It’s actually a little disquieting to select Jaimee Reynolds as The Cornell Daily Sun’s Senior Athlete of the Year. After all, it’s easy to wonder whether she has any room left on her mantle for the trophy that she’s going to receive from The Sun. And does The Sun’s award even compare to multitude of All-American honors that Reynolds has won during the last four years?
But then again, it’s impossible not to acknowledge that Reynolds is head and shoulders above everyone else. Not only is Reynolds a two-sport star, in both volleyball and lacrosse, but she’s also a model student. She is, in short, nothing less than the Cornell poster child for the term “student-athlete.”
“She’s just a great person all-around,” said Christie Jackson, head coach of the volleyball team.
In lacrosse Reynolds, a 5-11 midfielder and the leader of the Cornell scoring attack, is the Red’s all-time leading scorer and has been a third-team All-American. (With 43 goals and 11 assists, it would be a shocker if she wasn’t All-American again this season). In volleyball, she stepped in admirably into the setter position this season when sophomore Rachel Rice was sidelined with injury. And Reynolds is an Academic All-American and a leading member of both Quill & Dagger and the Red Key Honor Society. If that wasn’t enough, Reynolds is also a proficient unicyclist!
“I can’t imagine that she gets much sleep at night,” remarked lacrosse head coach Jenny Graap ’86 about Reynolds’s full slate of activities. “I think she’s a tremendous role model.”
“She’s, in my book, player of the universe,” added senior lacrosse goalie Carrie Giancola.
For all her accolades, though, Reynolds amazingly doesn’t seem to have an arrogant or self-righteous bone in her body.
When asked whether she’s come to terms with her superstardom, Reynolds modest replied, “I don’t know if I still realize it. I don’t think I do anything special on the field.
“I think I just try to take the opportunities that are given to me,” she continued, adding with a laugh, “and recently it’s been working.
“She’s incredibly humble,” Graap explained.
With a season-high five goals and an assist in Cornell’s 14-6 win over Delaware on Wednesday, she broke the school-scoring record. She now has 184 points, four ahead of Cari Hills ’98. Reynolds has been been the cornerstone on this this year’s squad.
But when Reynolds entered the lacrosse team, it would have been hard to imagine that she would ever reach that benchmark.
“I never thought that I’d be able to accomplish that,” she admitted.
That’s because when Reynolds was recruited from Towson High School in Maryland —