Latest in a series of "Where are they now?" features on members of the Colgate athletics family. Click Here for previous profiles.

HAMILTON – Judy Culhane Faubert '00 easily recalls visiting Colgate University for that very first time.

"I remember thinking, 'This is what a college campus is supposed to be,'" Faubert said.

The year was 1995, beginning for Faubert an association with Colgate that continues today – at least from afar. Faubert's career callings keep moving her farther and farther south.

Faubert is Assistant University Counsel at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She has been in her post for just over a year, focusing on compliance requirements related to externally sponsored research.

Back in Faubert's freshman season of 1996 – one year after her memorable campus visit – she had become the prize recruit of Raiders volleyball head coach Victoria Chun. Colgate's current director of athletics was at that time on her way to Patriot League Coach of the Year honors and a 27-7 season record.

Colgate swept both the Patriot League regular season and conference titles, and Chun's first-year player from East Northport, N.Y., was on board 100 percent.

"Vicky was and is fantastic," Faubert said. "She set the tone. Having been a former Colgate volleyball player, Vicky had pride in the program and instilled that pride in me."

Faubert went on to a Colgate Hall of Honor career, earning a spot on the Patriot League's All-Decade Volleyball Team for the 1990s and being named three times to the All-Patriot League first team.

"I had the good fortune to come into a team that was very united, and we did very well under Vicky's leadership," Faubert said. "I was able to carry that confidence through my remaining three years, even when we had less successful seasons."

Saved Her Best for Last
But the magic returned for her senior campaign, when the Raiders tied for the regular season crown and then won the Patriot League championship in a 3-2 thriller over Navy.

"That game at Navy was quite exciting," Faubert said. "If my memory serves me well, it came down to Game 5 and 15-13 under the old scoring system."

It was even better than that. Colgate trailed the Mids two games to none before rallying for 15-7 and 15-5 decisions to set up the rubber game. And then Faubert herself got the winning point on an overpass to bring her Colgate career full circle.

"There are so many memories I made playing volleyball at Colgate, but winning that Patriot League title my senior year might be the best one," she said. "It was idyllic."

That was Colgate's most recent conference volleyball title until one year ago, when Ryan Baker's unit swept the regular season and tournament Patriot League championships to return the trophy to Hamilton.

"Coach Baker has been wonderful at bringing back the continuity in coaching that the team needed and instilling a sense of pride in the players," Faubert said. "He called me a few months ago and said that the team is playing at N.C. State (Sept. 21), which I'm very excited about. I will head over there to see the games."

Faubert graduated from Colgate in 2000, played a winter of professional volleyball in Germany and the Netherlands, and then returned to the States to take an assistant coaching position at Duke.

The Law Beckoned
Meanwhile, she married a fellow Raiders student-athlete, ice hockey's Ryan Faubert, and proceeded to alter her career path toward the study of law. In the summer of 2002, she moved to the nation's capital and worked there for a year while applying to law schools. One year later, she began the first of three years of law school at Catholic University's Columbus School of Law.

Faubert landed at the downtown Washington law firm of Hogan Lovells US LLP following her graduation from law school and spent six years practicing in the same type of research compliance work she now does at North Carolina.

While living in the D.C. suburb of Falls Church, Va., Faubert became a regular whenever the Raiders rolled into town.

"I was fortunate that I could always go to the (Colgate) games when they played American," Faubert said.

In 2011, Faubert was rewarded for her playing days when she was inducted into the Colgate Athletics Hall of Honor.

Her career numbers speak for themselves, and the 1999 season still resonates on the Colgate charts. Culhane retains first place in solo blocks for a season, second in attacks, fourth in kills, sixth in total blocks and seventh in hitting percentage – more than a decade after that senior campaign. For her career, Culhane remains third in kills and solo blocks.

"It was a really humbling experience," she said of the Hall of Honor ceremony. "I have incredibly fond memories of Colgate. As I noted in my acceptance speech, Colgate has played such an integral part of my life. I met my husband at Colgate, and with him have two amazing sons – James Hamilton and Tyler Ryan.

"Colgate is a part of me."