Originally published in Carroll Capital, the print publication of the Carroll School of Management at Boston College. Read the June 2026 issue here.
Kaelan Chudzinski '29
Hanna Hoffman '26
A.J. Colarusso '26
Emily Mara '29
Jayden Hastings '27
Molly FitzPatrick '25, MBA '26
Shea Baker '26
Aram Minnetian '27
Tiffany Cao, MSF '26
Kaelan Chudzinski '29
Football
Recipient of the Mingolelli Family Scholarship Fund
Kaelan Chudzinski’s maternal grandparents have photos of him as a toddler, cheering in the stands of Alumni Stadium. And there he is, at five years old, randomly caught in the official video of the parade celebrating Boston College hockey’s national championship in 2012, looking straight into the camera near the barricades of the procession on O’Neill Plaza.
“I was brainwashed at a young age,” he jokes, referring to his mother’s side of the family, the Dankers. Both his grandfather and uncle graced the gridiron on the Heights, and his grandmother graduated from Boston College as well. Still, it was hardly preordained that he play football at BC—let alone that he’d be coached there by his dad.
For much of his early life, Chudzinski lived far from Chestnut Hill, and his sport was hockey. He pivoted to football nearly halfway through high school but initially committed to Princeton.
“We moved around a lot, like eight times,” he says. Those uprootings mapped the NFL career of his father, Rob, who coached for such teams as the San Diego Chargers and the Cleveland Browns, where he was head coach in 2013. The family relocated to metro Boston when he was in sixth grade, partly for sports. “It’s a great place for hockey,” explains Chudzinski, whose three younger siblings compete on the ice.
He ultimately signed with the Eagles as a senior at St. Sebastian’s School in Needham, and his father chose BC as well. Rob Chudzinski serves as senior offensive analyst working with the tight ends, including Kaelan. Rounding out the Chudzinskis, his mom, Sheila, was the third leading scorer in the country playing basketball at the University of New Hampshire.
Academically, “It’s been a lot of fun and hard work,” says Chudzinski, who’s taken a liking to finance and philosophy. He speaks of the steady encouragement he receives from faculty and advisors, the pleasure of playing his guitar, and the nourishment that comes with reading scripture morning and night.
But what’s it like to be coached by your dad? “He’s very intense,” Kaelan replies with a chuckle, adding in all seriousness, “I wouldn’t get better coaching from anyone else.” The proof is in the completions: Last year, he registered more catches and yards than any freshman tight end in the country.
Hanna Hoffman '26
Volleyball
Recipient of the Callahan Family Scholarship
Growing up as an only child, Hanna Hoffman learned many of her early lessons on bonding and teamwork from playing elementary school volleyball in Menlo Park, California. Still, it was joining the Boston College volleyball team that “really taught me the definition of sisterhood,” she says, adding that it’s such a joy “to have a group of like-minded, hardworking, talented individuals around you.”
During the summer training seasons, the team would live together and spend their free time cooking, tanning, and exploring Boston. On the road to away games, they would study and do homework together. “You get to know each other really well,” says Hoffman, who played the all-important position of setter. While her college volleyball chapter concluded at the end of her senior season last fall, “the best parts of volleyball you get to keep with you your whole life, and that’s the relationships,” she says.
Relationship building has also been at the heart of Hoffman’s work with the Joseph E. Corcoran Center for Real Estate and Urban Action. After getting involved with the center during her sophomore year, Hoffman and some others noticed that they were among the few women attending real estate events. So they cofounded the Women in Real Estate club (WIRE) in 2025. The group hosts networking events, partners with industry organizations, and gives young women a space to start building their professional networks.
Hoffman hopes WIRE continues to be a place for others to explore their interests in the real estate industry, just like she did when she began her internship with real estate capital markets firm JLL. She’ll return to JLL after graduation as an analyst on the capital markets team, and she’s confident that what she learned on the volleyball court will come in handy as she starts her new role.
“Regardless of how grueling practice was on any given day, I always tried to show up with the same energy and lift up my teammates,” she says. So what’s the best way to lift up others? Her approach is simple but meaningful: “Extend a hand and be kind,” she says.
A.J. Colarusso '26
Baseball
Recipient of the John L. Harrington Scholar Athlete Fund
His favorite spot on campus is in the upper reaches of O’Neill Library—”I love being in the stacks up there doing my work. It gets really quiet,” says A.J. Colarusso, a starting pitcher for the Eagles. But come spring, the finance major finds himself at a far higher altitude, calculating equity value along with other assignments on flights around the country. On the ground, his study space might be a hotel lobby where he’s compiling notes on a humanities reading while waiting for the team bus.
Such is the season of an Eagles baseball player. The lightning-fast schedule consists of no fewer than 56 games loaded into 12 weeks of the spring semester and played against teams in places as distant as California. How does Colarusso bolster the “scholar” part of the equation?
Key, for him, is steady communication with professors on and off the Heights. For a chunk of the season, the team flies out to warmer climes for three-game weekend matchups, frequently missing classes on Thursdays and Fridays. They also have midweek games at home (and practice year-round). Colarusso looks for creative ways to boost his academic output on the road, like emailing the professor with his thoughts on a reading as an alternative to class participation.
“Just being able to represent BC in a uniform has been such a privilege. And BC baseball stands for more than just baseball,” he says, invoking the legacy of Pete Frates ’07, the legendary Eagles centerfielder who served as team captain and, later, director of baseball operations. Frates championed ALS awareness with the Ice Bucket Challenge before succumbing to the disease in 2019, at age 34. The team plays a high-profile game each April at Fenway Park with ticket proceeds going to the Pete Frates Foundation.
“Carrying on Pete’s legacy is a big part of who we are,” says the southpaw, who, as the 2026 season ended, was eyeing the MLB Draft in July.
Emily Mara '29
Women's Soccer and Hockey
“As soon as I could walk, my dad put me in hockey skates,” recalls Emily Mara, but it wasn’t long before she donned her first pair of soccer cleats as well. She grew up playing—and excelling in—both sports. When it came time for college recruitment, Mara was signed by the Boston College women’s soccer team, but she started to wonder if it might be possible to play hockey too. “I just couldn’t imagine my life without one or the other,” she says. By move-in day of her freshman year, Mara had officially signed on to her second BC team.
It's not unheard of to be a two-sport athlete at Boston College, but many one-sport athletes on campus would tell you that their schedule is busy enough between balancing daily workouts, practices, heavy course loads, and travel for out-of-town games. For her part, Mara wasn’t daunted by the demanding schedule—being a two-sport athlete at a boarding school had prepared her well for the challenge.
“My biggest priorities have always been sports and school,” she says. “That hasn’t changed.”
The soccer and hockey seasons overlap by just a few weeks in the fall, with soccer’s regular season running from August to October and hockey’s from September to February. Even in the off-season, though, Mara trains with both teams as much as she can. It's a lot to manage, but for her, it’s worth it to continue playing the two sports she loves.
“Each sport challenges different parts of me, physically and mentally,” says Mara, who plays forward for both teams. The patience and endurance that soccer demands make her a stronger leader, she explains, while hockey’s fast pace has taught her how to make quick decisions under pressure. “Doing both,” she says, “has helped me become more adaptable and well-rounded as an athlete and as a student.”
Jayden Hastings '27
Men's Basketball
Recipient of the Hughes Family Scholarship Fund
If you were to ask Jayden Hastings what his word of the year is, he would pick “humility.” For him, it applies as much to the guidance he seeks from teammates and coaches as it does to “having that humility to say when you need help” in class, he explains.
For Hastings, a forward, adjusting to Boston College took time after attending small Christian schools in Orlando. He remembers struggling through Statistical Analysis and how Professor of the Practice Linda Boardman Liu showed up for him and his fellow teammates taking the course.
“We just started ramping up games and the schedule was getting tighter. It was also our first time doing college stats,” he explains. “Two hard things together, and she really helped us.” Not only that, but Boardman Liu turned out for games and cheered her students on—a perfect example of the supportive community Hastings found at BC.
On Monday nights, he did bible study with the Boston College chapter of the Christian group Athletes in Action, which has helped him stay focused on the bigger picture.
“Some things that you're part of are not just about you. You’ve got to sacrifice yourself to a lot of things and it's for you to be better,” he says. ”It’s about having the humility to do your part—a basketball game or a school project—and surrender yourself to the process.”
At press time, Hastings was moving on to the University of Cincinnati after three years on the Heights. Once an Eagle, always an Eagle!
Molly FitzPatrick '25, MBA '26
Women's Cross Country &Track and Field
Recipient of the Botica Family Endowed Scholarship Fund for Women's Athletics
It may have seemed inevitable that Molly FitzPatrick would end up running for Boston College—that’s how her parents met, after all. But initially, FitzPatrick wasn’t sure about continuing the legacy.
“I did come from a running family, but [my parents] let me find running for myself,” she says, adding that she played soccer before getting into track in high school. Ultimately, she found herself drawn to her parents’ alma mater because of the balance it offered between competitive athletics and top-tier academics.
It also helped that FitzPatrick’s twin brother, John ’25, joined her at both the Carroll School and on the University’s cross country and track and field teams (the men’s and women’s teams practice together). That helped ease any nervousness she felt moving from the suburbs of Chicago to Chestnut Hill. “I had someone I’ve known for 18 years right there with me,” she says.
In the end, Boston College was such a good fit that after completing her undergraduate concentrations in finance and business analytics, FitzPatrick, a distance runner, decided to use her final year of NCAA eligibility to keep running and pursue a part-time MBA at the Carroll School.
“It was the MBA or nothing,” she says. “The fact that I was able to get in was huge for me.” FitzPatrick used that year well, helping guide the women’s cross country team to their first NCAA Northeast Regional title in 19 years last fall. It was also the first time she qualified to run at regionals and the national championship, making her decision to stay at Boston College even sweeter.
An internship last summer with New Balance has FitzPatrick mulling a future career at a company where she could stay connected to athletics, but for now she’s enjoying the time she has left on the Heights before wrapping up her MBA at the end of the summer. “I just enjoyed my undergrad experience so much,” she says. “It was a no-brainer to come back for this opportunity.”
Shea Baker '26
Lacrosse
Recipient of the Dee & David Stokes Family Flynn Fund Scholarship, the Brock Family Scholarship, and the Carter Family Scholarship Fund
Shea Baker was a sophomore when her team won the women’s lacrosse national championship in 2024. Despite the excitement of the team’s come-from-behind 14–13 win over Northwestern University, what she remembers most about that game was watching the team’s seniors experience their final match in a Boston College uniform.
“When the final buzzer went off, I saw them going through all of those emotions,” she says. “As a sophomore, I was playing for those seniors to have that moment.”
As a team captain during her own senior year, Baker went into the season wanting to win another championship, but she also wanted to be what those seniors of 2024 were to her: someone the younger players could look up to. The team, a decorated powerhouse in the NCAA, takes pride in their tight-knit dynamic, and Baker made it her personal goal for every teammate to feel supported both on and off the field.
“There's always a reciprocity of care and love between every person on the team, whether they're a freshman or a senior, a starter or have never played in a game,” she says. “We spend so much time cultivating those relationships and intangible pieces that people don't see on the field.”
These community care efforts extend beyond their intra-team relationships. During the 2025 season, the team ranked first nationally among women’s lacrosse programs for community service, contributing a total of 2,102 volunteer hours. That includes a partnership with Team IMPACT, which pairs children facing serious illness or disability with college sports teams as honorary teammates, like six-year-old Aya, their current Team IMPACT teammate.
“She's nonverbal, but she is such a bright light on our sidelines when she comes to practices and games,” Baker says. “She’s a constant reminder that there's so much more to being a student athlete than just the grind. It has definitely helped me evolve into a better human.”
Baker, a defender, will be evolving further on the field as well: In April she was selected by the Boston Guard in the second round of the inaugural professional Women’s Lacrosse League College Draft.
Aram Minnetian '27
Men's Hockey
Recipient of the Holland Family Hockey Fund and the William M. Hogan, Jr. ’33 Athletic Scholarship Fund
The summer before he made his way to the Heights, Aram Minnetian’s lifelong dream came true: He was drafted into the National Hockey League. “I was sitting in my seat feeling eager, nervous, and flooded with every other emotion,” recalls Minnetian, a defenseman who was selected by the Dallas Stars in the fourth round of the 2023 NHL draft. “When my name was called, it was the most exhilarating feeling.”
For players on Boston College’s highly ranked men’s hockey team, it’s common to have already been drafted by an NHL team by the time they first hit the ice in Conte Forum. With a promising athletic career ahead of them, some players will only play for a year or two on the Heights before moving on to the big leagues. But while Minnetian is looking forward to his future in professional hockey, he is adamant about seeking academic success in the meantime. “I want to make the most of the education that I’m blessed enough to receive,” says Minnetian.
Despite a practice schedule that keeps him at the rink for upward of five hours each weekday and games that take him all over the country on many weekends, Minnetian has been able to strike a happy medium between school and sport. He’ll often avail himself of the online course offerings from the Woods College of Advancing Studies to make his workload more manageable each semester. This also allows him to be more intentional about spreading out his more challenging management classes, especially those for his finance concentration.
“I put as much as I can into my classes without letting hockey slip, and to do that you have to be disciplined,” he says. “As an athlete, you don't have much time to waste.”
Tiffany Cao '26
Women's Golf
Moving to Massachusetts was a big change for Tiffany Cao. In fact, “this is the first time I've ever experienced real snow,” she says. After growing up in the Dallas suburbs and completing her undergraduate degree at the University of Texas at Austin, Cao made the choice to leave behind that Texas warmth. She used her final year of NCAA eligibility to join the Boston College women’s golf team and enroll in the Carroll School’s full-time MSF program. To Cao, the opportunity was well worth the colder climes.
While she wanted a graduate program that would pair well with her bachelor’s degree in management information systems, Cao was also looking for a team where she could make a real mark after raising her game at UT Austin. She would have made a competitive addition to many collegiate golf teams, but with Boston College’s program, she could be one of the strongest players and a likely candidate for tournament lineups.
“The BC golf program is steadily rising. I knew that I could do something very impactful here,” she says. “I’d be able to go out with a bang.”
As much as she wants to show off her own abilities in competition for the sake of individual rankings, Cao is also keenly aware of how her own performance factors into overall team performance. “You have to flip the mindset of ‘I want to win’ to ‘I want to win as a team, and how are we going to get there?’” she says. Within months of arriving at Boston College, she had already helped lead the team to first-place wins at both the Red Bandanna Invitational and the Diamante Intercollegiate tournament, where she placed fourth overall.
As she looks to start a career in the business world after graduation, Cao is grateful for the lessons golf has taught her—the determination that will help her wherever she goes. “Golf has been the most challenging thing in my life. You can never be perfect at golf,” Cao explains. “I really enjoy that aspect of working hard and getting 1 percent better every day.”
