The Common Interest Management Gael Spotlight is a monthly feature story about Saint Mary's Athletics and a behind-the-scenes look at the Gaels.
 
MORAGA, Calif. — It's been five years since Saint Mary's Volleyball will feature a roster without Jennifer "Boo" Laird. It's been six years since Saint Mary's Men's Basketball has taken the court without Tommy Kuhse. They've been two of the longest-tenured student-athletes in Saint Mary's history, and while their Saint Mary's journey has concluded, their personal journey as a couple is far from over.
 
The two covered their time at Saint Mary's, their personal and athletic growth, and the creation of their relationship, while playing disc golf on the brand-new Saint Mary's disc golf course that Kuhse helped design. This newfound passion of Kuhse's, and of Laird's, is just another thing for the couple to bond over.
 
"One of my buddies took me out right around when the pandemic was starting, and it's obviously a great activity for being outdoors and away from people," recalled Kuhse about his first encounter with disc golf. "It was something we played a couple of times and we got really into it. We tried to play all the local courses around, and we always had a dream that we wanted to put a course on campus." 
 
That dream became somewhat of a reality a short while ago, when head Cross Country/Track coach Marty Kinsey approach Kuhse and his friend about adding a course on campus. The efforts led by coach Kinsey produced a nine-hole course behind the Soda Center and the back of University Credit Union Pavilion, with a grand opening scheduled for sometime early in the fall semester.
 
"We've brought a lot of people in from the disc golf community, the biggest of which is Leonard Muise," explained Kuhse. "He's actually designed courses on the pro tour. He came out and gave us a bunch of good ideas about where to place certain things."
 
While one half of the couple is getting quite passionate about disc golf, Laird isn't too far behind Kuhse. "I don't go as often as Tommy, but the first time I went out was right around when he started to get into it," she explained. "He bought all of these discs and started to take me to a bunch of different courses in the area."
 
Both Kuhse and Laird have been at Saint Mary's for such a long time, seeing things change from their freshman years to where they are now, five and six years later. That time spent in Moraga is just a validation of the environment that Saint Mary's creates for students.
 
"It really says a lot about the program, that we've been here so long and that we stayed with it," Laird said. "Some of my coaches, I've been here longer than they have, and we joke about that frequently."
 
Kuhse had echoed the same thoughts just prior, telling SMC Athletics that "it's a real family environment here. The older you get, it's cool to see the relationships evolve with people." And with regards to those on staff who they have been here longer than, he said with a laugh, "that's a funny feeling to tell them what to do sometimes."
 
Not that he ever would, but if anyone at Saint Mary's has earned that right, it would be Kuhse. A six-year veteran of the men's basketball team, Kuhse quietly became a star during his final season in 2021-22. Beginning as a walk-on as a freshman from Mesa, Arizona, he eventually got on scholarship before the 2020-21 season, and continued to get better, evolving from a distributor who racked up a ton of assists, to becoming one of the top scoring threats on the team.
 
"It's just something that kind of builds up over the course of six years," Kuhse elaborated on his growth from year one to year six. "Being here for so long, I was really fortunate that the coaches are super good with player development. Just having so many years of reps in the system was what really kept me getting better each year."
 
That culminated in the 2021-22 season, where Kuhse was named the West Coast Conference's Sixth Man of the Year, while being named First Team All-WCC for the first time in his career. He joined the 1,000-point club at Saint Mary's in late February at home against San Francisco, and finishes inside the top-five all-time in assists, while playing the most games in Gaels history.
 
While Kuhse was in the midst of a stellar final season, Laird was making history in her own right. In her fifth and final season of indoor volleyball, she set the single-season program record for highest hitting percentage (.361), a mark she achieved in the final game of the year.
 
"I actually had no idea until we hit the locker room and my coach mentioned it and everyone started cheering," Laird laughed when she recalled her final indoor game. "I had no idea I was even close, so that was pretty cool. There have been so many great volleyball players that have come through this program, and so just to be up there among them is kind of an unbeatable feeling."
 
She not only made her mark as one of the best middle blockers in Saint Mary's history, but also capped off a stellar beach volleyball career in the spring semester. Between her ten seasons of athletic eligibility, including both indoor and beach volleyball, Laird piled up three All-WCC awards, including First Team All-WCC in both indoor and beach during her fifth season. She concludes her time as a Gael with the ninth-most blocks in Saint Mary's history.
 
With so much athletic success between the two of them, all while maintaining GPAs well above the requirement for All-Academic awards from the WCC (which the two combined for eight), how do the two of them have time for a relationship? How did they even meet, anyways?
 
"It was the only party I had ever thrown at my apartment in my six years at Saint Mary's," confessed Kuhse. "It was my roommate's idea, I was against the whole thing. So, I was sitting there making sure the house didn't get destroyed, and then up strolls Boo, it was the first time I had ever seen her, and we just kind of hit it off."
 
Laird tells her side of the story: "One of my teammates, Aubrey [Pitts], had been telling me, 'I have the perfect guy for you, he's literally like the boy version of you,' for a very long time, and she had been dating one of his teammates. I told her, 'no, no, no, I don't want that,' but she tricked me one night into going to his party. I didn't realize it was his party."
 
That was just over four years ago, and the two are still going strong to this day, able to last through all the trials and tribulations that come with being student-athletes. While it might seem like a daunting task to some, the background of Kuhse and Laird as competitive athletes seemed to help them find common ground in achieving success on the court, and in their relationship. "I honestly feel like it makes it easier," said Laird about dating another student-athlete. "Going into it, we both kind of agreed that going into the next four years – well, I guess the next five or six years, we didn't know that then – but the next however many years we were playing, we decided that school and your sport comes first. We both want the same thing, to be the best we can be in our sports."
 
Few people on campus have experienced as much as Kuhse and Laird since they arrived to Moraga. With a chapter of their lives closed, the two looked back at some of their favorite memories from illustrious careers as Gaels.
 
For Kuhse, he chose to focus on this past season, which saw a return to the NCAA Tournament for the Gaels. "The big wins would be some of the best - Gonzaga this year, BYU, USF," recounted Kuhse. "It was really cool after [the pandemic] to have the crowd back into it, just to have that kind of connection with the student body. That was something that we missed the previous year. It's funny, I never really interacted with the crowd much before this past year, but seeing what we missed out on and seeing them back in the gym was really cool."
 
For Laird, while the huge moments on the court were special, she wanted to focus on what kept her around and engaged with the volleyball program for so long. "The big wins are really fun, and making it to the [NCAA] Tournament my sophomore year was awesome. But I think for me, the best memories are the little interactions with your teammates…game day in the locker room, the dance parties we'd have, that's stuff I'm really going to miss. It's just between the team, or little jokes with the coaches."
 
It will certainly be different at Saint Mary's without both Kuhse and Laird making spectacular plays inside University Credit Union Pavilion. Kuhse said it best when he tried to explain what Saint Mary's meant to him: "That's what makes this place so special, those bonds that we make here. There's no way to describe how special they are other than to be a part of it."