Name: Amanda Davio
Year: Junior
Sport: Lacrosse Major : Biology

Introduction:
“I am 20 years old, I’m from Okemos, MI. I have a family with two sisters. . . I work at an animal hospital right now.”

When did you start playing lacrosse, and what do you like about lacrosse?
“I’ve been playing lacrosse since 7th grade. . .I feel like it’s really taught me how to be on a team, or how a team really works. With lacrosse there are a lot of ways in which you can’t play it as an individual sport. It just really doesn’t work if everyone tries to accomplish their own goals, so it’s really taught me how to come together with a team to accomplish a common goal and to work together; rather than just focusing on individual goals.”

How do you feel about this season?
“This season has gone really, really well. It’s been exciting to see just because we started off with a lot of freshman coming in. We are a pretty young team, we only have one senior graduating this year. It’s exciting to see how we’ve grown over the season, not only the current season, but to see where we’re going to go in the coming seasons next year and the years to come. It’s been really cool to see how people have meshed in and assumed rolls from what we lost last year, and the rolls we really needed to be filled in order to be successful. People have really been stepping up, we faced a lot of adversity because of injuries throughout the season; that’s something we’re pretty familiar with, we dealt with that last year as well. We’ve just really been able to bounce back from that, and that’s just a really cool thing, people stepping up.”

What made you come to Calvin?
“Lacrosse was the biggest factor. I really just wanted a small Christian school, and I hadn’t even heard of Calvin until nearing the end of my senior year of high school. Then at a tournament I was approached by some of the coaches and I just really loved the way they interacted with the team and with me, and the goals that they had. I just had a really good feeling about it, I visited and hung out with the team, and seeing the relationships that had been built and how everything had been developed was a really big pushing force. I could really make a home; the people that were there could really be a family, and the coaches have been like my second dads. I know that I can always come to them. It was really just an emotional feeling, I felt at home. I didn’t really get that with other teams, like I visited Hope and didn’t feel that genuine connection with any of the players and the coach wasn’t very active with recruiting either, so I didn’t really feel comfortable with that situation. But I felt like I was really wanted at Calvin, and that they would welcome me with open arms, and that was a cool feeling. In addition to that, I got the perk of [Calvin] being the small Christian school I was looking for, having good academics and not being too far from home. So it was kind of the whole package there.”