SuburbanOneSports.com recognizes a male and female featured athlete each week. The awards, sponsored by Univest, are given to seniors of good character who are students in good standing that have made significant contributions to their teams. Selections are based on nominations received from coaches, athletic directors and administrators.
Univest’s SuburbanOneSports.com Featured Female Athlete (Week of Dec. 10, 2014)
Madison Tanis has tenacity, a trait that has served the North Penn senior well over the years. “It I had to pick a word to describe her, it would be tenacity, not necessarily tenacious,” North Penn diving coach Kyle Goldbacher said. “She is tenacious in certain competitive environments, but I think she has tenacity. The difference between tenacious and tenacity – she has this quality that has a couple of parts to it. One, she expects the very best from herself, and she has a determination that is uncommon. It also involves being resilient. She is an extremely intelligent young woman, and she knows how to learn from her mistakes. I would say tenacity primarily because she performs her best when the most is on the line. When you get to that critical point where – okay, this is the moment of truth, that is when she’s at her best.”
An elite diver, Tanis has already qualified for states twice, finishing fourth last year. This past summer she qualified to compete in the elite USA Diving Nationals. She has signed a letter of intent to take her talents to Findlay University. If it sounds like an impressive resume, it is, but making it even more impressive is the adversity Tanis overcame along the way. Tanis calls it a “little hiccough” at the beginning of her sophomore season. “I had a pacemaker implanted, and that put me out at the beginning of the season,” the senior captain said. “They really don’t know what it was, but my heart just decides to stop sometimes. It’s unpredictable, it’s random.” On Sept. 19, 2012, she had the pacemaker implanted at CHOP. For three months following surgery, Tanis, who says she felt perfectly healthy through the whole thing, was not allowed to dive. She was given the green light to resume diving Dec. 19. Two days later, she was competing in North Penn’s meet against Upper Dublin. As for restrictions, there aren’t many. She is not allowed to do pushups or exercises that involve the pectoral muscles. “Besides that, there are no restrictions,” she said. “It’s absolutely fine. It’s been great.”
Tanis, a former gymnast, was voted captain of a Maidens’ swimming/diving squad that is once again expected to excel. “For her teammates to vote a diver (captain) and give her the kind of respect she has, I think it’s just awesome,” coach Matt Weiser said. “Every kid on the team loves her. They see what kind of person she is, and they follow her. It doesn’t matter swimmer or diver, they’re behind her 100 percent.”
A member of Key Club, Tanis and her best friend initiated the Love Your Brother Project, collecting over $16,000 in school supplies over the past two years for Bayard Taylor Elementary School – a Philadelphia school that was a victim of budget cuts. It’s a gesture that doesn’t surprise those who know Tanis best. “It’s unusual to have a diver recognized by her teammates (and elected captain) – not necessarily for her competitive achievements, but more for the personality, the strength of character and the integrity she has,” Goldbacher said. Tanis plans to double major in pre-veterinary medicine and biology next year at Findlay.
To read Tanis’ complete profile, please click on the following link: http://www.suburbanonesports.com/featured-athletes/female/madison-tanis-0049193
Univest’s SuburbanOneSports.com Featured Male Athlete (Week of Dec. 10, 2014)
From the time his father first handed him the family baton, that being a basketball, Josh Brodie – even as a six-year-old working on his ball handling in their Chalfont cul-de-sac – was well on his path to being the quintessential point guard. That involves a certain measure of leadership and selflessness, an intuitive need to give more than receive. For Brodie, now a senior second-year starter, that extends beyond the hardwood. As a stellar student involved in a myriad of extracurricular activities, the Central Bucks South senior has a tendency to be attracted and enriched by those that involve community service. Helping others made him feel a sense of satisfaction, the type he has when he finds an open Titans’ teammate for an easy hoop. He has found this working with the Sheppard’s Project, providing toys for Christmas for grade schoolers at the Isaac A Sheppard School in Philadelphia.
And little did he know that one particular experience, the Athletes Helping Athletes program, would change his life. Call it the ultimate assist. The experience stayed with him to the extent that when it came time to write an essay for admission to Pitt about a challenging scenario, he chose this without hesitation, sharing the experience he had working with a seven-year-old named Ryan during his team’s trip to a Northeast Philadelphia rec center. “Ryan couldn’t speak. Ryan couldn’t communicate. Ryan had a difficult time connecting to others,” Brodie wrote in his essay. “But to this point in my short life, Ryan has taught me more about myself than anyone else. Ryan is a good person, and he helped make me a better one.”
Seeing the finish line to his high school basketball career and knowing he was going to be asked to step up more into a scoring role, Brodie put in a hard summer of work. It wasn’t like he didn’t dedicate himself to hoops before, as he always played AAU, but this was different. There was a sudden sense of urgency. “As a senior, I know it’s my last time around,” said Brodie, who ranks ninth of 635 students in his senior class. “I really worked on things I knew would help me for this season – such as strength training, shooting and dribbling drills.” It is said that IQs can’t be taught, but that does not extend to basketball IQs, which coach Jason Campbell sees as Brodie’s best strength on the court. “He has a high basketball IQ, and you can see that he is the son of a coach,” the Titans’ coach said. “He is our leader. He’s just a fundamentally sound point guard. He is our guy on the court. He tells guys where to go and takes control of the team.” Brodie’s dad, Todd, played high school basketball at George Washington High in Northeast Philly and was then a longtime assistant coach at Wissahickon. In addition to the drills beginning at age six and organized basketball soon thereafter, he brought young Josh along to many a Saturday morning practice, and it was there that he was taken under the wing of several Trojan players. “Going to those practices, just watching, made me understand how to be coachable and how to lead my teammates by example,” Brodie said.
Brodie’s potential college list includes Pitt, Penn State, South Carolina, North Carolina, Northeastern and Michigan. He is interested in a career in bio-medical or chemical engineering. There remains a wild card, should he want to go the Division III basketball route, as Brodie is gauging interest from the much more intimate Stevens Institute of Technology.
To view Brodie’s complete profile, please click on the following link: http://www.suburbanonesports.com/featured-athletes/male/josh-brodie-0049210
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