Triumph and tragedy become life lessons at convocation - Martin Methodist (Tenn.)

Posted on 12.01.07
Submitted by Michael Ann Riley, Director of Athletic Communications, Martin Methodist College

PULASKI, Tenn. - Over the previous 30 minutes, a national champion women’s soccer team had been applauded and two student-athletes – tennis player Summer Kavara and basketball player Chauncey Shelton – had been remembered following tragic deaths.

The event was the second annual Champions of Character convocation, and the college had taken the occasion to open the program with a moment of silence in memory of Summer, who died Sunday evening from injuries sustained in a car accident, and had concluded the event with the posthumous presentation to Chauncey of his baccalaureate degree in criminal justice. It was an honor he was set to receive in person at the conclusion of this semester, but in May he was fatally shot just moments after successfully stopping a fight among a group of teenagers in Nashville.

Instead, his mother stood onstage to accept the framed diploma.

Now, as Martin Methodist College President Ted Brown prepared to bring this convocation to a close, he looked over the audience in Martin Hall Auditorium, many of whom were wiping away tears and still others wrestling with bittersweet emotions, and he recalled a memory of his own youth, when he and his family would gather around the television each Saturday evening to watch “ABC’s Wide World of Sports.”

“The opening credits for that show are as vivid for me today as they were back then,” he said. “There was a familiar tune with a driving beat in the background accompanying some striking sporting event video clips, first with a soccer ball zipping into the goal and the kicker making a celebratory leap into the arms of a teammate, followed by a downhill ski jumper tumbling perilously off the side of the ski ramp as the announcer declares ‘the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat."  

“This has truly been a time of triumph and tragedy for our college family,” he continued.  “Just a few months ago last spring we celebrated a wonderful commencement, with all the pomp and circumstance, all the emotion and meaning that swirls around student graduations on this campus, and within days a tragic shooting takes Chauncey from us.  Just in the last few days we cheered our women’s soccer team to another national championship and within hours a tragic car accident takes Summer from us.”

He paused as the 500-seat auditorium remained reverently hushed.

“Sport is like that,” Brown said. “But sport imitates life, because life is like that. One minute we face the exhilaration of success and triumph and the next minute comes the challenge of defeat and tragedy. While on this campus we don’t consider death as defeat, no one can deny that it is a tragedy to have a young life with all its potentiality taken away and all the bonds of friendship and love broken. 

“But I have learned an important lesson over this time about the role of character in the face of triumph and tragedy – a lesson that I had not anticipated as we launched our Character Center in the athletic department several years ago.  I was an enthusiastic advocate for our Champions of Character efforts because of what I consider to be the sad state of both amateur and professional sport in the U.S. when it comes to issues of sportsmanship, integrity, respect and responsibility.  But what I had not anticipated is what a critical life skill character will be for our student-athletes and all our college family. And you students demonstrated that lesson to me in vivid ways over the last days, weeks and months.”

The Champions of Character is an initiative begun in 2002 by the NAIA (National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics) in which all student-athletes, coaches, administrators, officials, fans, and visitors are exposed to and participate in the true spirit of athletic competition through respect, integrity, responsibility, sportsmanship, and servant leadership. Brown was one of the authors of that original initiative, and Martin Methodist College has become one of the leading institutions in the program.

Which, he said, is why he was immensely moved by the examples of these character values during these two times of triumph and tragedy.

“I witnessed with a great deal of pride the conduct of our women’s soccer team in the heat of battle at the national soccer championship in Daytona Beach,” he said. “Time and again in the very pressurized and often hostile environment of a national tournament I saw our women demonstrate small but significant acts of sportsmanship – helping an opposing player up off the turf and congratulating the opposing team for their play. It made me very proud – at least as proud as the national championship title.

“Then I think of Chauncey Shelton, stepping into a dangerous situation that he could easily have ignored, but it was part of his calling – his vocation as a criminal justice major to try to be helpful – it was an extreme act of character.

“And in the last few days the way our tennis team came together around the tragic loss of their teammate, Summer Kavara, and led this whole campus through a difficult time.  Yesterday I watched as our student-athletes and many students filed by Summer’s parents and offered words of consolation and support. I was very proud.”

Following the Champions of Character convocation, dozens of Martin Methodist College students offered that same support to the family of Chauncey Shelton.

“It’s very special for me,” said his mother, Vivian Shelton Hunter, with the college degree in her hand and mortarboard on her head. “My heart is still broken, but to see all of these students and teachers who loved my son, it makes me know that he truly was that really good person, that wonderful son that I knew and loved.”

“The significance of presenting Chauncey’s post humus diploma was two- fold.  First, on our recruiting discussions with Chauncey our expectations of him were to not only to complete his basketball participation eligibility, but to also remain an additional year and complete his academic degree.” “During this period we would expect leadership from him on the court, in the classroom, and in the community.  Chauncey keep his word and commitment to us.  And now secondly, we are keeping our word and commitment to Chauncey by presenting his family with his diploma,” Martin Methodist’s Athletic Director Jeff Bain said of Shelton.

-NAIA-

The National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) is the governing body for athletics programs at its nearly 300 colleges and universities throughout the United States and Canada. The long-held mission of the NAIA is to promote the education and development of well-rounded students and productive citizens through intercollegiate athletics. The association offers equitable access and opportunities for participation in its 23 national championship events held annually throughout the country.

Today, the NAIA strengthens its commitment to student-athletes and strives to enrich their college experience by supporting academic achievement and character development. NAIA Champions of Character is the association’s innovative flagship program designed to instill character values in student-athletes, coaches and youth in the communities it serves.