When senior Eva Lowry started dancing at three-years-old, her parents Jeff and Amanda Lowry — Baker University alums — would pick her up from class sporting navy and orange Baker wildcat shirts. Her three older brothers would wait in the car to head to soccer practice after dance pick-up.
Eva’s parents’ alma mater was constantly present throughout her childhood, and even more present after her oldest brother committed to playing soccer at Baker after graduating SM East in 2018.
A few years later, her other two brothers also committed to play soccer in college at Missouri State University and Cowley Community College — schools close enough for Eva and her parents to make weekend road trips to watch them play.
From watching her older brothers go through the collegiate recruitment process, Eva learned how to communicate with collegiate coaches and pursued her dream of joining a college dance team herself.
“All three [of Eva’s brothers] are goalkeepers, so Eva watched that recruitment process, and when she decided that she wanted to dance in college, she just knew how to do it [because] she had watched them,” Amanda said.
Eva began dancing competitively at Ovation Dance Academy at the age of ten and began attending college dance clinics towards the end of her sophomore year. With offers from a few different NAIA schools, Eva weighed their individual pros and cons before ultimately choosing Baker for the small school atmosphere and the academic scholarship she received with her dance recruitment.
The family wasn’t only thrilled for Eva’s commitment to Baker but also for her continued dance career post-high school. Eva’s parents wanted each of their kids to make their own decisions about pursuing their sport in college and didn’t want to put any pressure on Eva to choose Baker because of their family history. However, their excitement didn’t hide when Eva announced that she was ready to sign her contract with Baker.
Eva held a signing party at Ovation with her friends, family and coaches after officially committing to dance at Baker on Feb. 22.
“It was really special to see all those people in the same room there to support me, and it was really cool and surreal,” Eva said. “Baker’s very much in the [family] blood.”
Now, Eva will no longer attend Baker soccer games and alumni events as the Lowry family’s youngest kid, but as a Baker student herself.
“I think she's been the little sister to three older brothers, and so it's fun to see her build her own success and leverage the experiences that her older brothers had, but making it her own and choosing her path and direction that she wants to do from a collegiate perspective,” Jeff said.
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