The Story Behind the Smile

With an infectious smile that lights up a room and a kind face that can make friends with anyone, the nickname “Sunshine,” given to Le Moyne senior Ellie Sommers, fits perfectly. Her tall stature and impressive resume may make it easy to be intimidated, but anyone who has a conversation with Sommers will realize why she is truly one of the friendliest and kind people you’ll ever meet.

Like many of her fellow “’Phins” here on the Heights, Sommers is incredibly active. Besides having completed four years of collegiate swimming as a member of Le Moyne’s intercollegiate swimming and diving team, she also represents the larger group of athletes on campus by serving as the President of the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC) and as the Student-Athlete Representative in the Student Government Association (SGA). True to her simply benevolent nature, she is the Co-President of the Pre-Health Society and a tutor in the Student Success Center. On top of all her extracurricular activities, Sommers earned her degree in Biology, with a minor in Chemistry, and pursued the pre-med track in the Integral Honors Program.

A native of nearby Fayetteville-Manlius, Sommer stumbled into the sport of swimming in what she calls a “crazy journey” that is “one for the books.”

“I was originally a softball and basketball player, and I played field hockey too through modified in seventh and eighth grade. I ended up breaking my foot in basketball camp going into ninth grade. I was so excited to play JV/Varsity going into high school that year, and we ended up going to Colgate as a team on a hot summer day. I rolled my ankle, heard it snap, and knew it was broken, but my coach was like, ‘Oh maybe it’s fine, let’s ice it and see tomorrow.’ But I knew it was bad,” she said.

That injury resulted in surgery a month later and more news that was life-altering for the Sommers family. Within two weeks of her surgery, Sommers’ father received the diagnosis of pancreatic cancer. Sommers’ injury and her father’s news had been preceded two months prior by a diagnosis for another member of her family. Her sister was diagnosed with a lysosomal genetic disorder called Gaucher disease.

“It’s a lysosomal disorder that presents like mono,” Sommers explained. “Basically, it isn’t a big deal in the short term, but in the long term it can lead to very early-onset osteoporosis, it can enlarge your spleen and liver. There were some other short-term things that needed to be addressed, but it was more of a long-term concern.”

Her sister’s diagnosis meant Sommers and her other two siblings, her brothers, had to get tested as well. While her brothers were “home-free,” as Sommers put it, her test result was positive for Gaucher Disease, like her sister. That meant she had to begin treatment, an enzyme-replacement therapy delivered via intravenous infusion every two weeks.

It was a combination of all these changes in her family and her own recovery from her injury that led Sommers to take a chance in the pool.

Sommers did make it back onto the court for her freshman debut in high school basketball, but she recalls how it “wasn’t the same” after all she and her family had endured.

“My dad was sick, and I was out of shape from being injured, plus all my friends swam and it seemed fun, so I joined. We weren’t a great team at the time, but we were getting better. So I ended up joining and it was so much fun,” she recalled. “Once I did that my sophomore year, I decided I didn’t need to do basketball or softball, and my dad had unfortunately passed away the spring before so it wasn’t really the same playing those sports without him around anyways. We played those together and he was my catcher and my shoot-around guy in the driveway, and it was nice to have a fresh start, turning over a new leaf.”

As her swimming career progressed and her high school years passed by, Sommers began to crave what many high school upperclassmen do – getting out and going away to college. She wanted the “UNC [University of North Carolina] type deal” with “tailgates, football games, and all that.” It was her mother who she gives credit for encouraging her to look at Le Moyne.

“I decided to look because Le Moyne was at my college fair. I knew so many people who went to Le Moyne from my high school and loved it. I had the free application waiver so I applied, ended up touring, and loved it,” Sommers said.

Le Moyne, unlike a big school, also gave Sommers a unique opportunity to continue competing in a sport she fell in love with but had only been doing competitively for about two years.

“I thought maybe I could compete at the college level, but I was newer to it at the time so I wasn’t sure about the college athletic scene. If there was going to be an athletic future in college for me, swimming was going to be it,” she explained.

While swimming was definitely a benefit, it wasn’t the only thing that attracted Sommers to the commit to Le Moyne.

“I actually talked to the biology professors here and met with Dr. Pritts early on before committing, and the program combined with how family-oriented it is here, it felt like a family from the beginning, so being able to swim and have a good Biology program is what sold me. It was also a benefit that it was so close to home,” she said.

In her four years on the Heights, Sommers had found both her initial assessment of the school and so much more to be true, starting with her fellow students.

“There are so many things I like, it would be easier to tell you what I don’t like. It’s hard to put it into words, but I just love Le Moyne,” she shared. “I’ve found my friends and it’s been incredible. I hope I gave them an ounce of what they gave me. It’s been so much fun. Swimming and being an athlete here are so much different than in any other school. I have friends and siblings who play sports at different institutions, and I think just the people here and the family feel, with everyone wanting to see you succeed, there’s a bigger feel where God is here. Whether you’re religious or not, there’s something special here.”

Sommers also attributes the Jesuit approach to education and way of life as a unique opportunity to be a part of something bigger than herself.

“I think ‘Inside the L,’ now ‘The Le Moyne Way’ culture plays a role in that. People really want to succeed and people really care about you. There’s a real value in what the Jesuits teach, about Magis, about Cura Personalis. We want to do better, we’re not just settling for mediocrity,” she said.

Not only does Sommers find value in the Jesuit aspects of her undergraduate education, but she embodies them in her leadership positions. She was the first-ever recipient of the Matt Basset Jesuit Shared Culture Award, named after Matt Basset, the creator of the “Inside the L” program.

Sommers also highlighted the unique opportunity Le Moyne provides for students to discover so many more identities than just “student” or “athlete.”

“I can be a swimmer, but I can also be a tutor, I could be a Bio major in the Honors Program, etc. At another school, I couldn’t have done that, but here, it’s a place where you’re welcome in more than one area, and they want to help me and be accomodating. I missed meetings, and I was late to things, but they encourage us to be involved. At other places they want you to pick, either you have to be an athlete or something else, but here I think you can do it all, and that’s what I fell in love with.”

When it comes down to it, Sommers’ credit comes back to one thing on campus – those who inhabit it.

“I think it really comes back to the people. You can do it all because of the people,” she said.

It’s no secret that Sommers has faced plenty of adversity in her life, not to mention how much she takes on in the way of studies and extracurricular activities. So, how does she do it all with a smile on her face? Her credit goes back to her parents.

While her father is no longer with her, Sommers remembers him as “a force to be reckoned with.” He was 6’6”, healthy, strong, and a former college basketball player at Nazareth College. What Sommers remembers most about him, however, is “his larger-than-life personality and ability to squeeze the most out of every day.”

“I remember this one time, when my father has newly diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer as a 48-year-old, receiving chemo, and was naturally frustrated with why God threw this at him and at our family. And looking around the treatment center, he suddenly thought, ‘Why not me?’ instead of, ‘Why me?’

“Cancer touches so many lives, people of all ages, and people who are healthy and strong. That always has resonated with me, and with my disease and my life in general, I now try to think with this perspective: ‘Why not me?’ instead of, ‘Why me?’ and, ‘What can I do to make something good come out of tough circumstances?’”

It is her father, Sommers says, that is the larger-picture motivator for her to continue pushing forward and working hard each day.

“I’m very motivated in general because I like to do well. I thrive on the feedback performance and that ambition. Personally, I do it for me, but after all the experiences that we’ve gone through, my family and especially my dad is always in the back of my head. It’s not just for me, it’s for him and them. We had to overcome a lot as a family and went through a lot of hard things together. It’s always that bigger picture moment that puts into perspective what matters and why we do something the way we do.”

Alongside her father’s memory that she works every day to honor, Sommers calls her mother “the backbone” and “the glue” of it all.

“She has tremendous strength and tenacity. She is truly the most remarkable person I know,” she said. “It’s hard to put it into words, but she really has been rock-solid through everything that’s happened to us and she makes me want to keep going, be positive, and be grateful.”

Being grateful is something Sommers holds onto because just like anyone, she has hard days, too. The quote she lives by is, “What can I do today to be better than yesterday?”

“Being thankful makes it so much easier to be positive. I was lucky to be a positive person in the first place, but I have my down days, I cry, I get angry, I get pissed off, but I do think being grateful and looking at the good things just makes life so much better. So I try to focus on that,” Sommers said.

As she goes forth from Le Moyne, with a future filled with her medical school regimen and continuing on her mission of helping others, Sommers has a piece of advice to offer incoming freshmen.

“The biggest thing I’ve seen this year from a club President standpoint is people still haven’t recovered from COVID. I don’t know what it is, but involvement has been so low all year, unfortunately. It’s really hard to get people to show up for things, so I would say, ‘Get involved.’ Getting involved helps you make friends, and defines your college experience. Don’t be shy, sign up for things and go do them. Even if it’s a drop-by, meeting people and getting involved is the key to having a good college experience.”

Sommers leaves behind much more than a simple piece of advice and a legacy as a Le Moyne swimmer. She embodies everything that is good about being a Le Moyne College student. And in her place, she will leave tremendously large shoes to fill as she goes forth to spread the warmth of her sunny disposition and set the world ablaze with success.

By Aly Blair ’23