Little did Michael Benkert know what he was starting.
Since attending Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee, the former Center Grove basketball player has been joined in the area by three more graduates from his alma mater.
Others from his high school are Lipscomb women’s basketball player Lauren Rau, Vanderbilt football player Cameron Tidd and Lipscomb sprinter Grant Mason.
Belmont, Lipscomb and Vanderbilt are all within five miles of each other.
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And they’re about to get company. Greenwood track standout Hanna Anderson will be at Lipscomb next year and Franklin junior volleyball player Brooke Phillips the year after that.
“Nashville is a big attraction,” Benkert said. “But the academic reputations of Belmont, Lipscomb and Vanderbilt are so high, you can’t do much better academically and sports-wise.”
Benkert, a 2015 Center Grove graduate, started the sports pipeline from Johnson County to Nashville. Anderson, a sprinter for the Woodmen, will soon be the latest.
“I love Nashville because it’s really an up-and-coming city, so there will be a lot of opportunities for internships and possible careers if I end up wanting to stay there,” Anderson said. “I want to work at the USA track and field headquarters in Indianapolis someday, so getting experience in a city like Nashville will be vital for my résumé.”
Nashville’s population has increased from approximately 478,000 in 1980 to its current total of 684,000. Roughly 32 percent of Tennessee’s total annual tourism income comes through Nashville, home of the Grand Ole Opry, the NFL’s Tennessee Titans and many other attractions.
“There’s a lot to see and do. (Nashville) is not overwhelming and I love the people,” Rau said. “The hardest part for me was being so far away from my family. But I like it a lot. I went to a couple of Vanderbilt football games my freshman year, and this season I went to a few of Michael’s games.”
Benkert sat out the Bruins’ 2015-16 season and has been a backup guard the past two years. While he’s played a limited role on the court, Benkert, a corporate communication major, understands the value of the education he’s getting.
“It’s getting the best education and getting to do what I love, which is playing basketball,” Benkert said. “Not playing as much can definitely be hard, but having the teammates and coaches that I have at Belmont made it easier.
“It’s their personalities. I play on such a selfless team. If someone scores 30 points or two points, we’re back in the film room the next day.”
Tidd, a defensive lineman who redshirted his first season at Vanderbilt, appreciates the professional benefits of the city in which he lives most of the year.
“It provides a lot of future opportunities as far as a career goes,” said Tidd, who majors in medicine, health and society. “There are a lot of big companies, and since I go to school here it would be much easier to reach out to them or to do an internship if I wanted to.”
Naturally, Tidd, who is 6-foot-3, 290 pounds, can also be easily influenced by the prospect of good food, which Nashville has in spades.
Classmates at Center Grove and longtime friends, Tidd and Rau attempt to get together if their busy schedules line up.
Members of Rau’s family travel to nearly every Lipscomb game, home and away. Her stepbrother, former Center Grove football standout Jordan Luallen, lives 20 miles from the Lipscomb campus.
Luallen, 27, is performance director for the southern region of the Ignition Athletic Performance Group.
Rau’s basketball career got off to a slow start at Lipscomb as the point guard needed ligament reconstruction surgery on her right thumb. The injury occurred when she played in the North-South All-Star Game at Vincennes University that summer.
She’s recovered and started 24 games for the Bison this season.
Phillips, a setter, is the first local volleyball player committed to one of the Nashville universities. She starts at Lipscomb starting the 2019-20 school year and looks forward to being part of the local representation.
Other Division I programs such as Xavier, Virginia and Morehead State expressed interest in Phillips. She said there were too many things about both Lipscomb and the city it’s in that appealed to her.
Phillips verbally committed to Lipscomb in April of her sophomore year. She’ll sign a national letter of intent in November.
“I’ve always wanted to live in Nashville, and when I visited Lipscomb it felt so right,” said Phillips, who isn’t sure of a major yet, but is looking to do something in the medical field. “It felt like home.”
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Current Johnson County athletes either currently playing sports at Nashville universities or committed to do so in the near future:
Name;High school;Class;College;Sport
Hanna Anderson;Greenwood;2018;Lipscomb;track
Michael Benkert;Center Grove;2015;Belmont;basketball
Grant Mason;Center Grove;2017;Lipscomb;track
Brooke Phillips;Franklin;2019;Lipscomb;volleyball
Lauren Rau;Center Grove;2016;Lipscomb;basketball
Cameron Tidd;Center Grove;2016;Vanderbilt;football
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