Big South Feature: Asheville's Legacy Foursome
By Brian Mull
Big South Correspondent
Four young ladies arrived in the North Carolina Mountains in August 2016, eager pioneers embarking on a journey to build a sturdy foundation for the UNC Asheville women’s golf program.
During their career, they adapted to a coaching change midstream, won three tournaments, formed lifetime relationships with each other, their coach and their many supporters in the Asheville golf family.
The journey ended abruptly in March due to effects of COVID-19, but not before they competed in one final tournament, in Hawaii. At the time they were unaware that their Division I golf career was complete. Still, the idyllic island provided the ideal setting for putting a cap on careers that included three tournament victories.
In four years they became a model across campus and the community for their academic achievement and engagement with the donors and supporters they consider friends. Kellen Alsip, Linna Brooks, Adelyn Deery and Janie Thomas left a legacy on the course and in the classroom, establishing core values and a standard for excellence that future Bulldogs will be expected to continue.
“I’m particularly proud of all of them,” UNC Asheville athletic director Janet Cone said. “They are true scholar-athletes who really had a hole-in-one in the classroom.”
“They had a full plate when they started,” said Ericka Schneider, who became their coach in August 2018, weeks before their junior year started. “The girls did an incredible job of learning how to face adversity. I don’t think they could’ve set a better example for Baylee (Evans) and the others who came after them. If things don’t quite go the way they were supposed to or you don’t know something, learning how to figure it out on their own.”
The city of Asheville has a long, rich golf tradition. The PGA and LPGA Tours made annual stops there in the 1940s and 50s. Ben Hogan and Betsy Rawls won in Asheville, Donald Ross designed courses in the area, Bobby Jones and Mickey Wright played there too.
Today, terrific private clubs and resort courses cover the area and in 2013 a group of members from The Cliffs at Walnut Cove approached Cone to begin discussing the possibility of creating a women’s golf program.
“The turning point was a group of community leaders became the driving force to put the resources behind it and set up the program for long-time success and sustainability,” Cone said. “They’ve remained involved, we formed a strategic working group to fund it in a good way from the beginning and had a goal of where we wanted to go … it’s definitely been a community effort.”
With the funding provided, Cone hired Breanne Hall to lead the Bulldogs and she covered the eastern half of the U.S. to land the program’s first players - Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida and North Carolina.
“I liked that it was something you were going into, with all of us going into it together,” said Deery, a Lancaster, Pa., native who led the team in stroke average in 2019-20. “It was appealing to me because I thought I could play all four years and we could start a program and leave a legacy behind us, which I think we did a pretty good job of. It was fun to be a part of the first-ever team and look back on it. It’s kinda cool.”
The quality of golf courses, climate and beauty of the mountains attracted Alsip, a Cincinnati native accustomed to storing her clubs in the garage each winter. Thomas first heard about UNC Asheville’s new women’s golf program through her hometown newspaper in Winston-Salem. Brooks came north from Winter Garden, Fla.
“We didn’t know each other as a team,” Thomas said. “It was exciting, going in there and being brave.”
When their first coach Hall departed to take the same position at Illinois State, it didn’t take long for Cone to identify Schneider, a former Ole Miss and Symetra Tour golfer who had served as assistant and interim coach at UAB.
It didn’t hurt that Schneider had a connection to the program. During her stops in Asheville on the Symetra Tour, she had stayed at the home of Chris and Nina Young, strong supporters of Bulldogs’ athletics. Cone offered to book a hotel room for Schneider when she came to interview for the job, but Schneider told her she didn’t need one, she was staying with the Youngs. After she got the job, she lived with them for a month until she found her own place.
“It was great to have people here that I could lean on and spend time with,” Schneider recalled. “To have some familiarity, made the transition really easy, felt like every day you were coming home. I’m thankful for that.”
The family atmosphere pervades the program. Schneider quickly built relationships with the four returning players - who were uncertain they’d even have a coach weeks before the season began.
“Ericka’s come on board and done a phenomenal job, keeping all those vital relationships,” Cone said. “Our friends, the investors in our program, saw that we needed a golf van, those folks got together and made that happen along with our partnership with the Cliffs. Who would’ve thought women’s golf would’ve brought so many Asheville communities together?”
Losing the coach who had recruited them weeks before the season was an adjustment for the players.
“It was definitely shocking, all of us were in a bit of a panic mode,” recalled Deery. “It was really nice because our AD let us in on the process of hiring for the new coach. We had the opportunity to be on the phone for the three possible prospects, had some input.
“In the beginning it was tough because she had to get to know us, our different styles of playing and mentally, it was an adjustment.”
In the 2018-19 season the Bulldogs claimed the title at the Pinehurst Women’s Intercollegiate, held on Course No. 8 in the Sandhills’ golf mecca. They also enjoyed a practice round on Ross’ masterpiece, No. 2, which played host to the 2014 U.S. Women’s Open, won by Michelle Wie.
That was one of many unforgettable weeks for the seniors, prompting a jubilant van ride home to Asheville.
Schneider said her four seniors required no maintenance from her on the academic side. Alsip and Thomas are bound for graduate school. Deery landed a job near Philadelphia.
Along the way, the seniors made tangible effort to ensure their impact will be felt for years to come.
“A big focus was on our relationships with each other,” Alsip said. “Every single year we sat down with someone who was in a leadership role to talk about what we wanted to do and change for the next year. Last year we sat down with one of our biggest supporters and he helped us set up guidelines and a standard of behavior within our core values. There’s room to change the guidelines but the foundation that we set up of being a family first will stay there.”
Cone and Schneider have lofty goals for the program and sound infrastructure gives UNC Asheville the best possible opportunity to succeed. More than 100 volunteers helped make their home tournament, The French Broad Intercollegiate, held at The Cliffs for the first time in 2019, a premier women’s college golf tournament from the outset. LPGA Commissioner Mike Whan is scheduled to speak at the event in 2021, and part of his message will certainly touch on the global nature of women’s golf and how student-athletes are attractive employees to Fortune 500 CEOs.
It wasn’t unusual for members of the community to travel to tournaments held within reasonable driving distance of Asheville and support the Bulldogs on the course.
Schneider started her playing career at Daytona Beach State and is familiar with women’s college golf at every level. What she’s experienced in Asheville is unprecedented.
“There’s more support (for women’s golf) in this town and at this school than for any other team I’ve been part of, played against, or known. Our athletic department didn’t necessarily start the program on its own accord. It was a group of the women at Walnut Cove who asked the question. They needed the funding and the ladies raised the money to start a women’s golf program. We have so many courses where we can practice at any time. I make sure my time includes practicing gratitude and gratefulness.”
“The most gratifying part is when you find those coaches who are visionary, and can put legs to it,” Cone added.
On April 27, five weeks after the 2020 spring season was canceled, an anonymous donor pledged $100,000 toward the Adelyn Deery Women’s Golf Endowed Scholarship. With an additional $200,000 planned in the future, it’s the largest endowed scholarship in the Asheville athletics department.
“It’s an honor to have someone do that for us,” Deery said. “There are so many people in the Asheville community who want to see us succeed and see this golf program be the best in the country. Whenever you need anything the members (at The Cliffs) want to get to know you and it’s just been fantastic being able to build those relationships with them. It will help this golf program in the future -- more girls on scholarships to be able to play college golf.”
With their career behind them, and the next chapter of their life unfolding in unprecedented times, the seniors share the memory of starting something special. They’ll miss the mountains and the food, the van rides, and long days on the course, but they’ll forever share the bond of starting a program that’s certain to become special, within the Asheville community and beyond.