D3 Week - Judges Take Center Stage

Shakespeare probably wasn’t talking about baseball, softball or tennis, but at least three Brandeis student-athletes have not taken Yogi Berra’s advice just yet. Junior Nancy Zhang of women’s tennis, first-year softball player Claire Warden, and first-year Teddy Peters of the baseball team have worked hard to hone their performances not just on the courts and diamonds but on the University’s stages as well. 

Nancy, a native of Shanghai, China, has been passionate about music since elementary school, when she started playing piano professionally between the ages of seven and 11. It was also around this time that she started playing tennis. At 16, she picked up a guitar for the first time. But it wasn’t until she enrolled at Brandeis that Nancy started to take formal musical training, learning music theory and composition. After dabbling in several different majors during her first year in Waltham, as a sophomore, she settled on a double major in computer science and music composition. 

“I feel like writing code and creating songs are similar,” Nancy said. “You are so free in both processes. You can do whatever you want and build out your imagination.”

Since coming to Brandeis, Nancy has added a new musical passion - DJing. She’s started making her own hip-hop and house music, even uploading a couple of songs to Spotify. She makes mixes and plays them at social events on and off campus. 

Nancy has also been a steady contributor on the women’s tennis team, playing #2 doubles and #3 and #4 singles for the past two seasons. She posted an 8-7 record in singles as a sophomore and is 5-7 this year, as a junior. 

The balance isn’t always the easiest for Nancy - she admits to losing sleep and social opportunities - but being part of a team helps make up for whatever deficiencies she might experience. “The tennis team has provided me with so much love and support on and off the court. There is always a squad attending my concerts, DJ events, and other performances.”

For Claire Warden, of Annendale, Virginia, her instrument is her voice. She’s been singing as long as she can remember, but she began taking it seriously in the fifth grade, joining the elementary school choir. Claire has qualified for All-County and All-State choirs, starting in middle school and lasting throughout her high school career. She was involved in musical theater as well, until sports started vying for her time.

“I played soccer when I was little, but when my family moved to Annendale, I decided if I was going to start from scratch, I would do it in another sport,” Claire recalled. “I was naturally good at softball, and in sixth grade I made my first traveling team.”

Claire came to Brandeis because of softball and spent her first semester focusing on her studies and her sport. Once she was convinced that she could balance those two responsibilities, Claire, who started an a cappella group at her high school, joined Brandeis’s Starving Artists, an a cappella group that was founded in 1995. Though she let the group know that studies and softball come first, her facility for learning music has eased the amount of time she’s needed to be at rehearsals. 

Claire participated with Starving Artists in Brandeis’s Acapalooza concert this spring, and she’s sung the national anthem before Brandeis basketball games. She has also sung it before softball games while still in uniform. But that’s not the wildest example of her ability and desire to pursue both her interests at the same time. 

“During my junior year of high school, I had two solos and a trio in our spring concert, but I also had our regional semifinal softball game at the same time,” Claire reminisced. “So I pitched the first inning of the softball game, ran inside to sing my first solo, ran back to the field and pitched the third inning [softball rules permit one reentry per game], ran back to the auditorium to sing my second solo and my trio, thinking that I’d finish up at the concert. But my coach called me - my phone was on vibrate - and I found out that the softball team had fallen behind and they needed me back again. So I ran back out to the field and pitched the sixth and seventh innings, and we won, 14-12 or something crazy like that.”

All the effort has been worth it to Claire, though, as she has balanced her studies with her two extracurriculars. With an eye towards sports management or sports psychology, she’s planning on double majoring in psychology and business. “It’s a lot of late nights at the library,” she said. “But I love singing and I love softball, and to be able to be good at both those things, it’s a blessing.”

Teddy Peters, a first-year pitcher on the baseball team, is a native of Holliston, Massachusetts, who also has a memory of a great performance when his two worlds collided. “My senior year of high school, I sang the National Anthem before our Senior Day game,” Teddy recalled. “Then I went and pitched a complete game with nine strikeouts and scored the winning run in a walk-off. That was definitely a special day.” 

Teddy has been a baseball player for as long as he can remember, starting back in the t-ball ages. But his family - his father, Shawn, and mother, Sara, are Brandeis graduates of the Class of 1993 and 1994 -  has been involved in community theater going as far back as he can recall, so Teddy has been involved in that world since he was allowed. 

“I’ve done musicals and one-acts all through high school,” Teddy said. “I was lucky enough to perform in a Brandeis production of Pippin last semester.” He’s also a member of the sketch comedy troupe Boris’s Kitchen, one of the oldest performing groups on campus, along with Jamie Staub ‘28, who is on the softball team’s pitching staff along with Claire. 

Teddy’s mindset, whether it’s before a big game or opening night, is to ground himself in individuality. “I’m in a place where I can be comfortable with myself,” he said. “I know that in both settings, no matter what happens, my performance doesn’t reflect on me as a person. When I remember that, the pressure goes away.”

Though he had two parents who were Brandeisians, that wasn’t the biggest factor in his coming to Waltham. “I connected with coach [Derek] Carlson and coach [Greg] Tobin during my recruiting process,” Teddy said. “I knew that this was a place that I could play as well as find opportunities to be creative.”

The connections these three student-athletes have forged with their teammates and with others on campus is a vital component to D3 Week, when the NCAA highlights the campus involvement, academic achievement and athletic accomplishment of the thousands of Division III student-athletes.