Former USC volleyball players Jennifer Kessy and April Ross with Vojtech Horna (center), USC Alumni Club of London board member (Photo/Courtesy of the USC Alumni Club of London)
USC Olympians receive a welcome reception in London
The USC Alumni Club of London staged a special welcome for the university’s athletes and coaches on July 25 at the Oxford and Cambridge Club.
With all of London abuzz in the days leading up to the 2012 London Olympics, the USC Alumni Club of London staged a special welcome for the university’s athletes and coaches on July 25 at the Oxford and Cambridge Club.
More than 100 local alumni, current students, Olympians and Trojans in town for the games gathered in St. James at one of London’s most traditional private members clubs.
“We’ve been so excited about the Olympics for the past several years, we wanted to convey that to all of the Trojans coming here,” said Jennifer Ladwig ’99, past-president of the Alumni Club.
The reception featured volleyball players Donald Suxho and Nicole Davis, beach volleyball teammates April Ross and Jennifer Kessy, and track and field athletes Tasha Danvers, Duane Solomon, Jesse Williams and Carol Rodriguez.
Also in attendance were former Trojan Jeff Ong, who competed for Malaysia in the 1988 and 1992 Olympics; Dave Salo, head coach of USC swimming; Tina Fernandes, assistant coach of USC track and field; Ronald Allice, head coach of USC track and field; Jack H. Knott, dean of the USC Price School of Public Policy; Cherry Short, assistant dean of global and community initiatives at the USC School of Social Work; Erin Quinn, associate dean of admissions at the Keck School of Medicine of USC; and William Stetson, team doctor for the USA Volleyball team.
The reception gave USC alumni and students the opportunity to meet the athletic “rock stars” of the Trojan Family. At the same time, many of the athletes in attendance were able to reconnect with former coaches and teammates, some of whom they had not seen in years.
“We were thrilled to bring so many people together,” said Walter Ladwig ’98, president of the Alumni Club. “It is one thing to tell students about USC’s international linkages or discuss the university’s Olympic legacy in the abstract. It is another thing entirely to demonstrate it by congregating a hundred Trojans internationally at a major event like the Olympics.”
