Being at Michigan Takes Prentice Back to Being a Kid
12/7/2017 4:25:00 PM | Water Polo, Features
ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- University of Michigan water polo freshman Brittany Prentice remembers hearing stories about being on campus from her grandfather, Bennett Yort.
"On Saturdays, my grandpa would sit and watch Michigan football games and sing our 'Hail to the Victors' song on the couch," said Prentice.
Prentice was looking to play water polo after high school at either Princeton, Brown or Harvard and was at Harvard in 2016Â for the CWPA Championship. As she watched the championship game between Michigan and Indiana, the Wolverines emerged victorious, 9-2, and jumped in the pool. When they started singing "Hail to the Victors" as a team, they took Prentice back to her childhood memories.
"It just took me straight back to when I was a little kid, watching the football games with my grandpa and I was like 'wow that's special, that is something I would really want to be a part of.' That moment really sparked my interest in Michigan and after that it was a perfect fit."
Her grandpa was one of many family members who went to school at Michigan. Just two weeks before Prentice was born, Bennett had an aneurism. He survived, but suffered short-term memory loss and relied on family members to take care of him.
"He had short-term memory loss, but he remembered college like it was yesterday and he used to tell the craziest stories about going to school here," said Prentice.
Now Prentice is creating her own stories in Ann Arbor to pass on. She is looking to major in bio psychology with a goal of pursuing nursing school. Brittany and her parents helped take care of her grandpa until he passed away when she was 12 years old. That care has led her to want to be a nurse.
"We spent as much time with him as possible, but then he had to go to the nursing home where we didn't have complete control," said Prentice. "It was reassuring for us when we could trust nurses who were able to take care of him medically and mentally."
Prentice is interested in labor and delivery right now and wants to make a difference in the medical and health field. She wants to be a positive influence on the quality of life for patients just like her grandpa had in the latter stages of his life.
"I think that is very important to develop personal connections with patients and hopefully water polo has given me some skills that I will be able to apply to a future in nursing," said Prentice.
Prentice has already started giving back to the community even though she is not a nurse just yet. She goes to C.S. Mott Children's Hospital on Thursday nights with her teammates to visit with children and cheer them up.
"Motts is probably my favorite part about being a student-athlete here," said Prentice. "It is really humbling to see people who are still so positive and thankful that they are getting the care that they need in such a great hospital and so excited to see us as athletes. It is a really great bonding experience for my teammates and I have also met some people who have really inspired me by their stories."
Growing up, Prentice was a part of the National Charity League (NCL), an organization where mothers and daughters serve in the community together. One of the big events she was a part of was I Madonnari, a chalk drawing festival held at the Santa Barbara Mission that benefits the Children's Creative Project, a group that funds art classes and field trips for children in elementary school.
"Community service has always been kind of the framework of my life," said Prentice. "It is really fulfilling to be able to go and spend time with people."
Going out of your way to help people is something that attracted Prentice to the Michigan water polo team and the University of Michigan after she became interested in the school following the CWPA Championship.
"I really just appreciated and clicked with the culture here on campus," said Prentice. "Everyone really seems to want to lift each other up and be successful with each other, not successful at the expense of somebody's failure. Everyone wants to be the leaders and the best. It's competitive, but everyone wants you to succeed."
Prentice and her teammates are doing just that, lifting each other up to make another run at a CWPA Championship and trip to the NCAA Tournament. She dreams of being the one singing "Hail to the Victors" in the pool just like the 2015 team did in Boston and her grandpa used to do from the couch on Saturdays.
