George Washington University Athletics
Honoring Veterans, One Fairway at a Time
4/24/2018 12:00:00 AM | Men's Golf
The Colonials are coming off back-to-back fourth-place finishes at the A-10 Championship. Both of those seasons, the event was held at Grand Cypress Golf Club, and the Colonials have four players in their starting lineup who have competed in the event the last two years: seniors Jack Porcelli, Vince Palazzolo and Christian Cichan, and junior Logan Lowe. Sophomore Adrian Castagnola, meanwhile, will make his first start in the A-10 Championship.
Logan LoweJunior
Grass Valley, CA
Lowe is a two-time All-Atlantic 10 selection and has two top-15 finishes at the championship, taking 13th place as a freshman and T-8th last year. This season he owns a pair of victories and leads the team with a 70.67 scoring average.
By Eric Detweiler, GW Athletics Communications
Inevitably during this week's Atlantic 10 Championship, Vince Palazzolo will reach down to mark his golf ball on a green and give the silver coin replacing it an extra look.
The U.S. Navy emblem flanked by the words "Forever My Brother's Keeper" will be facing skyward. The GW senior has used the same ball marker for every round he's played for the past two years, but the message behind the token of appreciation from former Navy SEAL Steve Winingham still resonates.
"It makes you realize that what we're doing at the end of the day is just golf," Palazzolo said. "It's just a game, and there's so much more to life than that. It helps put everything into perspective for us."
Palazzolo received the authentic military challenge coin, along with a smiling promise of its power to bring more made putts, after playing opposite Winingham in the annual Colonial Cup, a Ryder Cup-style competition pitting GW's squad against wounded veterans from the Salute Military Golf Association (SMGA) each spring.
Palazzolo's trusty ball marker offers a daily reminder of the five-year relationship between GW golf and the SMGA. The bond has continued to grow each year with the program getting more involved with the Silver Spring, Md.-based charity that was co-founded in 2006 by former Colonial Jamie Winslow (Class of 1987).
Through their faithful volunteering at the SMGA's Saturday clinics for local wounded warriors and their families, the Colonials have developed relationships that stretch beyond the golf course.
"At this point, I don't even think about it as community service," senior Jack Porcelli said. "We always look forward to hanging out with those guys. I think that's the thing that makes it so special."
This year, GW added a new element to its support with the introduction of its Warrior Tribute Bag. For each tournament, the Colonials have honored an SMGA member local to the host course by adding military patches and other personal mementos provided by the veterans.
At the end of the season, the program is planning to auction off the bag to raise money for the organization.
Each of the three seniors will take a turn carrying the bag this week during the A-10 Championship at Grand Cypress Golf Club in Orlando, Fla.
"I think every guy on the team really understands the importance of what we're trying to do," said Logan Lowe, who celebrated a victory at the Camden Collegiate Invitational last October carrying the bag. "Everyone's always excited when they get the nod to carry the bag and get to read about the guy they're honoring that week. Everyone has a little extra motivation, a little more pride when they're walking around the course."
For Winslow, the partnership was a chance to combine two of his passions.
Winslow founded the SMGA with childhood friend Jim Estes with the aim of improving the quality of life for veterans recovering at nearby Walter Reed Army Medical Center and Bethesda Naval Hospital. Over the past 12 years, it has grown to 11 chapters nationwide, and more than 2,000 veterans have taken part in the organization's events.
"When Jim and I started it, I thought we'll give a couple of golf lessons and give a couple sets of clubs away, and hopefully, we change one or two people's lives for the better," said Winslow, who was selected as a member of GW's 1980's All-Decade team. "I didn't see it growing into this."
Head coach Chuck Scheinost, whose college roommate served in the U.S. Marine Corps, arrived in Foggy Bottom in 2013 eager to get his new program involved with a charity that benefitted the local military population.
The coach went into his first meeting with Winslow not long afterward with high hopes. The Colonials made their first trip out to a clinic at Olney Golf Park in Maryland that fall and held the inaugural Colonial Cup a few months later.
"It was really the perfect fit," Scheinost said.
Count Staff Sgt. Jack Schumacher thankful for that connection.
A two-time recipient of the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star, Schumacher lost his right leg to a rocket-propelled grenade in Afghanistan in 2009. He attended his first SMGA clinic when he was recovering at Water Reed but didn't get serious about golf until 2015 when he was preparing for his wedding in Scotland.
Schumacher was immediately impressed with the Colonials' patient and friendly approach to teaching the wounded warriors, regardless of skill level or stage of recovery.
"At first if you're not acclimated to that, it can take you aback," Schumacher said. "But if you stay a little bit longer, you can see how it's truly a magical place."
At Scheinost's invitation, Schumacher made a trip to GW in the fall of 2015 to share his story with the squad. He's been a regular at the Colonial Cup ever since, and this fall, he was a natural pick to be honored on the Warrior Tribute Bag when the Colonials made the short trip to Richmond, Va., for the VCU Janney Invitational.
Porcelli has been paired with Schumacher a couple of times at the Colonial Cup. They've enjoyed each other's company, even exchanging a little friendly trash talk. The senior from New Jersey keeps an American flag uniform patch that the veteran gave him in his wallet and swaps text messages with him now and then. It was special to be able to carry the bag in honor of his mentor and friend.
"Honestly, there's no one who I think's a better leader than Jack," Porcelli said. "There were a lot of times where he had to kind of sacrifice a little bit of himself and kind of put other guys first. Through some of his stories and stuff, it kind of put it into perspective how easy it is to do that with the guys here."
Schumacher chose to send along a 25th Infantry Division unit patch and the uniform nameplate of his friend John Borbonus, an Army PFC who was killed in action in Iraq in April 2007 after alerting the rest of the company of an approaching dump truck full of explosives to save the lives of 13 soldiers, including Schumacher.
"Just because that's a name that I want to live on," Schumacher said. "I want people to ask the question and to be able to hear his story. It brought a lot of joy to my heart getting to share John's story and see Jack carry the bag."
In all, six SMGA members have contributed patches or pins to put on the bag with another one scheduled to be honored this week. Each new addition carries its own story.
The Colonials stopped on the way to their tournament at N.C. State to have lunch with Chief Warrant Officer 5 Jim Herring, who has served tours of duty in Afghanistan, Iraq, and South America and been honored with the Silver Star, Bronze Star with Valor and Purple Heart.
The next day, Herring followed the Colonials during their opening round wearing his military uniform. Palazzolo carried the bag that week as it added a patch representing Special Forces Operational Detachment Alpha 2084.
At the Redhawk Invitational at Chambers Bay Golf Club in Seattle earlier this month, they met Operations Sgt. Maj. Lee Baleme, who participates in SMGA events at the course that hosted the 2015 U.S. Open and contributed a patch to their bag.
"It gives you a little perspective going into every week hearing what these guys have given up and what they do for us," Lowe said. "It's a little bit of inspiration that I think helps drive the team a little bit."
Scheinost knew the partnership would work out after the first Colonial Cup in 2014. The van ride back to the District after the inaugural event was lively with his guys re-telling the tales they'd just heard from their playing partners.
Since then, Scheinost and SMGA Executive Director Dan Pfleiger have tried to brainstorm more ways to grow the relationship with the feedback from the Colonials the driving force. By now, they know the names, back stories and golf games of many of the SMGA regulars.
"The more we've done it, the more they've kind of wanted to do more," Scheinost said. "Just watching those relationships bloom has been one of the coolest things."
It's why Palazzolo is proud to honor the Purple Heart recipient Winingham each time that he lines up a putt.
"It's just a little something I can do," Palazzolo said. "We're constantly thinking about those guys. They have a huge impact on us, for sure."
Players Mentioned
