Random Walk
Move over Tennessee, UConn, and Louisiana Tech—Caltech women's basketball, in the person of junion Theresa Juarez, made the cover of the Winter 2011 issue of the NCAA magazine.
Junior Achievement
Caltech’s Theresa (Teri) Juarez is the face of college athletics—at least on the cover of the winter issue of the NCAA’s Champion magazine. The magazine highlights the junior mechanical engineering major’s accomplishments on the basketball court and in the classroom.
Making the cover is not just an honor for her, Juarez says: “It’s an extension of our whole team and the athletics department.” Sandra Marbut, head coach of the women’s basketball team, adds, “It’s great because it continues to validate that our kids are many things. Yes, they’re brilliant, but they’re also athletes, musicians—so many things.”
Indeed. A Gates Millennium Scholar, Juarez worked at JPL last summer, where she did thermal engineering on a proposed Venus lander and contributed to the book Thermodynamics for Dummies.
She’s also recruiting for Caltech. A Latina from El Paso, she had never heard of Caltech until she participated in the Youth Engineering and Science Scholars (YESS) program. The three-week, on-campus program is designed for exceptional, underrepresented high-school students.
Juarez says she wants to connect with underrepresented minorities and other students who otherwise might never consider going to Caltech. She has visited her high school to spread the word, and she has recently started to help recruit students from the Los Angeles area as well. —MW
A quarterly, Champion gives this honor to only one Division III athlete (from any sport!) per year.
