Alumnae Provide Invaluable Mentors For Ducks
05/28/18 | General, Duck Athletic Fund
Bowerman Award winner Raevyn Rogers thrived at Oregon with help from former UO runner Ellen Schmidt-Devlin, and the Women In Flight program hopes to encourage other, similar relationships.
Before the world championships, before the Bowerman Award, before the NCAA titles and all-America honors, Raevyn Rogers was a freshman summer enrollee at the University of Oregon, wondering how she was going to juggle life as a college student-athlete.
As part of the athletic department's "Summer Bridge" program, following her high school graduation in 2014, Rogers took a day trip with her fellow incoming freshmen to visit a group of Portland-area businesses, including Nike. There, she encountered one of the few people on Earth who could relate to the experience she was about to have over the ensuing four years — Nike executive Ellen Schmidt-Devlin, herself a former 800-meter runner at Oregon, and now an instructor in the UO Sports Product Management Program, which she co-founded.
What ensued was a mentoring relationship that continues to this day. In Schmidt-Devlin, Rogers gained an invaluable mentor who taught her how to juggle the pressures of competing in college athletics with all the accompanying responsibilities off the track. In Rogers, Schmidt-Devlin gained a personal connection back to her alma mater, living proof of the foundation she helped lay for women's athletics while running at Oregon, and post-collegiately for the legendary Bill Bowerman.
"She has taught me as much, and helped me grow us much, as I have for her, to be honest," said Schmidt-Devlin, a Nike executive for nearly three decades who made a movie on the history of UO women's track and field before returning to her alma mater to found the Sports Product Management program. "And I think that's the beauty of the relationship."
Fostering similar mentorships between UO student-athletes and alumni is one goal of the Women In Flight fundraising program's ongoing "Always a Duck" campaign. "Always A Duck" is an alumni giving challenge, pitting alumni of each UO women's program in a competition to see which can engage the highest level of participation through the month of May.
Entering its final week, participants from 12 sports historically offered at Oregon have joined the campaign. As of late Sunday, former players with the lacrosse team had the highest rate of participation, at 54 percent.
The campaign will help fund Women In Flight's support of UO program, such as foreign trips and offseason team-building activities. Just as key, it will hopefully lead to more connections between alumni and current student-athletes, such as the fruitful relationship between Rogers and Schmidt-Devlin.
After the Summer Bridge trip to Nike's campus in 2014, participating student-athletes were encouraged to reach out to professionals who had left an impression upon them. They were barely back to the bus, to make the drive back to Eugene, when Rogers sent a message to Schmidt-Devlin.
"This was a woman with so many connections and so much experience," Rogers recalled. "I was like, I really want to be the first one to reach out to her. I said, 'Thank you; I hope we can stay in touch.' I didn't even ask if she'd be a mentor. I just wanted to be in contact."
This spring, Rogers is embarking on her first year as a professional runner, after winning multiple all-America honors and national championships with the Ducks. On the day of the Oregon Twilight meet, earlier this month, she had an academic commitment while finalizing her pursuit of an art degree, and also a meeting with her accountant, all before running a 400-meter race that night at Hayward Field.
Not many people could relate to that sort of juggling act. But one who can is Schmidt-Devlin, who fostered a similar dynamic with former UO thrower Brittany Mann as well.
"She has so much insight as far as the mental side of being an athlete, and having to get things done," Rogers said. "This woman literally travels everywhere in the world, but somehow stays sane and stays composed."
Eventually the two grew so close that Rogers has spent Thanksgiving holidays with Schmidt-Devlin and her family. What started out as a mentorship, focused on balancing professional obligations, turned into a deeply personal friendship.
"Athletes today come from a long way away," said Schmidt-Devlin, a 1981 graduate of the university. "They're away from their families. They need a connection to the community, they need a connection with someone who has experience in their shoes, and who can connect them with people who can relate to their experience.
"People live busy lives and might wonder, 'How can I fit one more thing?' What I found is, Raevyn and Brittany became part of whatever I was doing. My kids are as close to them as I am."
Among the connections Schmidt-Devlin helped make for Rogers was with another former elite UO 800-meter runner, Claudette Groenendal, Another was with Madeline Manning Mims, the Olympic gold medalist at 800 meters in 1968.
"She would tell stories about working with Bowerman," Rogers said. "To have a connection from Bowerman to Ellen to me, it's exciting. She's a connecting point to the past."
The hope is, Women In Flight's "Always a Duck" campaign will foster more connections like that.
In 2015, Rogers and Mann helped the UO women's program win the NCAA Outdoor championship. Schmidt-Devlin was at Hayward Field to watch the Oregon women celebrate their first title in 30 years.
"I went down to the track, and Brittany and Raevyn were holding the trophy," Schmidt-Devlin said. "They said, 'This is as much your trophy as ours.' I thought, no, it's not. But I thought it was amazing that, in their eyes, the shoulders they stand on were appreciated and respected.
"I'd love to see more women have that experience."
Players Mentioned
