November 2002			The Days of the Dolphins Who's Afraid of the Big, Bad Bear? Annual Report 2001-2002 Annual Donor Report 2001-2002	E Line Sports Alumni Passages Books From the Field Classes First-Person Huskiana
		A Man for All Seasons Hurtling from gridiron to indoor and outdoor track. By Paul Perillo Springtime in New England means different things to different people. For many, it represents hope—that another long winter is past, that green leaves and colorful flowers will soon adorn the local landscape. Others begin to dream: Maybe this is the year the Red Sox will finally get the job done. Junior Charles Cameron looks forward to spring, too. Even though it makes his life a lot more complicated. Take last April. Cameron would attend morning classes, then head to Parsons Field, where coach Don Brown expected his starting cornerback to sweat during football practice. By afternoon, Cameron would have switched gears—and sports. He’d be competing against other collegiate hurdlers, piling up points for coach Sherman Hart’s track team. The transforming act makes Cameron a rare commodity in these days of athletic specialization—a two-sport Division I star. As anyone who’s ever played NCAA athletics can tell you, playing one sport well is a feat. Excelling at two is amazing. Plus, the Husky football squad is on quite an attention-getting roll. By late last month, NU was ranked 15 in the ESPN/USA Today poll, with the team racking up its first 6-1 start since 1967. The down side: Maintaining that momentum demands even more energy and focus. “It’s very difficult,” Cameron says with a smile, minutes after his football team resoundingly defeated UMass 42-17 on September 21, breaking the Huskies’ sixteen-game losing streak against the Minutemen. “But I’ve been doing this stuff for so long it’s become second nature.” Growing up in Connecticut, Cameron was encouraged to participate in different sports. Mom and dad believed a range of athletic skills would give their son an edge when it came time to attract college scholarships. So he tried everything—baseball, basketball, swimming, soccer, and, of course, football and track. Cameron says he had no particular favorites. He simply played “whatever was in season” to the best of his abilities. “There were times I was going to soccer and swimming early in the day, before going to football practice in the afternoon.” At Northeastern, though, the multisport stakes got higher. Starting as cornerback for a nationally ranked team is more demanding than playing youth soccer. Winning the 400-meter hurdles at the New England Championships as a freshman is even more impressive than learning to swim at three—or starring as an all-state swimmer at Bloomfield (Conn.) High School. And Cameron’s accomplishments on Huntington Avenue extend beyond the gridiron and the oval. He’s an engineering technology major who hopes to get a master’s in management information systems once his playing days—all of them—are over. “When I first got here, I didn’t do real well with managing my time,” he says. “But once I learned to do that, things got much smoother. I’m using my study-hall time much better between meets. I’ve really learned to do three things at once.” Because Cameron is on a football scholarship, he keeps that sport his top athletic priority. As a result, he rarely practices for track; he simply shows up on game day if there are no football conflicts. (The indoor track season gets under way in December, after football is over, so the toughest conflicts come in the spring, when the outdoor season and spring football training collide.) But Hart understands that Cameron’s track commitment is complete. “Participating in two sports puts an incredible strain on your body,” Hart says. “Football pounds on you physically and mentally. Charles does a great job of being where he’s supposed to be with both sports. I’m still amazed he can do what he does. I’m pretty mentally dead once May rolls around, just from coaching.” Cameron isn’t alone in doing the Bo Jackson thing at Northeastern. Mike Jackson has been a safety for Brown and a sprinter for Hart; this year a few more players plan to do double duty in football and track. And Liane Dixon, the America East Rookie of the Year in field hockey last season, has also played Northeastern ice hockey, though she’s playing only on the turf this year. Yet Cameron’s skill in both sports separates him from the pack. “I know when Charles is with us for a meet he’s worth eight to ten points,” Hart says. “He’s a very special athlete. He’s my kind of person—he turns into the ultimate competitor when the game’s on the line.” The cornerback-slash-hurdler is racking up achievements most of us only dream about. But athletic accomplishments may be just the second-best asset in this cheerful twenty-year-old’s pocket. Charles Cameron may have figured out how to succeed in life Rivals to Roommates: A Basketball Story When Francesca Vanin was a budding basketball star at Amherst (Mass.) Regional High School, she was sure she didn’t like Melissa Kowalski. Not that Vanin had actually met her. But Kowalski was the star player on the rival Minnechaug Regional High School team, the perennial thorn in Amherst’s side at tournament time. Better to hate first and ask questions later. After Kowalski graduated from Minnechaug in 2000—having collected three state titles and just eight losses in four years—she came to Northeastern to play for coach Willette White. The next year, as Vanin neared graduation, she decided to pay Northeastern an official visit herself. White had players from seven states on her roster; she could have chosen anyone to host Vanin during her time on Huntington Avenue. So who was waiting to greet Vanin when she arrived? Melissa Kowalski, archrival. “I couldn’t believe it when I saw her,” Vanin says now. “We didn’t know each other at all. But she was from Minnechaug, and I just had to not like her. We were sort of quiet with each other at first, but before long we were laughing.” “I didn’t know her much,” Kowalski says. “All I really knew was I always wanted to beat her. When I hosted her on her visit, I wondered what she thought. It was very awkward, but we’ve laughed about it a million times since then.” When Vanin decided to attend Northeastern—bypassing Cornell in the process—getting to play with Kowalski was a major draw. The two soon found they had a great deal in common: They loved to compete and hated to lose; they were also able to leave basketball on the court and be much different people when they weren’t playing. “We never really got a chance to know each other because of the rivalry on the court,” Vanin says. “Melissa is so intense on the court, and I guess I’m that way, too. But she’s also really quiet and has a great sense of humor.” Now they’re not just playing together; they’re living together. Vanin and Kowalski became roommates this year. And they’re leading what they hope will be a resurgent women’s squad. Last season, in White’s second year as coach, the team won only six games. It was beset with injuries, at times limited to six or seven players. Even more difficult, the 6-foot Vanin was one of the few players who had size on her side. “We were one of the smallest teams in the league,” White acknowledges. “This year, though, we could be one of the biggest.” The coach’s recruiting class includes three players 6-foot or taller. “Melissa and Francesca provided so much for us last year,” White says. “Now we’ll be able to give them some help.” Despite the team’s limitations last season, both players averaged in double figures. Kowalski provides a perimeter game; Vanin is a solid post presence. They’re obviously pulling in the same direction now. Still, Kowalski wants to make one thing perfectly clear. “Amherst never beat us when I was at Minnechaug,” she says proudly. Vanin grudgingly admits that’s true—though she can boast a win over Minnechaug in the western Massachusetts semifinals after Kowalski had gone off to NU. Obviously, all memories of the old rivalry haven’t disappeared. “Even today, when I’m home and see friends from high school and tell them I’m rooming with Melissa, they’re in shock,” Vanin says. Some preconceptions die hard.