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Hirsch to follow YSU teammate Schlegel to India on CCO trip
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YSU basketball player Heidi Schlegel helps an Indian boy write the letter “A” during her cultural immersion trip to India last summer. Schlegel’s teammate, Jenna Hirsch, will be part of this year’s trip, which runs May 11 through June 1 and is sponsored by the Coalition for Christian Outreach.
Hirsch follows YSU teammate Schlegel with CCO trip to India
By Joe Scalzo
YOUNGSTOWN
Last summer, Youngstown State forward Heidi Schlegel raised $4,500 so she could fly to India and:
- Hike for two days to a village in the middle of nowhere.
- Plow a field with an ox.
- Eat goat meat.
This isn’t all she did, of course. She also climbed 13,500 feet to the top of a Himalayan mountain, walking on snow in 70-degree weather while thinking, “This is really cool.”
“The big thing I got out of it is that the world is so much bigger than my life here,” said Schlegel, who earned first team all-conference honors this season. “I realize basketball is a main part of my life, and I love basketball, but there’s so much more to life than basketball.”
The “cultural immersion” trip, which is sponsored by the Coalition for Christian Outreach, is a 21-day service and adventure trek built around experiencing the country’s culture and environment. (The CCO is also taking trips to New Zealand and Peru this summer.)
Schlegel’s teammate, freshman point guard Jenna Hirsch, will be part of this year’s trip, which runs from May 11 through June 1. When asked why she decided to go, Hirsch laughed and said, “Heidi. She led me in that direction and I thought it was something I couldn’t pass up.”
Schlegel has done outreach since she was in high school in Wapakoneta going to a soup kitchen and the local Beatitude House and also doing highway cleanup. She’s also taken two trips to New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina.
“Since I was in high school, I’ve had a passion to just go and serve other countries, so when the opportunity came [to go to India], I was on board from Day 1,” she said.
While in India, she traveled to the Taj Mahal, Fort Agra and New Dehli. She went whitewater rafting on the Ganges River. She spent 10 days in the mountains. She hiked for two days to a remote village, teaching English and playing games with children.
Oh, and she one-upped her farmer father by plowing a field with an ox, not a tractor.
“It was really cool to experience that,” she said.
As for eating goat?
“I actually didn’t mind it,” she said. “I didn’t know what I was eating. That’s probably a good thing.”
Schlegel will graduate with her education degree next month, but her ultimate goal is to either work for a non-profit organization or start one.
“I want to help children in less-fortunate countries and maybe teach them English or teach them basketball,” she said. “I’m not really sure how that looks yet, but something along those lines. That’s where my passion is.”
Hirsch admitted her mom is worried — “It probably doesn’t help that I’m leaving on Mother’s Day,” she said, laughing — and she’s a little worried about holding up physically, since she’s been battling mono.
But she knows the trip will be worth it. Schlegel promised.
“I’m just trying to get a new perspective and just kind of open my horizons,” Hirsch said. “I’m really excited about it.”
For more details on CCO, visit www.ccojubilee.org.