Vanessa Strobbe
Sports guru Vanessa Strobbe said she gets her life drive from God.
"God gave me a lot of gifts," she said. "And, if I don't use them to my full ability, I feel like I'm wasting them. There are a lot of people who would kill for some things, and it would be slapping them in the face if I didn't capitalize on everything I was blessed with."
Graduating with a 4.1 GPA and degrees in print journalism and psychology, Strobbe plans to attend law school at the University of Texas in Austin, which she chose over schools including Harvard Law, where she was also accepted.
"(Texas) is such an elite school with such a big alumni base that you can do anything you want to from there," Strobbe said. "In Texas, you can choose anything, and I'm not really set on what I want to do. And Austin is an amazing town."
Strobbe honed her writing skills at the Daily Lobo for four years as a sports writer, copy editor, copy chief, and, this year, opinion editor.
"It was another one of those things where I felt I have certain gifts like writing and arguing and the ability to be a public speaker," she said. "I was never blessed with science. I always wanted to help people. If you can't help people being a doctor, you have to go down a different route."
Born in Billings, Mt., Strobbe said she was always active and loved playing soccer, basketball and football with the boys. In high school, she conquered volleyball, basketball, softball and track. At UNM she did track and field and javelin throwing.
"My knees used to be bad with softball, but they're fine now," Strobbe said. "It's the rest of my body that's absolutely terrible. In four years doing track, I've had a stress fracture in my foot, a hernia, a torn groin, pulled quads, tore my rotator cuff to shreds in my throwing arm, and now I have a ruptured disc."
Strobbe said doing well in life doesn't mean doing everything in an amazing way.
"You need to choose something you've been gifted with and something you love and take that as far as you can," she said. "I had multiple gifts, but that doesn't make me any better than someone good at one thing. As long as you capitalize on what you have, that's what you can do. You were given that for a reason."
Strobbe said her career plans aren't set in stone.
"Sometimes I just want to have fun and be a sports agent and travel around the nation and watch my clients' NFL games," she said. "Other times I really want to go into politics. I want to empower myself to change things that I don't think are right. Sometimes I just want to walk around the streets and ask people if they need help."
Strobbe said that with her busy schedule, she finds time to relax when she plans date nights with her fiancé, Alex Lackey.
"Being with somebody requires work, too," Strobbe said. "I have to put work into the relationship, and the only time I can really relax and calm down is when I'm with him.""
