Page 46 - Charlotte Latin Sports Magazine 2022

BEN ANDERSON
FOOTBALL
DANIEL HAUGHTON
FOOTBALL
WINTER COLLEGE COMMITS
Ben has loved football for as long as he can remember. He played flag football first, then pro- gressed to Pop Warner in the fourth grade. But believe it or not, Ben wasn’t quite big enough to get playing time on the varsity team when he first started high school. As he remembers it, he was about 5’9 and 140 pounds, but he was anxious to get on the field. At his dad’s suggestion, Ben tried long snapping, and it turned out he was pretty good at it. He attended camps and started working with J.J. Jansen, the long snapper for the Carolina Panthers. Ben has since grown in many ways. Now standing at 6’4, he has developed into a tough, dependable competitor, who spear- headed the special teams unit and provided schematic freedom on our punt unit that kept our opponents guessing. His leadership made an impact at both practices and games, and he earned multiple accolades at the end of the season, including the Observer North Carolina Super Team and All-Observer First Team Offense. Ben says he loves everything about football, but when he was exploring his collegiate options, he was most interested in finding a program with a brother- hood like he experienced with the Hawks. He found it first with the coaching staff, and later with the players he met on visits, who welcomed him, made him feel at home, and made his choice an easy one. Ben will head south and exchange his Hawk wings for those of an Eagle as he com- petes for Georgia Southern University. Congratulations Ben!
Daniel was drawn to football by watching it – both on TV and on the sidelines of his brother’s Pop Warner games. He started playing in the second grade and developed into an incredibly versatile and talented athlete who impacted games on offense, defense and special teams. Other coach- es in our conference consistently told us that Daniel created problems for their team, so much
so that he was named the CISAA Football Player of the Year, in addition to earning All-State and All-Conference recognition for the third consecutive season. Daniel says he loves the intensity of the game, but also the feeling of being out on the field, with his helmet on, like it’s just him and his teammates in their own world. Daniel has excelled on the field, in the classroom, and as a role model in the Charlotte Latin community. When he was considering his college choices, Daniel was looking for a school that offered an outstanding education, but also a family-based football program with a sense of moral integrity and a dedication to excellence. He discovered the perfect combination amidst a campus he describes as beautiful, yet homey, in Hanover, New Hampshire, where Daniel will play for the 2021 Ivy League champions at Dartmouth College. Congratulations Daniel!
If you know Mary, you know she was born to move. She seems to have boundless energy, which has allowed her to not just compete, but excel, in four different sports at Latin. Basketball suits her competitive nature, and she started playing when she was six years old. Mary loves sprinting up and down the court, which she says gives running a purpose. She leads the team in nearly every important statistical category this season and has multiple triple-doubles. Mary plays every pos- session, whether it’s a huge conference game or a Wednesday night practice, exactly the same way - as hard as she can. She hates to lose even a simple drill in practice and her attitude has helped push the team to be successful. At the same time, Mary always has a smile on her face and her goofy sense of humor and ability to laugh at herself help keep the entire team relaxed. She says her favorite part of the game is blocking shots and playing lockdown defense, but her favorite part of the sport is being surrounded by her favorite people: her teammates. That close team dynamic is something she is hoping to replicate at the college level, and she searched for
a program that felt like a tightknit group embedded in a school culture that would allow her to continue to do all the multi-faceted things that Mary loves to do. We have no doubt that she will make as big of an impact in Lexington, Virginia, as she has here, and we look forward to watching her continue to soar at Washington and Lee University. Congratulations Mary!
44
CHARLOTTE LATIN BOOSTER CLUB SPORTS MAGAZINE | WINTER 2022
MARY SCHLEUSNER
BASKETBALL