Meet Elon’s New Women’s Basketball Coach

By Jimmy Stevenson

The 1994 Women’s NCAA National Basketball title game ended victoriously for the UNC Tar Heels thanks to junior forward Charlotte Smith’s buzzer beater. Now, almost 18 years later, Smith is the head Women’s Basketball coach for the Elon Phoenix.

Only months into her first season as the head coach, Smith is already meshing well with her new group of girls.

“I absolutely love those young ladies,” said Coach Charlotte Smith.  “You know they inspire me everyday to get up and want to be a better coach and continue to work hard to help them to be the best they can be.”

Smith became the most decorated women’s college ball player in North Carolina history after playing for the Tar Heels from 1992 to 1995.

After traveling the world for a few years playing professional hoops, Smith landed herself in the WNBA where she played eight seasons.

During those eight seasons she also coached at UNC for a total of ten years.  As an assistant coach at Chapel Hill, Coach Smith’s team made it to the Final Four in 2006 and 2007.

Although she has coached for a decade at a very successful ACC school, Smith has never been a head coach, until now.  And the new position comes with new goals.

“We talk about being Southern Conference Champions,” Smith said .  “That’s our ultimate goal.  And I’m very, very proud of what we’ve accomplished so far.”

Up to this point the Phoenix have 10-9 record, and under Coach Smith their home record is 7-2.  Part of this success comes from Coach Smith’s ability to connect with her players.

“A lot of the things that they’ve experienced I’ve already experienced,” Smith said.  “And so my thing is just being transparent, sharing you know my disappointments, my hopes, my fears, my dreams, all of those things, that’s real to people.”

Such a relationship this early on will only help the lady Phoenix become what Coach Smith believes they can be champions.

“I actually moved out into a neighborhood, and when I went through the neighborhood and I saw a street sign, it said ‘Championship Drive,’” Smith said.  “I said this is where I have to live because when my team comes to my house I want them to always have to come down Championship Drive.

The remainder of the season will be in-conference play for the ladies with the SoCon tournament starting in early March.

A Local Resident Is Living His Fairy Tale Dream

By Allison D’Amora

Knights, gargoyles and swords in stones are not only found in fairy tales. One local resident is living his own fairy tale dream.

Jim Gottchlich decided to fulfill his childhood dream of raising horses after selling his rubber molding company in Membane in 1997. Gottchlich purchased 90 acres of land and built a 5600-square foot home in close proximity to his barn.

But this house is not your average single family home. Gottchlich designed his house to look like a castle.

Castle von Gottchlich, as he calls it, mixes modern elements with features usually found in castles or fairy tales. The house features gargoyles, a sword stuck in stone and even a knight in shining armor named Sir Gilded.

Growing up Gottchlich was intrigued by knights and fairy tales, but when he was in his early 20’s he envisioned living in his own castle.

His inspiration for the house was not only based off of research and castles he has visited, but more importantly he was inspired by the values and messages that fairy tales hold.

“I believe in the principles that they always showed on the movies, chivalry and things of that nature, and I lived my life like that,” he said.

After living in the house for thirteen years, Gottchlich has decided it’s time to sell his fairy tale home and pursue a new dream.

“I will probably want to design my own house and build it and whether it will be this unique or not, I don’t know, but maybe on the inside it will be special,” Gottchlich said.

The house is currently on the market and selling for $1.395 million.  Gottchlich says for his next house he would like to downsize but hopes to create something just as unique.

Phoenix14News: January 23rd Newscast

For part 2,

Career Services Moves Into New Facility But Keeps Focus on Students

By Brian Mezerski

Career Services has moved into the new Student Professional Development Center in Moseley Center. With the move to the heart of campus, the office has a new energy to help students. The upgrades will propel the center to be the best in schools similar to Elon.

“The visibility of career services has improved, and we should see more interaction from students because of that,” Tom Brinkley, Executive Director of Corporate and Employer Relations, said.  

The 5,000 square foot Student Professional Development Center is the new home to Career Services. It is located in the former campus bookstore. The space contains a welcoming lobby, the Elingburg Room for large-scale events, a recruitment lounge, sufficient offices for their growing staff, and more.  

Several interview rooms are an important addition to the new center, where employers can conduct interviews with students for potential job positions. Two of the rooms will be equipped with web cameras for remote interviews. A classroom has even been added for job-enhancement courses. Career Services has expanded their selection of transition courses to about 25 classes, with a plan to add more in the fall.  

“Our goal is to address the needs of the students at a higher level than ever before,” Brinkley said. “We think again, the combination of all these developments and all the effort and commitment the university has made will help prepare students for a long-term career, not just a first job.”

“It’s a very good resource to tap into,”  senior Kristin Greene said about Career Services. Greene has been taking advantage of Career Services since freshman year, and she has been visiting for an important reason.

“I am a first generation college student, so I didn’t know where to start and I didn’t really know what kind of direction I needed to be taking.  I come from a small town in North Carolina.  I was raised by my grandparents, neither of whom went to college,” Greene said.  

Greene started out needing help with career-oriented tasks, such as creating a cover letter or resume. Now she also gets life-advice from the Development Center staff.  

“This entire area of college and moving into the professional world were very new to me so I needed that extra push into the right direction and put on the right track,”  she said.

Thanks to the help she’s received at the center, Greene says she feels confident about entering graduate school very soon.  

“I want to make sure I’m getting as much help as possible in making sure I’m doing the right thing and staying on top of the things I need to be doing,” Greene said.

The staff of the new Student Professional Development Center encourages all students to make a trip into the office and schedule appointments for career help.

If you would like to see the new space yourself, an open house for students is scheduled for February 8, 2012.

Something Wicked Comes to the Black Box

By Grace Sweeney

Last Thursday, “Macbeth” opened at Elon after only 16 days of rehearsal.  Director Kirby Wahl took one of William Shakespeare’s most popular plays and reinvented it with a surreal twist.

“One of the words I kept going back to was ‘phantasmagorical,’” said Wahl.

Instead of setting the play in the typical 11 century style, it takes place in a post-apocalyptic Scotland. The most interesting thing about Elon’s production of “Macbeth” is that the cast only had winter term to go from page to stage.  Junior musical theatre major Chris Kalfas plays Macbeth, and said the time crunch was actually helpful for learning his part.

“You don’t have time to let your mind get in the way,” he said.

Wahl agrees.  He said the style of Shakespearean writing can be easy to learn.

“Most actors think it’s easier to memorize,” he said.

Besides learning lines, Kalfas also had to learn how to fight.  He enjoyed learning how to properly stage fight.

“It’s really cool to do this entire Shakespeare play and in the end just fight with swords,” Kalfas said.

“Macbeth” has a record for plaguing actors with accidents.  But Wahl does not play into the superstition.  He thinks the large amount of fight scenes could be the reason why people think the play is cursed.

“As soon as there’s an injury, every acting company falls back on saying ‘oh that’s because we’re doing the Scottish Play. No, you’re doing a play that requires violence,” Wahl said.

It looks like there’s no sign of a curse in this production, except maybe the 16-day rehearsal period.

Popular Blogging Site Tumblr Not Working Properly on Campus

By Ryan Greene

Tumblr is a blogging site that is gaining popularity. Unlike with other social networking sites, Tumblr allows users to be more creative through the additional customary features the site offers,

“It’s just so much more personal. Like Facebook definitely has its uses and ya know it’s great for keeping up with people, but Tumblr is just this like tool for expression,” freshman Anna von Wodtke said.

Students on campus have been experiencing technical problems when trying to load the popular blogging site, Tumblr.

Students are able to log in and update their blogs through the administrative side, but can’t go on their own blogs to view the posts they have made. They also are not able to see any other blogs on Tumblr.

It’s not just on personal laptops that Tumblr blogs aren’t loading. The same problem occurs in classrooms and in the library.

Those who use Tumblr want the problem solved so they can go back to viewing all the blogs.

“I called the Tech Center or like the Tech Help Desk and they were just like um a lot of people have called about this and we’re working on it so I don’t really know what that means. I hope they are,” von Wodtke said.

Chris Fulkerson, vice president of technology here on campus, said in an email that Elon has not blocked Tumblr and that they have contacted Tumblr to try to resolve the issue.

In an email from Tumblr Support they said, “The fact that you are getting a browser error message rather than a Tumblr error message makes it very likely that this is a network issue outside of Tumblr than a problem with Tumblr.”

Tumblr Support also emailed us again to let us know that an engineer was looking into the problem.

Phoenix14News will keep you updated on the story as we find out more.

Phoenix14News: January 19th, Update

Elon Students Plunge For Possibly The Last Time

By Joe Bruno

On a typical Elon day, a student can swim in Beck Pool. However, for one day a year students are welcomed to jump into Lake Mary Nell at North Area’s Annual Polar Bear Plunge.

However with construction taking place in and around North Area, the Polar Bear Plunge is in jeopardy.

“This is such a good memory for Elon students every year,” said senior Sarah Hoopes. “I think it is a really good tradition and I hope the North Area council three years from now does start it back up.”

Hoopes is the organizer of the plunge and this year over 150 students took the dive into the geese, swan and duck infested waters. The temperature at the time of the plunge was in the 30s.

Students who took the plunge will receive a free long sleeve t-shirt. Students will be emailed when they are able to pick up the shirts.

Phoenix 14 News: January 16 Newscast

Part 1

Part 2

Elon student starts own food blog

By Powell Mansfield

Elon senior Caroline Plyler has always loved cooking, but it wasn’t until last year that she decided to start her own food blog to highlight all the recipes she tries out.

“My best friend has just always told me, ‘You’re such a food-y! You need to do something with it!,’” Plyler said.

And she did. “Plyler Does Food” is the name of her blog…where she posts weekly recipes that she tries out with her friends and family.

“As a strategic communications major, I thought that my blog would be the perfect way for me to kind of practice using social media and promoting myself,” she said. “I just thought, you know what, this is something cool that I want to attack in the kitchen.”

Plyler showed Phoenix 14 how to make a cookie dough cheesecake, a recipe that she said any Elon student could make in their own kitchens.

“It’s really easy,” she said. “I found it on Pinterest and it only involves six ingredients, so really easy for college students to make.”

In under 15 minutes, the cheesecake was prepared and ready to go into the oven. And after 40 minutes of cooking, it was ready to be eaten.

But the cookie-dough cheesecake is only one of the many recipes you can find on Plyler’s food blog.

“I’m just a food-y because I love food!,” Plyler said. “I love everything about it.”

To find the recipe for this cheesecake as well as all of Plyler’s others, check out her blog a plylerdoesfood.wordpress.com.