Andreas Jeninga/The Hoya Emily Beck (COL ’04) has watched Georgetown’s club softball team grow from a small program into a larger enterprise ready to become a varsity program.

Don’t let her enviable post-graduation plans or the faded Tombs stamp on her hand fool you – Emily Beck (COL ’04) is still a kid at heart. While she surely has her share of typical college experiences, from pre-registration to extracurricular activities, each memory is laced with a twist of youth.

Even as a kid, the lesson plans and smiley-face stickers of elementary school education were already calling her name.

“My mom always brings this story up,” she says, laughing about how she would bribe her two younger brothers to play school with her. “It must have been torture.”

“[Teaching] is something I’ve always wanted to do,” she reflects, “but I never realized it.”

Beck also didn’t know for sure that she would be at Georgetown. A third-generation Hoya (her father and grandfather were undergraduate students), Beck grew up following Georgetown sports teams and making frequent visits to the university. “I wouldn’t say I’ve always wanted to go here,” she admits, “but it had always been in the back of my head.”

Once she realized that “deep down” she wanted to go to Georgetown, she was willing to let her dreams of being an engineer fall by the wayside. “This city, the kind of schooling that you get here . I knew this was the right place.”

Her math major was quickly replaced with a psychology degree and a deeper study of child psychology. Although she admits that there are few classes at Georgetown focusing on child development and education, she found each one. “I’ve taken them all,” she says convincingly.

Beck’s interest in children has expanded her knowledge of the District through her involvement with the D.C. Reads program, Sursum Corda tutoring and volunteer work at the Holy Trinity Church.

Sursum Corda, the Georgetown program that sends busloads of volunteers to northern Washington, D.C., has been particularly rewarding, Beck explains. Through this program, each Georgetown student is paired with a young child from the neighborhood. Unlike other programs, “you know who hangs out nearby when it is nice out . you get more of a sense of what the community is like,” she adds.

Beck’s student, 10-year-old Tynecia Black, has proved that both the teacher and the student can take something from the relationship. After a year of twice-weekly tutelage, the two have become friends. Beck occasionally brings Tynecia back to campus, and she and her young friend plan to keep in touch. As Beck talks about Tynecia’s impressive motivation throughout the school year, her round face lights up with pride. “We had so much in common,” she gushes, “and we both like math.”

At Holy Trinity, Beck was able to incorporate one of her passions into her community service.

Growing up, the one TV in Beck’s house only showed sports, and athletic activities have long played an important role in her family.

Given her experience and love for sports, Beck – then just a freshman – was offered the head coaching job for the fifth-grade basketball team at Trinity. Eight of the 10 girls she coached had never played basketball before, but they were able to handle the “weave” by the end of the year, Beck says proudly. This year she was an assistant coach for the third- and fourth-grade boys.

Beck was also able to exercise her passion for sports at Georgetown as a member of the women’s club softball team.

Even though she had played softball since she was five years old, Beck didn’t realize that Georgetown had a club team when she came here. The nascent squad she joined her freshmen year, however, seemed to have all the makings for the perfect Disney classic – an eclectic mix of people, a talented but under-coached squad, no diamond to play on and the promise of a varsity program.

Promises, however, are broken in the real world, and the team got the same “runaround” from the university for the last four years.

“I’m graduating,” the third baseman laughs, “and we’re still a club team.” But while the school was able to limit the club’s money and status, the team has only grown and improved. The program has developed, and it is only becoming easier to recruit new athletes, Beck explains.

Despite the frustrations, Beck’s experience with Georgetown softball has been a memorable one, especially the bond she has built with the four other seniors who have made the entire four-year run.

“We had our end-of-the-season party this week,” Beck says, “and that was a real eye-opener that it’s really ending now.”

Unlike many of her peers, Beck has her plans for the upcoming year all figured out. She will be returning to Villa le Balze in Florence, Italy – where she made her closest friends and experienced her most memorable moments – to serve as the campus Resident Assistant.

And for fun, she will be able to keep up with one of her favorite activities – board games. Taboo, Scrabble or perhaps her favorite: Wise or Otherwise, a game kind of like Balderdash, she explains, but with worldly phrases instead of words.

“And in the Villa,” she adds excitedly, writing imaginary images on an imaginary canvas, “we would play Pictionary on one of those giant notepads.”

It just proves that even entering the real world doesn’t mean you have to grow up.