B y J u s t i n B o u l m ay On her blog, Christiane Cordero committed herself to accomplishing 100 new things this year, a list that ranges from eating cake for dinner to feeding a homeless person. This fall she started what can be described as her 101st goal: Succeeding in her last year as a student-athlete playing on a nonrevenue sports team. Cordero is the starting goalie on the ECU women’s soccer team. A senior, she’s also an aspiring broadcast journalist. She is one
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of about 205 ECU student-athletes who play on Olympic Sports teams—like soccer, tennis, volleyball, track and field—who seldom receive the public attention showered on revenue sports like football. Yet their days are just as hectic and their work is just as hard. They juggle classwork commitments with travel for away games and trade leisure time for relentless workouts and focused hours of study. “There is no difference between the work
P HOTOG R A P HY BY JAY C L A R K ethic and training of Olympic Sport athletes versus the work ethic and training of revenue sport athletes,” says Athletics Director Terry Holland. Cordero’s work has paid off, in the classroom and on the field. Cordero, who has a 3.34 GPA, earned a spot on the Conference USA Commissioner’s Honor Roll and the ECU Director of Athletics Honor Roll. She recorded 81 saves on 191 shots in 2011 and was named to C-USA’s All-Tournament