Swirling Worlds: EP.7 - Michelle Cates

On the seventh episode of the podcast, I was joined by Michelle Cates, a sophomore Mass Communication major here at Piedmont University. Like Goolsby (see previous blog post), Cates dominates on the track and field team here. During her first year at the University, she won the conference for the 100-meter hurdle race and the 400-meter hurdle race while helping her team finish third overall in the 4x100-meter relay and 4x400-meter relay.

At the show's start, Cates mentions that she came to Piedmont because of her coach, even though she had other offers from schools like Western Carolina and Georgia State. "Originally, I was going to go to Georgia State with my friend, but when I started running track, I really vibed with it," said Cates. "I ended up coming here because I liked that Coach Remel (Williams) always reached out and talked to me." An interesting fact about Cates is that she only started running track during her senior year of high school, which blew my mind because I was the same way.

When you come from a smaller community and have grown used to that, most of the time, you'd like to continue that for college; this was not the case for Cates, as she mentioned during the show that her dream school was UCLA. "I wanted to go to UCLA so bad because I wanted to get away from Georgia," said Cates. Later on, when I asked Michelle what she thinks about Piedmont, she answered like everyone that was on the podcast before her; Cates said that Piedmont has been a good experience for her both in the classroom and, in her case, on the track doing what she loves. "Being at a small school means having close-knit relationships with the people around you, which has benefitted me," said Cates. "Having a team of people that cheer you on and support you is an experience I wish everyone had because sometimes it's hard to be a student-athlete, but with the right group of people, it becomes easier."

How does your group of friends affect you at school? If you didn't have the group of friends that you do, how do you think your college life would be?