echoes of the stick. Echoes of those cold Long Island, New York nights, the cones, the busted lip.

Giving without receipt, the rebounder was my friend, and the barricade in front of the net was my foe. “Hector the Rejector,” as we called it –– another name for the tar-colored protectant supervising the goal –– made the margin for error razor thin. Over time, those near-misses turned into near-perfection, a strength my dad defined as “adding another tool to the toolbox.”

Long Island was home for me as it had been for my mother, down to the same childhood house. At 6 years old, I stepped into Port Jefferson Sporting Goods and handpicked a dazzling coral pink and white lacrosse stick. Accompanied by pink, purple, and white tiedye field hockey goggles and an electrifying blue mouthguard, I was primed for an eclectic display of skills my sport demanded. For Long

Come fifth grade, I earned my spot on the top team of the Long Island Yellow Jackets club. “BB” was my nickname, and it stuck with my parents, who routinely used it in my pregame “good luck” texts, even at 23 years old. At Oregon, it’s a gentle reminder of anemochory: the way my roots planted seeds that influenced my journey from Long Island to Georgia, collegiately at Yale and

121

Oregon, and nationally with Puerto Rico Lacrosse. Those roots come with rich sediment. My mom was the first basketball player to reach 1,000 points at RPHS. Her placard glistens in the display case just outside the gymnasium. Not only did she make an incredible role model, but her competitive spirit followed me into my youth lacrosse leagues as “Coach Nicole.” As a hopeful DI running back, my dad chased a dream that slipped just out of reach before college called his name. Supplying us with Optimum Nutrition creatine, BSN True-Mass Cookies & Cream Weight Gainer, and 5 a.m. lifts before 7:15 a.m. first period, he lived vicariously through me, my brother Jordan, and my sister Skylar. He was and remains the brains of the operation, helping us optimize footwork like code and visualize the field as a matrix of opportunity. Together, Team Carrasquillo clocked hours on empty fields and chased the sun up and down the sandy ridges of “The Camels,” a tortuous cross country trail in our high school’s backyard to which we owed our unwavering endurance. Our parents were architects of hustle, a quality that follows me everywhere I go. At 14, my college lacrosse recruitment felt like a full-time, workfrom-home job. I was CEO of my own brand –– curating highlight reels, crafting email campaigns, and treating every tournament like a boardroom pitch. The pursuit culminated in a verbal commitment to Yale University in ninth grade. My first-year experience as a Bulldog was quickly derailed after COVID-19 ushered students home in March of 2020. I elected to take a gap year shortly thereafter. During this time, I cold called the chairman of Puerto Rico Lacrosse, asking for a chance to try out at their next rostered event. I received an email months later with an invitation to test for their national training team, whose final roster would compete at the 2022 World Lacrosse Championship in Towson, Maryland. Our first training camp was set in a remote pasture where we slept in military-style bunk beds without pillows, electricity, or warm water. The conditions were harsh, but it wasn’t the lack of material comfort that stuck with us. By day, we competed in grueling four-hour blocks, a mix of situational breakdowns and scrimmaging under the scorching summer sun, in hopes of earning a spot on the national team. When dusk fell, we united in Puerto Rican pride. Agility drills translated to salsa dance lessons, accompanied by rounds of dominoes, s’mores, and a shared aversion to mosquitoes gnawing at our tired skin. I banded with a fiery collective of women of Puerto Rican ancestry. As Boricuas, we are descendants of diverse backgrounds – each carrying unique upbringings but merged as one by our love for lacrosse. “Yo soy Boricua, pa’ que tú lo sepas” (I am Puerto Rican, so you know) is our forever chant. There was never a moment prior where I felt “Latina enough” beyond my last name, but joining Team Puerto Rico transformed me from a girl searching for identity into a proud member of something greater than sport. It anchored my sense of self in culture and dignity, adding another hat to my collection and blurring the lines of who I was and who I am becoming.

The year that followed was a bizarre purgatory. My health was upended by a newly diagnosed autoimmune disease, rewriting my playbook.

ASCEND 122

When I was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes on May 12, 2020, I had only my self-talk and mental toughness to cushion the impact of the universe doubling down. What I thought was Covid-induced stress –– 22 pounds of weight melting off my body in two weeks, the constant urge to pee, chronic fatigue, and irritability –– were instead textbook symptoms of Diabetic Ketoacidosis. “Your diabetes doesn't define you,” were the first words the Certified Diabetes Care and Education Specialist said to me during my three-day stay at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta. “Ok, so I can still play lacrosse, right?” I asked. “Of course. You can do everything you did before your diagnosis, just as well,” was exactly what I needed to hear. My journey back to sport calloused my mind and strengthened my perspective. Beyond policing my pancreas, I gained the confidence to lead others on the field, an external compensation for my internal and invisible disability. On senior day at Yale, my assistant coach, Colleen Smith, went around the locker room, assigning each of us a word. Looking at me, “resilient” rolled off her tongue and nearly brought me to tears. That memory reflected more than my comeback. It acknowledged everything I’d endured and continue to carry. Stepping onto Oregon’s Papé Field after hitting the transfer portal for my fifth year, I was struck by an epiphany. In the past, I fought for control –– clinging to structure and identity as if it were my dutiful right to defend. But Oregon has since taught me the art of surrendering to the scene and placing trust in my instincts. It taught me adaptability and presence. My story is a healing arc –– from little Brianna to a fearless warrior, to a supportive teammate, to a leader. Leadership isn’t about being the loudest in the locker room. It’s about elevating others, being a good listener, and knowing when to take charge. It’s about putting the first point on the board when we’re down 6-0 against San Diego State University and getting the team fired up with the go-ahead goal in the fourth quarter to secure the 17-16 win. Some days, it’s being less great and trusting the abilities of my teammates. Prior to my diagnosis, I was defined by how well I could cradle a ball and how often I placed it in the back of a net. It’s easy to say we are so much more than our sport, but another to live that experience as candidly as possible. On Ascend’s editorial team, I’ve been able to channel these qualities beyond the playing field. The terms “student” and “athlete” are embedded in strength and vulnerability. It’s not merely sniping the perfect shot. It’s telling stories that resonate with athletes, adventureseekers, and those on evolving paths. Lacrosse has edified, enabled, and empowered my character as a daughter, sister, friend, and teammate. I’ve fostered lifelong friendships, traveled coast to coast honing leadership skills, pushed through injury, won championships, and emboldened my identity as a woman in sports. As I continue to chase the dream of playing in the 2028 Olympic Games, I cling to these lessons. I yearn for the day I can tell my kids, “Mom was an Olympian.” But beyond that, I’ll tell them about the woman I became along the way, whether it’s on the field or through the stories I share.

Photo by Cam Woods

Back Cover by Ellington Hammond

ASCEND