School professor cheers for daughter on US Olympic Volleyball Team
| August 02, 2012 | |
Dr. Carmen Samuel-Hodge, Mike Hodge and Megan Hodge
Carmen Samuel-Hodge, PhD, research assistant professor of nutrition at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health, and her husband, Mike Hodge, are among the proud parents in the stands cheering for their children at this year’s Olympics in London. Their daughter, Megan Hodge, plays on the U.S. Olympic volleyball team. “We could not be more proud of our daughter’s accomplishment,” said Samuel-Hodge by email from London. “To make this team is no easy feat. Even the players who do not start are among the best at their positions and they play a very important part in making the starters the players that they are.”
The U.S. Olympic volleyball team has never won a gold medal, but they are the favorite to win this year. At 23, Megan Hodge is the youngest member of the team.
Samuel-Hodge is also a research fellow at the UNC Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention where she leads several research projects in North Carolina, studying diabetes treatment and obesity prevention. Mike Hodge, a support services supervisor with UNC Facilities Services, coaches the volleyball team at Megan’s alma mater, Riverside High School in Durham.Megan Hodge was born in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Her family moved to Durham, N.C., when she was 3 years old. Both parents played on the U.S. Virgin Islands national volleyball team and in college.
Making the Olympic team is just the most recent in a series of major milestones Megan Hodge has achieved in her volleyball career. She led the Penn State volleyball team to three national championships and was a four-time First Team All American. She also was the top scorer and MVP when Team USA won its third straight FIVB World Grand Prix title this year.
“We did not imagine 20 years ago when we left the islands that our 3-year-old would be on the USA volleyball team,” Samuel-Hodge said. “It was one of her goals, along with winning one national championship in college. She won three national championships, so we know how hard she works to reach her goals.”
Nick McCrory, a Duke student from Chapel Hill who won a bronze medal in the men’s 10-meter synchronized diving competition, also has UNC public health school connections.
His mother, Ana Cuenca McCrory, a technician in UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center’s Tissue Culture Facility, received her Bachelor of Science in Public Health degree from the School’s maternal and child health department in 1981. Nick is also the grandson of Nelida Cuenca, MD, MPH, who received her master’s degree in maternal and child health at the School in 1979.
Read more about the Hodges and McCrorys on the UNC website.
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