Spotlight on Brandon Beaudoin '08
by Mark Tarnacki
Staff Writer

Brandon Beaudoin already had put in a long, productive day before taking the field against Castleton State at Doc Jacobs Field one Wednesday afternoon early in the varsity men’s soccer season this fall.

Rising at dawn to cram for a quiz, the senior biology major and chemistry minor from Newburyport, Mass., also had to print pre-and post-lab reports for the upper-level science classes and labs that would fill his morning and afternoon. He squeezed in a jog to Alliot Student Center for a turkey sandwich on-the-fly, his usual 15-minute lunch break. “I wanted to go to the mailroom but I didn’t have time,” said Beaudoin, who donned his Purple Knights uniform in a Cheray Science Hall bathroom before sprinting across campus to Ross Field House in time for last-minute pre-game warm-ups.

Beaudoin then played all but 10 minutes of a 4-1 win that gave Coach Wade Jean’s squad a 5-0 season start for the first time in program history. Before calling it a night, Beaudoin -- who recently took up playing guitar and keyboard -- still had an hour or two of reading for his music theory class after a post-game shower and dinner.
It was a pretty typical Wednesday for Beaudoin, an aspiring oral surgeon who holds down a 3.87 Grade Point Average (GPA) and has been a four-year starting varsity defender for the Purple Knights. His hard work is paying off. Last spring Beaudoin became the first Saint Michael’s student-athlete ever to be named a First-Team Academic-All American, a prestigious national honor.

While Beaudoin welcomes the recognition, he says he’s more about team, friends and family than individual honors. For him, the best prizes would be an NE-10 Conference championship this year and admission to one of New England’s top dental schools. Both goals are in reach only because of the teams behind him, Beaudoin says, whether it’s his soccer buddies and coaches or professors, family members and friends who enable his best achievements and prospects.

“Success of the team brings out the success of the individuals,” said Beaudoin, echoing second-year Coach Jean’s observation that players only get noticed and considered for top honors like Academic All-American once a program establishes a winning reputation -- something Saint Michael’s men’s soccer began last year with its first winning season since 1989 at 11-5-4.

Sociable and good-natured, Beaudoin is persistently upbeat as he describes what it takes to be one of the nation’s top student-athletes. He’s been playing soccer since about kindergarten, first in Sanford, Maine, before moving to Newburyport at age 10. He says he’s known since early high school that he somehow wanted to do dentistry since it’s very much the family business: Not only his father and grandfather are dentists but also an aunt and uncle; his mother and step-mother are dental hygienists.

“I had thought maybe medicine, maybe orthopedic surgery, but the more I thought about it, dentist is what I wanted,” he said. “I definitely explored other possibilities.” When looking at colleges, he was pleased to learn Saint Michael’s had a good placement record and offered pre-med advisers. Coach Jean’s predecessors approached Beaudoin after seeing him play in showcase tournaments and encouraged him to take a closer look at the school.

Science classes are Beaudoin’s favorite, but he appreciates the breadth of his liberal studies requirements. “I like to know what other people are talking about. I like learning about the way things work, how this world is put together,” he said. Class topics usually feel relevant to his future -- for instance, the week of the Castleton game, his microbiology class just had studied bacteria linked to cavities in teeth. They swabbed samples from their own mouths. That course’s professor, Malcolm Lippert, is Beaudoin’s general and biology adviser.

“We always get good help on projects -- the teachers are great whenever you need to go talk to them. And since we’re away for soccer games a lot, I’ll miss some labs, but I’ll come in to the lab on my own and they’re always two doors down in their office, ready to help and answer questions,” he said.

Sports Information Director Seth Cole nominated Beaudoin for his Academic All-American award last year based on criteria that include grade point and team success. Beaudoin and teammate Tim Williamson, a senior goalie, first made ESPN the Magazine’s All-New England Team, qualifying them for consideration for the Academic All-America team. Other teammates made the NE-10 Honor Roll several times during the year too. “Having other good students on the team means they urge each other on to study. Probably the best thing I did was surround myself with a good group of people who are going to help me be successful,” Beaudoin said.

Coach Jean says he stressed to his players that “we want to be pretty successful in everything we do, be good models for the rest of the school.” With players like Beaudoin who already were talented students, “we were able to turn it up a notch,” he said, noting that more than half of last year’s team was on the Dean’s List.

Says Beaudoin, “In general, I just have to manage my time very well, make sure I’m on top of things and know when everything is due. I never hand in late assignments. I don’t ever like to be late to practice. Success is success, and that’s something I strive for in whatever I’m doing. If you want to be successful, you have to work hard for it. It doesn’t just come.”

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