Oct. 20, 2016
by Dan Froehlich, Auburn Media Relations
Zoe Thatcher was more than a little surprised when she opened up her mail last week and found a letter from the Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society.
A member of the prestigious honor society since last semester, Thatcher, an apparel design major from Mason, Ohio, has been awarded the Outstanding Second Year Award, which goes to selected students from those completing a minimum of 60 semester hours during the previous two academic years.
Phi Kappa Phi is the nation's oldest, largest and most selective all-discipline honor society. The Society's mission is "To recognize and promote academic excellence in all fields of higher education and to engage the community of scholars in service to others." Since its founding in 1897, Phi Kappa Phi has initiated more than 1,000,000 scholars.
A junior on Auburn's swimming team, Thatcher was a 2016 Olympic Trials qualifier and has competed in the past two NCAA Championships.
In the classroom, Thatcher found her passion through her father, Geoffrey, who is the executive creative director for The Brand Experience.
"My dad has always encouraged the creative side and he kind of directed me into apparel design," Thatcher said. "I'd like to go into sporting apparel design for a company like Under Armor or, somewhat completely opposite, go into costume design for movies.
"The more I've taken the classes, the more I've fallen in love with it," she said.
A versatile swimmer, Thatcher competes in the freestyle, backstroke and IM, excelling in distance events. She currently holds Auburn's top times in the 200 back and 400 IM and is second on the team in both the 500 and 1,000 freestyles.
"This season I'm trying to set goals for myself in a different way," Thatcher said. "Previously it has always been time-based and, 'I want to be top-8 in this and top-8 in that.' This year I am just focusing on the mental side of swimming - just racing and trying to get my hand on the wall first rather than wanting to be at a certain time at a certain point of the season. I think that has helped me a lot just to focus on the task at hand rather than some obscure time."
To change her focus, Thatcher references a book her mother, Tanya, encouraged her to read called "How Bad Do You Want It?: Mastering the Psychology of Mind over Muscle" by Matt Fitzgerald.
"It's a learning process," Thatcher said. "I'm starting to figure it out more and more the more I race. The biggest thing that I've learned is to focus on the race and not how I'm feeling. Most of the time with distance events you think about pacing and how you're supposed to feel during the race. Instead I'm trying to focus on 'this person is in front of me. I need to catch up' or 'I need to turn on the legs for this 50' - more task-oriented, kind of like homework. 'I need to get this done before I get that done.'"
Whether it is in the pool between the lane lines or in the classroom behind a computer, Thatcher's preparation, work-ethic and goal-setting are clearly paying off.