Printed with permission from Sophia Diehl

While spring symbolizes new beginnings and a fresh start, for Colgate University seniors it means closing the chapter of their college years. Over the past few months, senior Sophia Diehl reflected on both the excitement and sadness of her impending graduation. Diehl is a captain on the Colgate women’s basketball team and spent her four years at Colgate balancing athletics with her studies, majoring in neuroscience. Her interest in these subjects were sparked before she even first set foot in Hamilton.

“A personal experience with my younger brother made me want to pursue neuroscience and learn more about what he went through,” Diehl shared. “My younger brother — he is all good now — had to have brain surgery to remove a benign four-by-four centimeter tumor that was pushing on his optic nerve.”

Her focus in neuroscience and biology have also influenced the way she perceived things throughout her time at Colgate, especially the way she understands her own body as an athlete.

“The human body is truly amazing and complex, there is so much we still don’t know about,” Diehl said.

Much like her interest in the health sciences, Diehl’s passion for basketball was sparked before she came to Colgate.

“I grew up cheering for my church’s youth basketball team and I would always go to their practices,” she said. “Eventually I gave up cheerleading and began playing basketball in second grade. I quickly fell in love with it because basketball is such a dynamic sport that is fast-paced and high scoring.” 

Her love for the sport did not dwindle over the years — in fact, it got even stronger.

“Playing college basketball is an amazing opportunity. I had this perception of what my career was going to look like before I came and now, looking back on my four years, I truly got way more out of this experience than I thought was possible,” Diehl recalled. “I got to experience so many different things for the first time: foreign tour my junior summer, flying to California and playing UCLA, beating Providence my junior year — which was the first win against a Big East opponent in our program history — playing on a WNBA court, Washington Mystics, this year, all while growing alongside my awesome teammates.”

Diehl has had a lot of amazing moments on the court, but there is one in particular that she says she will cherish forever.

“Playing against UCLA, we had no fear,” Diehl said. “We had so many Colgate fans that were cheering us on near and far away. It was not only a once in a lifetime experience to play on their home court, but also to feel so free doing it. We had nothing to lose in that game and we played like that. We only lost by 18 points to a No. 1 ranked team.”

With her passion for both the health sciences and basketball, being a student athlete has been an incredibly rewarding experience for Diehl. However, the balancing act did not come without its challenges.

“Time management is the hardest thing to overcome,” Diehl said. “You have to make sacrifices and work around your busy workout schedule by taking advantage of little moments of time that you can utilize to get your work done.”

As a student progresses through life from being a freshman to a senior in college, a lot of change is inevitable. Diehl reflected on how differently she used to look at things when she first got to Colgate four years ago, especially in terms of what used to intimidate her.

“[I was intimidated by] asking for help or asking questions in class,” Diehl said. “Now I seek help whenever I need it; there is no problem in asking for help, it’s a part of learning.”

Her perspective about value as a whole has also changed over the years, growing deeper and more grounded beyond external achievements.

“Your value is not determined by your performance in basketball or school,” Diehl said. “It is determined by God and who you are internally.”

After graduation, Diehl will be attending nursing school. Her goal is to get her masters in nursing and eventually become a nurse practitioner. After all of her amazing accomplishments and experiences at Colgate, Diehl is ready to carry forward the resilience, passion and sense of purpose she developed over the past four years into the next chapter of her life.