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Summer 2003 | Volume 26, Number 3 | Athletics | |||
| Second Wind Marathoner, Wife, Mom and Business Alum Comes Back After Tough Times ABOUT 20 YEARS AGO, Claudia Shannon ’97 tended
bar at night, tended her kids during the day and felt depressed
over
a recent divorce. The lack of a college degree was keeping her
from better-paying jobs. “I got so angry at
my life one day,” she says, “that I put on some track shoes and ran through that
anger. And it
felt good!”
Shannon is a poster child for what can be accomplished by a student over 40. Born in 1952, she may have been the oldest Seattle Pacific University athlete who was an academic all-district selection. In her senior year, as a 45- year-old mom, she ran 5K and 10K races in track and was a member of the cross-country team that took 14th at nationals. By then, she was remarried — to two-time Olympic boxer Robert Shannon — and working full-time at an insurance firm while excelling in upperdivision classes in the School of Business. Robert Shannon had convinced Seattle Pacific coach Doris Heritage to recruit Claudia for both cross country and track. She won her first two SPU cross-country races — one in an Alaskan blizzard. “Claudia’s amazing,” says Heritage. “She gives everything she’s got every time, and she never quits.” Claudia Shannon credits Heritage for being a mentor, helping her to understand more about God. “Doris isn’t exclusionary,” says Shannon. “She’s curious about the world. Religion has opened her world, not closed it.” Shannon found advantages to running for the University rather than for herself. “I learned a sense of community with the SPU women’s team,” she says. “We had a bond.” Today, Shannon works in insurance law at Safeco. As a senior commercial claims adjuster, she tries to even the balance of power between parties. “I wanted to change the world,” says Shannon, “So I went to law school. But I found that in law, you can change things only a little bit. What you can do is protect vulnerable people. SPU reinforced the idea that being good means giving when it’s really tough to give.” That’s good for everyone’s self-esteem.
— BY MARGARET D. SMITH |
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 From the President Americans today are searching for a new tone for their lives. “We are talking here about another set of values — not the giddy sense of entitlement that emerges out of exuberant times,” says President Philip Eaton.
A Gift at Any Age Like Grandfather, Like
Grandson The Retiring Class of 2003 Still Exploring
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