Different paths, same destination

AS TOLD TO DAVID KIEFER The significance of a Stanford degree is reflective of the obstacles and challenges required to achieve it, something these 2020 graduates understand well. Eight student-athletes describe their journeys and why a Stanford degree is especially meaningful to them. NADIA FINGALL Women's Basketball - Human Biology WHEN MY FATHER, Air Force Maj. Andrew Fingall, was deployed to Afghanistan for the third time, during my sophomore year at Stanford, he dedicated an American flag to our women's basketball team. He hand-carried the flag in honor of the program during one of his missions in Kabul, where he was stationed in support of Combined Security Transition Command that provides training to the Afghan Ministry of Interior. Afterward, he folded the flag and framed it alongside the mission's patches, and sent it to Stanford. The day the flag arrived, the team waited after practice as I brought it out and explained its significance and what it represented to my family.