作者:大卫·辛普森
Growing up in Japan, Leah Onosato learned to play golf with her father. He was new to the game himself, and it was a way for them to bond.
“高尔夫更适合我父亲，”Onosato说. “他喜欢和我一起做.”
But she warmed to the sport, and by middle school she had won her first tournament. As her skills grew, so did her competitiveness and ambition. 2019年1月，她登上了飞往美国的航班, where a golf scholarship awaited at bet8体育娱乐入口. This December the standout student-athlete will reach a milestone in her academic career when she receives her Bachelor of 艺术 in English.
“我来ODU更多的是为了打高尔夫，而不是上大学,”她说。, 但后来我意识到我是多么喜欢学习.”
她拿的是4.平均绩点为0，并且注册了链接B.A./M.A. program that allowed her to begin taking graduate courses as an undergrad. She hopes to finish her master’s in applied linguistics in spring 2024.
“利亚拿走了我的一张M.A. courses as an undergraduate and was one of the strongest students in the class,英语副教授Staci defbaugh说.
小野藤在高尔夫球场上也表现出色. 在格林维尔的帕拉丁女士邀请赛上, 南卡罗来纳, 9月, she shot a six-under 70-71-69 (210) as the ODU women’s team took second place. 关于她的职业生涯, she has been named to the All-Conference USA second team and Virginia 体育 Information Directors (VaSID) All-State first team, the Conference USA All-Academic first team and the VaSID Academic All-State team.
“She’s an incredible student-athlete,” said Mallory Kane, coach of the women’s golf team. “她代表了一个多元化的家庭, 她在课堂上力求完美, she’s involved with a variety of campus groups and she’s an award-winning golfer. We hope all of our prospective student-athletes will look up to Leah and model their career after her.”
Onosato said her best attribute on the golf course is her determination.
“我一直坚持到最后，”她说. “我决心要把它完成. 我一直都很好胜，无论是打高尔夫球还是在学校.”
Born in Saitama on the main Japanese island and later raised in Kumamoto Prefecture on a sub-island to the south, 利亚由她的美国母亲在家教育. The girl grew up speaking mostly English with her mother and three siblings and mostly Japanese with her father.
“His English is fine, but my Japanese is better than his English,” Onosato said.
Based on her success in golf – she qualified at ages 16 and 17 for the Junior World Championship in San Diego – she envisioned earning an athletic scholarship and going pro. But golf isn’t as much of a college sport in Japan as it is in the United States, so she explored what it would take to play and study here.
首先，她需要成为美国公民. Her mother helped steer her through the complicated process, and they flew to Guam – the nearest U.S. 土壤——用于宣誓就职仪式.
With scholarship offers from ODU and other universities, Onosato chose to move to Norfolk. Old Dominion had the highest-ranked golf program among those schools, 她喜欢教练组.
For her studies, she decided on a creative-writing concentration. She had always been a reader, of fiction especially, and had written stories. Once she got to Old Dominion, nonfiction and poetry beckoned too. 如今，她更倾向于后者.
“Poetry is more raw and personal and something I can write more often and use as almost an outlet for any emotions.”
Instructors who’ve helped her with craft include Molly Brown (nonfiction), A.J. 诺兰(小说)和肯特·沃斯科姆(诗歌).
“Leah is that rare student whose talents are so extraordinary that a single field can't contain them,Wascom说. “An athlete, a scholar and a writer, all at an exceptional level.”
Over time, academia assumed a bigger place in Onosato’s mind as a career choice. 她开始重新考虑成为职业选手.
“大学高尔夫很有趣, but professional golf is a different world and I don’t think I would enjoy that as much,”她说。. “这会让你失去一些快乐.”
Onosato is making the transition to graduate studies in applied linguistics, where her concentration is teaching English to speakers of other languages.
She wants to teach at the college level, either linguistics or a related subject. A recent course in 教学 College Composition got her interested in the field of writing studies.
“我一直喜欢写作和阅读. The idea of helping people with writing and the idea of teaching writing is really cool.”
One reason for this interest is that many of her college friends are, 喜欢她, 国际学生.
“Having English as my first language made it a lot easier for me than a lot of my friends. I feel like there are so many ways that college could work toward helping those who are second language or multilingual and just embrace them more.”
Recently named Outstanding Scholar for the 文学院 and 信, Onosato will carry the A&12月11日毕业典礼上的L横幅. 17. 她知道她远方的家人是骄傲的.
“They’ve been there for the whole journey and seen me get stressed about grades, get stressed about assignments and then get excited about things I was learning about.”
In a way, her journey started with that first outing with her father.
“高尔夫把我带到了这里. 没有它，我是做不到这一切的. 想想这让我走了多远，感觉很酷.”