Coach For College
Eryn Croft will never forget that moment. After threeflights spanning 24 hours and nearly 10,000 miles, she finally arrived at herhotel in Ho Chi Minh City at about 2 a.m. The front entrance to the hotel waslocked.
“Someone was sleeping on a couch in the lobby, so we had toknock on the bars outside the door,” Croft said with a laugh. “We had to wakehim up to check us in. We couldn’t wear shoes in the hotel, and there was noelevator either.”
Finally, after carrying a month’s worth of luggage barefootup five flights of stairs, Croft set out on a journey that would change herlife. As one of seven student-athletes from the Atlantic Coast Conferencechosen for the “Coach for College” initiative, Croft spent her summer teachingEnglish and the basic rules of sports to Vietnamese children from the city of Hội An.
As apre-med major and aspiring pediatrician, “Coach for College” was a natural fitfor Croft.
“I really wanted toteach the kids. And a lot of the excitement was just the thought ofexperiencing another country,” she said. “It was an incredible month.”
After a tedious application process that ended in January,Croft began to have weekly Skype sessions with her fellow instructors inpreparation for a May departure. It was during these online meetings when shewas first introduced to Kellie Barnum and Brittany Burns, two of the staffmembers she now regards as “lifelong friends.”
“We still text each other all the time,” Croft said.”Kellie’s a setter at Boston College, so it’s pretty cool that I get to competeagainst her. Brittany just graduated from Clemson.”
But even after hours spent discussing the summer ahead,nothing could prepare her for sleeping under bug nets in cramped guest houses withno hot water.
“Everyonedrives mopeds, and even though it’s really hot, everyone wears long pants,” sheadded. “People were staring at us and taking pictures with us – I don’t thinkthey’ve ever seen someone as pale or as blonde as me.”
Many of the80 or so local youth from Hội An drove bikes over 45 minutes just to partake inthe camp. Daily classes alternating between English and life skills weresandwiched around time spent outdoors, where the instructors helped teach therules of volleyball, soccer, basketball and tennis. Nights were spent as a teamplanning lessons for the next day.
“That’sreally where we bonded the most,” Croft said. “And it was all in preparationfor Friday, which was the day of competition each week.”
Back inCoral Gables, the redshirt freshman now has game days of her own to worryabout. Still, she can’t help but smile when she thinks about her month-longvoyage overseas.
“It reallymade me appreciate my life here,” Croft said. “Working with the kids was thebest part of it all.”
