Q&A With Women's Golf's Alexis Wooster
Mar 31, 2005 | Women's Golf
March 31, 2005
In her final semester as a member of the Tulane golf team, senior Alexis Wooster is enjoying one of her best seasons. The philosophy major led Tulane at the Lady Gator Sun Trust Invitational with a 10th place finish at the site of the NCAA East Regional. Wooster hopes to lead the Tulane women's golf team to not only a second straight Conference USA title, but to the NCAA Championships for the first time in school history.
Why did you choose Tulane?
"I really didn't know too much about Tulane before my coach recruited me, but the more I found out about it the more I thought that this is like a hidden treasure."
What is your major?
"I'm a philosophy major with an English minor. I hope to be a teacher and will probably go to grad school sometime in the future. If I go next year, I'd like to be a graduate assistant with a golf team."
What is your ultimate career goal?
"Ultimately, I want to be an elementary teacher, probably at the fourth grade level."
How has missing the NCAA Championship by a few strokes each of the last two years affected the team's mindset?
"I think last year we really felt as though we should be there, and we kind of let the expectations get to us. This year, we feel if we play average golf for us that we will still go to Regionals. It's a bit relaxing, and if we win it that would be great."
Last year you had a bit of a down year (personally), and this year you appear to have stepped it up a notch. What do you think is the biggest difference?
"I'm a lot more patient this year, I'm not trying to do anything spectacular. I kind of let last year get to me, so when I went home this summer my parents suggested that I take some time off of golf. I did and came back refreshed for the fall, and so far things have been pretty good."
What did you think of the COPE (Challenging Outdoor Personal Experience) course?
"That was one of my ideas because I did something like that in high school. It just struck me as something my team would really enjoy and they did. I lucked out. It's really helped us as far as team bonding, it really got us off on the right foot."
What has been your best experience as a member of the Tulane golf team?
"The moment that sticks out in my mind is when we won at South Florida during my sophomore year. We finished even par for three days, which is pretty much unheard of for a women's golf team. We went crazy."
How has being a student-athlete at Tulane helped or changed you in any way?
"I've learned that I'm much more capable than I thought I was. When I'm tired or when I think I can't do anymore, when I have practice or I have a test to study for, it's really helped me to do more than I thought I could.
What has been your favorite class at Tulane?
"My Plato class that I took with Professor Berger, she's brilliant. There's so much depth to the material that it just blew me away."
What are the best and worst parts of living in the dorms?
"Since Tulane's small, I love being on campus and not needing to have a bike. You can walk anywhere. I don't even have to run to class because it's just five minutes. That and being fed on campus, I just don't have the time to cook. I don't know how they do it when they live off campus. The worst part is definitely the community showers, I just can't believe I did that for two years."
Where is your favorite place to visit in New Orleans?
"It's so hard because there are so many, but I'd say the thing that struck me on my recruiting visit was Jackson Square. There's nothing else like it, with the street performers and artists, I had never seen anything like it. It seems so friendly, and it's not as scary as I thought it was."
Where is your favorite place to eat?
"This is a team favorite too. We go to Ninja, a Japanese restaurant. I didn't like sushi before I came here and neither did anyone else, but now that's where we have our team dinner."
What's the best advice you've ever been given?
"Never give up on something you really want."
Have ever played internationally?
"I left the country for the first time to visit my teammate Lili in Mexico last summer. It's beautiful there, I was naïve to think that it was all desert. There's so much vegetation and mountains and so much more than I thought."
If you could have dinner with any three people, who would they be?
"Michael Jordan because I'm a Chicago baby, and lived on his basketball for a long time. Abraham Lincoln, because I did a report on him in fourth grade and have admired his policies ever since. And of course, Socrates, I'd love to have a discussion with him."
What has been your favorite community service?
"I've volunteered to work recess at the Lafayette School, but this summer I volunteered at First Tee in Chicago."
What did your First Tee experience entail?
"I would drive through the city all the way out to the south side. It was an incredible experience with such a wide variety of children. I thought that inner city kids were so tough and that they would be bigger than me and beat me up, but then I realized that they were just kids that wanted to play sports."
What was the biggest challenge working with those kids?
"The worst part was when they would swing a club when they weren't supposed to and there would be another kid right behind them. And the facilities aren't that great either."
How did you get involved with First Tee?
"I needed to re-discover my passion for the game because I had gotten caught up in the scores, which determined how I felt about the game. I knew that if I worked with those kids I would appreciate all of this that I have here at Tulane. It also allowed me to converse with the kids and helped me find my `teacher voice' without screaming."
Who is your favorite professional athlete?
"Michael Jordan is the obvious choice, or Lorena Ochoa who is an LPGA golfer."
What is your favorite professional sports team?
"The Cubs, they don't have to win the World Series for me to be a die-hard fan."
Is there anyone you'd like to thank?
"I'd like to thank my parents, my brother John for being so understanding of my golf commitments, my grandparent, my best friend Lili, my professors and everyone in athletics at Tulane. They have all helped make my great experience possible."
