My Blood Runs Green.

As time passes and I reflect on my years as a Dartmouth undergraduate, I feel increasingly fortunate. Because of being a Dartmouth student and a member of the volleyball team, I have had a number of opportunities that I am convinced would not have been available to me had I attended a different academic institution. Some of these grandiose opportunities involve travel, which has been a passion of mine since I was a little girl. The first travel experience that Dartmouth provided me occurred my freshman year, when the volleyball team went to Montana to compete in a pre-season tournament. After tournament play concluded, the team traveled up to Yellowstone National Park and spent a day exploring the park, Old Faithful, and its wildlife. I had been to Yellowstone once before when I was about 10 years old with my family, so it was very special to me to go back 9 years later with my new family - the Dartmouth Volleyball family.

Dartmouth volleyball presented me with other travel experiences as well. Aside from playing in a tournament in Montana, we traveled to compete in Ohio, North Carolina, and New Mexico (where I bought some beeeeeeeautiful turquoise jewelry) in addition to states in the Northeast. However, my travel experiences were not limited strictly to domestic adventures. The summer before my senior year, I went with my co-captain and best friend, Sandy Barbut ‘08, to Germany and Holland on a select US team coached by Dartmouth Head Coach Ann Marie Larese. While abroad, we played German and Holland teams at several tournaments, including a battle against the Holland Junior National Team (unfortunately we didn’t win). We also did some sightseeing in Amsterdam and visited a wooden shoe factory in Germany.

Last year I was entertaining the idea of playing professionally in Europe and went on another European tour (along with 2009 co-captain Morgan Covington ’10) led by Coach Larese to Austria and Italy. Once again we played local clubs from various towns but also got to tour Venice and the Alps and learned how to make traditional Austrian Apple Strudel! The hills were alive that day…


Another amazing experience Dartmouth Volleyball provided me with was a spring break trip to the Dominican Republic. Every so often, the Volleyball team takes an international trip where we compete against local teams, participate in a community service project, and explore a new part of the world. This trip occurred my senior year and was enchanting. From basking in the sun on the beach (which was warmly welcomed after spending a chilly winter in Hanover) to practicing with the Dominican Junior National team, to having a pizza/dance party with a local women’s volleyball team, it was incredible to share an experience such as this with my teammates and coaches.


At Dartmouth, in order to fulfill the graduation requirements, each student must complete what is known as the “culminating experience.” This may be done a few different ways with the most popular choice being to participate in a Foreign Study Program (FSP) offered through the College’s different departments. Being an Environmental Studies major, the FSP offered in my department is only offered in the fall. With Volleyball being a fall sport, I chose to partake in the FSP (in South Africa) the fall following my senior year. Since I was within three credits of fulfilling my degree requirements, I was still able to walk at graduation. Going on the South Africa FSP was a truly life-changing experience for me. It was so much more than a trip, or taking a class – it was discovering more about myself and the world around me through a new avenue of learning. The events that took place on this journey were unlike any I had ever been a part of before, and have since become memories that I will keep with me forever. It would be nearly impossible to sum up the course of three months into a paragraph of a blog, but some of the highlights included climbing a sand dune to watch the sun set; being in a jeep 15 feet away from a roaring lion; living in a thatched hut for three nights with a rural South African family; conducting a research project studying the migration patterns of African elephants through the use of dung beetle collection and analysis; eating Mopane worms and other local foods; making friends with a traditional South African healer, who used… “non-western” practices in curing her patients; and making new Dartmouth friends that I would have never gotten the chance to know otherwise.

In the six years that I have been affiliated with Dartmouth College, I routinely have to pinch myself to make sure my life isn’t surreal. I have a love for Dartmouth that encompasses every vein, every pore, and every skin cell in my body. My blood runs green. It is my home and it always will be. Dartmouth helped me grow up and become a woman (reluctant as I am to admit I’ve grown up) and I will be forever grateful of my time spent here. Whether I was traveling in a foreign country, sweating on the volleyball court, or succeeding in the classroom, I was always appreciative of Dartmouth. I still am. There is no other institution that compares. However, I’m sure my opinion is biased…after all, I did come back to coach!

-by Katie Hirsch '08, Assistant Coach