Blank credits his brother Van with helping him to achieve his dream of playing college soccer.
“My brother Van is about a year and eight months younger than me,” Blank relayed. “As I have grown up playing soccer, he has pretty much been side-by-side with me. As the older brother I always wanted to be undisputedly better than he was, and he was the same. This sparked heavy competition in the both of us through our youth. I can remember many, many days where we would play 1v1s or shooting drills until we were exhausted. When we were both in high school, Van and I became teammates and started changing the focus of our competition. It helped me to play better during games and continue trying to better myself.”
Blank’s arrival on the Erskine campus did not originally go as planned, but Neal, again, credits his brother with helping him to get through the tough challenge of getting acclimated on a college campus as a student-athlete.
“When I began to play in college, I became quite unmotivated at times as I was struggling to get playing time as a freshman and was plagued by injuries,” Blank said. “He has supported and encouraged me during many of those times and is one of the main reasons I never gave up on playing.”
A 5-foot-11 wing, Blank would eventually earn that playing time while continuing to excel in his academic pursuits along with much more.
A member of Alpha Chi National College Honor Society, Blank was named to Erskine’s prestigious Garnet Circle in 2022. He spent the spring semester of 2023 in the United Kingdom, where he studied at St. Andrews University in Scotland.
Blank has always been interested in forensic psychology and he has interned both with the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division and the Department of Corrections where he spent this past summer on the opposite behavioral health team.
Blank is currently assigned to one of the bureau divisions in the Washington, D.C. area with his internship, but he cannot say which one. He knows it’s just an honor to be given this 10-week opportunity.
In fact, just getting the opportunity was a thrill as it is a highly competitive and private internship that only accepts about 75 applications across the United States each year.
Dr. Christiane-Marie Abu Sarah, Director of Erskine’s new International Studies program and an Assistant Professor of History, encouraged Blank to apply.
"I had resigned myself to not getting (the internship), but it went through. It was amazing to learn I would be taking part in the program,” Blank said.
One of the more unique aspects of all of this is that getting the opportunity to be part of the program meant that he had to start in the middle of October, which obviously meant mid-term for school and still in the midst of the soccer season.
Erskine’s faculty and staff along with the athletics department worked to make sure this would not be an obstacle.
“I did my whole (fall) semester in a couple of months,” Blank said. “I was trying to juggle everything with school and being a member of the soccer team.”
It all worked out and the student-athlete with a 3.94 grade-point average was able to finish out the semester early and leave for the internship that would run through the holiday season.
“That's the Erskine way with everything,” Peeler said. “Erskine is always going to do the right thing for our students. They have the kind of hearts where they want the students to be successful. Our job is not to win soccer games but to prepare them for life.”
Blank one day wants to run a private practice in psychology, maybe in conjunction with the government, but first he wants to finish strongly at Erskine.
“I am just trying to represent Erskine the right way,” Blank said. “The things I am doing right now would not be possible without Erskine.”
Bob Rose, Associate Commissioner for External Relations Brian Hand and the entire Conference Carolinas office collaborate to help tell the stories of the tremendous student-athletes, coaches and administrators in Conference Carolinas.