A member of the Lewis & Clark women’s tennis team, senior Macarena Vives completes her senior season with team-best 20-15 record and 10-6 mark in NWC play. Vives was a 2021 Fall ITA Consolation Singles and Doubles Finalist. She was named to the ITA All-Academic Team Award three times, the ITA Scholar Athlete twice, helped the women’s tennis team earn the Team ChamPIOns Award on three occasions, and was named the Team Coach’s Choice Award.
An International Affairs major, with Rhetoric & Media Studies, and Entrepreneurship minors, Vives graduates with a 3.5 GPA. She received academic honors such as the Mary Dimond Scholarship twice, Mark Duntley Award, Paul Barney Award, ChamPIOn Award, and was named to the Dean’s List. She was involved in many school organizations, such as Student Engagement, the President of the Campus Activities Board, Resident Advisor, Campus Living, Associated Student Body, International Students Body Representative, Lewis & Clark College Social Media department, Spanish Club, Inclusion & Multicultural Engagement, Intramurals, The Bates Center, IT Services, Student-Athlete Advisory Committee. Vives volunteers her time with the Alumni Office, International Students Week Fair, Templeton Remodeling Committee, and was a PSI Facilitator. She was also involved with the Blood Drive, Clothing donation, Food Drive Donation, Oregon Cancer Foundation and Choose Hope.
Being "too fair" comes to mind when I think of Maca and Sportsmanship. A very talented player from the get-go, Maca came to us with very little match experience due to her disdain for competition because she may have to "beat someone". The thought of an opponent being distraught or upset because Maca was winning against them, was troubling to her. The idea that Maca could be the source of someone else's discomfort was always tough for her to accept. Many times, during a change over, we had conversations about how bad she felt because her opponent was getting upset or was in tears. Over the course of four years though, Maca was able to learn how to compete while maintaining the highest level of fair play and sportsmanship. Routinely, before and after matches, she could be found chatting it up with opposing teams or her opponent. Maca always walked off the court giving it her all and earned the respect of her opponent because of her determination and ridiculously generous line calls in a sport where officials are usually not the norm.
