Swarthmore Athletics

William Schmidt '76 was part of three straight Middle Atlantic Conference Championship-winning Swarthmore College Men's Tennis teams in the 1970s. William was a fourth-generation Swarthmore student and a second-generation member of the men's tennis team. His daughter Abby continued the tradition, playing for the women's tennis team until graduating in 2016.

William majored in history and is currently a senior VP for RBC Wealth Management in Philadelphia. His father Marshall was a guest on last week's episode. 

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On this week's episode of Then & Now, host Brandon Hodnett is joined by Marshall Schmidt from the class of 1947. Schmidt was a tennis star at Swarthmore when he put his education on hold to join the US Navy and fight in the Pacific aboard the battleship USS Wisconsin. He returned to Swarthmore to complete his degree in economics. Five days after graduation, he married a third-generation Swarthmore student, Kinnie Clarke from the class of 1946, and the two have been married for 73 years. Kinnie was sitting just off screen during this interview and contributed at certain points in the interview. The two have been a part of Swarthmore in different roles for their entire adult lives, and two of their children and three of their grandchildren are Swarthmore alumni.

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Val Gomez started at Swarthmore College in November of 2020 as the new associate director of athletics. She joined the Garnet team after roles at several Division I and III institutions, most recently working at Seton Hall University.  In this episode of Getting To Know The Garnet, she talks with host Brandon Hodnett about her experiences as a student-athlete at Lafayette College, her love for Hamilton, her pursuit of a doctorate in education, and what she'll do as soon as the pandemic is over.

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As a student-athlete at Swarthmore College, Lucy Lang ’03 studied political science, achieving high honors, while playing four seasons of women’s lacrosse. After graduating from Columbia Law School, Lang began her legal career in New York. She worked as an assistant district attorney, a special counsel for policy and projects, and executive director of the Manhattan DA Academy. She has been the executive director of the Institute for Innovation in Prosecution at John Jay College, a lecturer in law at Columbia Law School and a founder and teacher of Columbia University’s innovative Inside Criminal Justice seminar. Additionally, Lang is a current member of Swarthmore’s board of managers.

In this week’s episode of Then & Now, Lang shares with host Brandon Hodnett her memories of her time at Swarthmore and the faculty that mentored her, reflects on her career path, and discusses ways she’s envisioned and enacted criminal justice reform.

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Clinical psychologist Amber Buller, Ph.D., has worked with the Swarthmore Athletics department since 2018, helping student-athletes with their mental health. On this episode of Getting to Know the Garnet, Amber talks with host Brandon Hodnett about her background, strategies for dealing with stress around holidays, and tips for being proactive about improving your mental health.

To contact Amber or to schedule an appointment, please email [email protected].

For more information about Swarthmore Athletics' wellness initiatives, visit SwarthmoreAthletics.com/wellness

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Swarthmore College Men’s Basketball alumnus Michael Greenstone, class of 1991, appeared on this week’s episode of Then & Now to discuss his time at Swarthmore and his career in economics with host Brandon Hodnett. Greenstone was a 1,000-point scorer for Swarthmore Men’s Basketball and earned his bachelor’s with high honors in economics. He earned his PhD in economics from Princeton and is now the Milton Friedman Distinguished Service Professor in Economics, the College, and the Harris School, as well as the Director of the Becker Friedman Institute and the interdisciplinary Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago. Greenstone previously served as the Chief Economist for President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, where he co-led the development of the United States government’s social cost of carbon. His research has influenced policy globally and focuses largely on uncovering the benefits and costs of environmental quality and society’s energy choices. In this episode, he recounted scoring his 1,000th point while being guarded by his brother, how Swarthmore encouraged his intellectual curiosity, how his Air Quality Life Index has helped visualize pollution’s impact on life expectancy, and how he’s currently studying COVID testing. 

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Charley Parlapanides ’99 played defensive line for Swarthmore College football for four seasons and graduated with a degree in economics. After that Parlapanides went on to graduate from Loyola Law School, but from there his career took a turn and he became a Hollywood screenwriter alongside his brother Vlas. Their screenwriting credits include the films Death Note and Immortals and the upcoming series Blood of Zeus, which will be released on Netflix on Oct. 27. The eight-part anime series set in the world of Greek mythology follows the quest of Heron to save the world from a demonic army.

Parlapanides joined director of athletics communications Brandon Hodnett to discuss what it takes to be a Hollywood screenwriter and to look back on memories of being a student-athlete at Swarthmore.

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Swarthmore College Women’s Soccer alumna Dr. Julia Luongo ’10, a former All-Centennial First-Team honoree and an All-Region midfielder, graduated from Swarthmore with a degree in engineering and earned her MS and PhD in mechanical engineering at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

Now, Luongo is the founder and managing director of Ramboll Shair, a startup venture that focuses on cloud-based air quality modeling.

In this episode of Then & Now, Luongo talks with director of athletics communications Brandon Hodnett about her time at Swarthmore and about her expertise in indoor and outdoor air quality science, highlighting relevant current topics like west coast wild fires and coronavirus transmission risks.

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Matt Midkiff, Swarthmore College Baseball head coach, has been with Swarthmore since the 2013 season and has won the 2018 Centennial Conference Championship. In the same season, his team advanced to the College World Series for the first time in program history. He sits down with Matt Judge on Getting to Know the Garnet and they discus the World Series, his favorite things to cook and some lessons he learned from his time as a student-athlete.

As a student-athlete at Swarthmore, Rebecca Hammond ’13 earned All-American status in the 1,500-meter run and graduated with highest honors in biology. Since graduating, she went on to become the second-ranked Spartan Race athlete in the world, appear on the cast of the TV The Million Dollar Mile, and earn her MD from Harvard Medical School with plans to begin a residency program in psychiatry in 2021.

In this episode of Then & Now, Hammond talks with Director of Athletics Communications Brandon Hodnett about her time at Swarthmore and her life since then.

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