Matching Passions: How CU's CMCI Helped Buffs' Wolf Find Perfect Career Path

BOULDER — There is, if such a thing exists, an ironic symmetry in the way Colorado senior Elinor Wolf is wrapping up her diploma at CU.

Wolf, a two-year starter for the Buffaloes' lacrosse team, is putting the final touches on her strategic communications degree from CU's College of Media, Communication and Information this spring. It means she has spent much of her time at CU studying the world of digital engagement and the ever-growing number of platforms that have become such a dominant part of our everyday lives. It is a field she describes as her passion — and a degree that she will now finish by literally connecting with her professors and classmates solely in the digital world, as college campuses across the nation have been shut down by the COVID-19 pandemic. 

"It is kind of funny in a way," Wolf said recently. "I thought about that the other day — what are the odds? My degree is focused on digital and social media and now that's how I'm finishing up school. I've really been working in the Zoom world, Skype, Facetime, things like that, and now that's how I'm making that transition to the real world."

Wolf will take what she's learned in the CMCI and apply it to a business that not many — if any — other CU graduates will pursue:

The world of horse racing.

Wolf's parents, Jack and Laurie Wolf, are part of Starlight Racing, a thoroughbred ownership group that made headlines two years ago when their horse Justify won the coveted Triple Crown. 

Starlight Racing is now a growing entity and Elinor is already lending a hand to her parents as they try to grow the group's national reach.

"My parents right now are working on a website reboot and they needed some creative digital media people to work with," Wolf said. "I've been able to help them connect with some people in the creative department I've worked with in the past who have been really helpful. It's been a great experience to have my two lives kind of intersect."

Of course, the pandemic shutdown also meant a very early end to Wolf's senior lacrosse season. The nationally ranked Buffs had just finished notching a pair of wins to improve to 3-2 when the rest of the season was canceled.

There is no digital replacement for the lacrosse field.

"It's been tough," she said. "Obviously, in the bigger picture with all the things happening, it's just a little piece. But it was still sad. When you are part of a program like ours, you spend those years together, looking up to the seniors and looking forward to your Senior Day. We always helped decorate the locker room for Senior Day in the past and you were happy for them because it was such a beautiful moment."

But this year's Senior Day for the Buffaloes did not take place, at least not in the traditional sense.

"It's definitely something I had always envisioned," Wolf said. "My entire family was coming out, and friends and coaches from high school were supposed to come. It's sad, I have to admit."

There was, however, a "digital" senior day.

"Our head coach (Ann Elliott Whidden) had a lovely message for all the seniors and it meant a lot," Wolf said. "A lot of other people reached out via social media and that was really important. We were all still able to come together on some kind of level to celebrate."

Wolf, who came to CU as a walk-on, chose Colorado because it offered the best of the two worlds she wanted — a solid lacrosse program and a great education.

Now she calls it one of the best decisions of her life.

"One of my teammates recommended CMCI and it has been wonderful," she said. "I've had some awesome professors who helped me find my passion and make it fit with what I wanted to do with horse racing. They have been people I really trust and look up to, and they put that amount of trust back into me as a student and individual. There's a level of expectation they give you and those are the kinds of expectations you will see in real life."

Wolf also credited her career as an athlete with giving her the time management skills necessary to succeed in the classroom and on the playing field.

 "Being a student-athlete, the expectations from the team and academics are big," she said. "You have to learn time management because you're going from practice to tutors to classes to mentor meetings to conditioning — all those things. You have to sculpt your schedule in a way that is efficient for you and can still work in harmony with everyone else."

Now, she's just a few weeks away from the next step of her journey — a path she believes her career as an athlete and her time in CU's CMCI have prepared her to successfully negotiate.

"I'm thankful for the experience every day because I wouldn't be the person I am today without it," she said. "It's been an awesome time academically, athletically and personally. I couldn't have asked for more."

Contact: Neill.Woelk@Colorado.edu