Aces on the Court and in the Classroom, Pt. 2: Madelyn Yergler

Madelyn Yergler on the court/ photo by DePaul Athletics

By Neil Fotre

This is the second spotlight in a three-part series on Kellstadt students who are DePaul Women’s Tennis Players. Read the first one here.

Growing up an hour and a half away from Chicago in South Bend, Indiana, Madelyn “Maddie” Yergler always had her eyes fixed on life in the big city. “I always knew I wanted to go to school in a city with so many companies and opportunities,” she says.

Today, the 22-year-old scholar and tennis athlete is enrolled in a dual degree seeking program at DePaul University, where she recently began her MS coursework at the Kellstadt Graduate School of Business in the fall.

Yergler discovered her academic path in a somewhat backwards approach via a 10-week marketing internship at Recruiterboom, a Boston-based, boutique placement firm that has an office in Chicago. “I managed so many different aspects of the company’s marketing strategy, from email to social media. But what I really liked was working with data sheets and analytical projects. The whole experience inspired me to pursue a graduate degree in finance at Kellstadt,” she says.

A demanding, regimented lifestyle is not foreign to this unique Kellstadt student. Yergler gracefully balances her academic obligations with the immense physical and mental demands of competing as a Blue Demon tennis player.

Since she began swinging a racket at the age of 12, Yergler knew that tennis was going to be her sport of choice. This fact was further solidified after a very brief and miserable stint as a goalie on a youth soccer team. “I like the fact that I can control my own world on the tennis court,” she says.

Though she prefers singles-play to doubles-play on the courts, the team atmosphere at DePaul was the “match point” that swayed her away from other university prospects: “DePaul, was the first team that actually felt like a team.”

Yergler speaks highly of her teammates and the relationships that she has forged with the other players, many of whom are originally from other countries, including Venezuela, Bosnia, Russia, Serbia and England.

“It’s like I’m getting to learn something new about different cultures every day. And so many of us are taking classes at Kellstadt too. We are always quizzing each other and pushing each other in our classes, even when we are traveling to matches,” she says.

Yergler believes that one of her strongest qualities is her ability to receive critical feedback – something that has been nurtured by years of having coaches push and critique her in practice and after tournaments. She ultimately believes her thick skin, work ethic and willingness to receive direction will allow her to “outplay” her competition post-academia.

Though Yergler plans to finish her undergrad as well as her MS in finance in the summer of 2023, she has aspirations of working in corporate law in several years. In between serves and data analysis, the self-proclaimed “can’t-sit-still-student” is fine-tuning her test-taking skills in LSAT preparation coursework. The Double Demon could very well be a Triple Demon in the near future at the DePaul College of Law.

Presently, Yergler is anxiously anticipating the cold to break so she can ride her bike on Chicago’s Lakefront trail. She has quite the warm weather to-do list: watching the Cubs, attending outdoor concerts, frequenting fresh markets and perhaps catching a comedy show at Second City. Living in the big city she’d always dreamed about definitely has its perks.

Neil Fotre is a full-time MS candidate at the Kellstadt Graduate School of Business. He is a former United States Army cavalry officer and a forever seltzer aficionado. He has an MBA from Kellstadt and an MS in investigative journalism from Northwestern University. In-between academics he has become an Instapot chef and homemade chocolate connoisseur. Outside of the kitchen you can spot him on the lakefront trail, running off sugar and caffeine jitters.