Times Observer photo
Flanked by his parents, Chris and Charity, Casey Seymour signs his letter of intent to continue his academic and soccer careers at Geneva College.

The sky appears to be the limit for Eisenhower senior Casey Seymour.

Seymour, who is easy going but who has a serious side to his personality, recently signed his national letter of intent to continue his academic and athletic career at Division III Geneva College.

Seymour, the son of Chris and Charity Seymour and brother to Conlan, hails from Russell and will be a busy young man this fall. Not only will he be a student at Geneva, but he will also be attending flight school at Beaver Community College, with the ultimate goal of becoming an airline transport pilot.

Oh yes, and he’ll be playing soccer, too.

All of this would make most parents nervous, but Casey’s parents are excited for the opportunities in front of their son.

Times Observer file photo
CASEY SEYMOUR

“We are excited for him to have this opportunity to continue to play the sport he loves,” Chris Seymour said. “It will definitely be an adjustment being a college student and a member of the soccer team, but he’s ready and excited for the challenge.”

When asked why Geneva, Casey was quick to answer.

“The pieces all fell together perfectly,” he said. “Geneva has an aviation business major and a program with Beaver Community College for flight school. It’s just a good fit. It certainly didn’t hurt being recruited by Geneva, which has an excellent soccer program. It just couldn’t have come together any better for me.”

Geneva head soccer coach Gary Dunda is happy to add Casey to the team.

“Case is an athletic goalkeeper with a bright future at the college level,” Dunda said. “He fits in perfectly with our team culture and is a great addition to Geneva College. We are looking forward to the next four years with Case.”

Casey’s parents are also pleased with their son’s choice of Geneva, a Christian college with an excellent academic reputation.

Eisenhower head coach Mike Taylor is pleased with Casey’s decision.

“Casey is probably the most talented goalkeeper I’ve ever coached,” Taylor said. “If he rises to the challenge of higher level football, he certainly has the potential to develop into one of the finest players this area has ever produced.

“He’s leaving a huge hole on our squad. It will be fun to follow him as he competes at the next level. I wish him every success for the future.”

Casey, an accomplished multi-sport athlete at Eisenhower, played four years of soccer and was the team MVP as a freshman and Co-MVP as a senior. He was voted first team all-region. He also excelled on the basketball court where he was voted to the all-region second team as a senior. He also was selected to the NY/PA Corporate Coccer Showcase, an all-star team made up of soccer players from both states that will play July 27 at Pitt-Bradford University. Casey was voted a co-captain for each team.

The Ball State soccer program and head coach Andy Stoots have announced the additions of Lewis Tomlinson and Chyanne Dennis as assistant coaches and Maya Millis as a graduate assistant.

Tomlinson comes to Muncie after two seasons as an assistant coach with the University of Indianapolis women’s soccer team.

The Gainsborough, England native was a graduate assistant for the UIndy men’s team for the 2021 and 2022 seasons after graduating from Holy Cross College where he was the starting goalkeeper. He made 43 starts in 51 matches played with 140 saves and an overall record of 19-18-3 from 2017-19.

Tomlinson has served as the director of goalkeeping for FC Pride since 2022 and also assisted with the Michiana Echo club when he played at Holy Cross.

Dennis joins the team after a season as an assistant coach at Saint Francis, where she coached a pair of NEC All-Conference players, and a decorated playing career as a defender at the University of South Florida from 2017-21.

The Sunrise, Fla., native was the head coach for the Plantation Eagles FC for two years before going to Saint Francis in February of 2024. She also had stints as the head coach at Florida Premier FC and an assistant coach for Tampa Bay United.

Dennis played professionally for Afturelding FC and was a part of the Jamaica Women’s National Team from 2017 to 2022. She was an AAC First Team All-Conference pick, AAC Co-Defensive Player of the Year and United Soccer Coaches All-Region First Team selection during her collegiate career.

“I am excited to welcome Chyanne and Lewis to Ball State! They both represent the type of character and passion I was looking for,” Stoots said. “I know our student-athletes will greatly benefit from their leadership, soccer knowledge and their commitment to growth and development.”

Millis stays in Muncie after a four-year playing career when she started in 60 out of 71 games played as a defender from 2017-21. She had eight assists and played in more than 5,000 minutes in her career at Ball State.

The Livonia, Mich., native was named to the Academic All-MAC Team and Academic All-District by the College Sports Communicators multiple times and is set to graduate Saturday with a degree in strategic communications (advertising).
 

Over the first two days of May, a total of six Swarthmore College students were interim suspended for the creation of a campus encampment earlier in the week. The students in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, were suspended without due process and were told to evacuate from campus, said Swarthmore’s Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) in a 2 May statement.

Of the six students who were temporarily suspended, four were people of color and three were first-generation, low-income students, the statement continued: “This is part of a disturbing trend of Swarthmore exploiting the vulnerabilities of student protesters on the basis of racialized discrimination.” The students on interim suspension are banned from attending college events or stepping foot on campus. Swarthmore SJP did not respond to a request for comment by the publication date.

In a 1 May statement to the campus community, Swarthmore College’s president, Valerie Smith, said that the protesters had vandalized campus property. “Should they continue to fail to disperse and violate the college’s policies and the law,” Smith said, “we will have no choice but to escalate our response as we consider all actions to bring the encampment to an end.”

SJP used social media to encourage activists outside of the college to join the encampment, Smith said, and they ignored repeated requests to vacate Trotter Lawn, where they erected the camp. “We informed students multiple times, both verbally and in writing, that they were violating several policies in the student code of conduct. Students were instructed to disband the encampment and leave Trotter Lawn, and repeatedly warned that failure to do so would lead to interim suspensions.”

Swarthmore College is one of 60 schools under investigation for what the Trump administration considers antisemitic harassment on campus.

A handful of higher-education institutions have started campus encampments this spring in a revival of last year’s pro-Palestinian movement in opposition to Israel’s war on Gaza, where at least 62,000 Palestinians have been killed since 7 October 2023, when roughly 1,100 Israelis were killed. But this year, pro-Palestinian campus protests have been dampened by crackdowns and punitive measures from the Trump administration.

On Yale University’s campus in late April, hundreds of student protesters set up an encampment that dispersed within a couple of days. On 22 April, 44 Yale students were arrested, with some of them facing disciplinary action from the university. And at Tulane University, seven students are facing punitive measures including suspension or expulsion for attending an off-campus protest in New Orleans demanding the release of the pro-Palestinian former Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil.

On Swarthmore College’s campus, SJP members said that they plan to remain in their encampment: “These repudiations are inconsequential when we remember what we are here for: the hundreds of thousands of Palestinian people who have been martyred and displaced yet continue to resist in the face of genocidal violence.”