Caleb Daniels: AU Gave Great Preparation in the Data Analysis Field and on the Soccer Field

How did you discover Anderson University? 

I'm from Columbia South Carolina, but I wasn't aware of what Anderson was until maybe my junior year of high school… We were touring different schools. I was looking for a place where I could play soccer, where I could get a good degree program and get a good learning experience that was in-state but not in Columbia.  

I got the Palmetto Fellows scholarship—it was really a blessing. I had been at Anderson for some soccer camps and I talked to the coaches. We had the Presidential Fellows scholarship competition, I guess, my senior year of high school. That was my first time really experiencing the campus. They would take us on some tours when we came for the soccer camps, but nobody was really on the campus and it was during the summer. I had also been there for for Boys State, but I hadn't really experienced the school, the culture, what it was like. 

When I first got there, I was strangely comfortable. I felt like I was in a place where I felt like I shouldn't be comfortable—especially being an African American student and there not being a lot of other African American students—that was different than what I was used to experiencing. When I first got there, I was like “OK it's nice but I don't know if this is it.” One of the things that my parents and I first noticed was just the warmth, the genuine hospitality, the way we were being treated. It was a really good experience. Everyone who spoke to us, whether they were students, faculty or staff, it was enjoyable. 

The person I stayed with for the scholarship competition, Harrison Hodge, was super helpful. He knew someone in the soccer team. I got to meet a whole bunch of players.  

At the end, Pam Ross (Senior Vice President of Enrollment Management) said, “If you feel like an 80% chance that this is the school for you.  Forget about the 20, stick with the 80. And I was thinking God put in my heart “I got 80.”  

What was your major at Anderson? 

Computing and data analytics, which I think my incoming class was the first year where they offered the program. 

Do you feel your studies at Anderson prepared you well for your career? 

Absolutely, yes. Dr. (Gregory) Silver was helpful. He was so well versed about the industry—things that we would know, things that it might be good to have a hand on. I came into my internship that I did before and my job knowing more than I was expected to know.  

I always recommend that people take some of the classes within that degree program. I left with actual skills—not just stuff where people would have to observe but, it's like "Oh, I know I can program using this” or “I can do something that someone that I work with might not know how to do.” And then we also got opportunities to build other skills as far as working together, so more important work skills and professional skills, just being in the College of Business. I don't know if there's any other place I could have gone to be as prepared as I was. 

Let’s talk about what you’re doing now. 

I'm a data analyst at Blue Cross Blue Shield of South Carolina, here in Columbia, South Carolina, which was part of the reason why I ended up applying… because I didn't want to have to live somewhere else for my internship.  

The company... I really enjoy that they give a lot of opportunities for advancement internally. They have a focus on developing their workforce. I’ve been given a lot of opportunities to become acclimated with things, to have the freedom to learn, opportunities to learn. I'm in an aspiring leaders’ program that I got selected for. Basically, if you have a certain rating after a year of working there you get the opportunity to apply. I really feel like I'm getting opportunities to learn about myself, about others and develop skills that aren't just hard skills but also developing some soft skills that I think can help me along the way in my career. 

What got you started playing soccer? 

I've been playing soccer since around five or six years old—pretty much most of my life. My dad was a collegiate soccer player. I always wanted to be like my dad; I still do in a lot of ways. That was pretty much my main motivation. He was my first coach and that's what drove me to want to pursue playing soccer in college, and so I pretty much played since then. I played rec when I was younger, then on to travel ball academies, then high school, college, and now playing semiprofessionally. I'm also coaching at my old high school. It keeps me busy.  

How did you get into playing semiprofessional soccer for Soda City FC (Football Club)? 

When I was in high school there was a guy that I used to train with. I got connected with him through my mom's coworker—he married her daughter or something like that. He basically played for the semiprofessional team and was doing soccer training. When I was that age I knew I wanted to play in college, so I really wanted to train with him, get connected with him, so I started training with him when I was high school age. Once I went to college and got exposed to the collegiate level of play, he said “Do you want to come and train with us? Do you want to come and play for the semi pro team?”  

He was leaving around that time. I think it was kind of moving and getting older, so he was kind of phasing out of it a little bit, but he basically gave me the invitation to come out and join them in a training session. 

So, I guess I first technically started playing with them in between my senior and senior year of high school and freshman year of college, but I didn't start like playing in games until after my second semester, I guess when COVID was kind of first starting—the end of 2020. 

What have been some high points for you as a soccer player? 

These last two seasons... we won back-to-back national championships in the UPSL for semi pro, which is pretty much the most competitive semi pro league that there is here. It hasn't hadn't been done before, so that's probably the most notable achievement that I've been a part of. 

I saw a nice video package on your LinkedIn page. Tell me about that. 

That was actually something that I produced when I was in high school. I think I was either nominated for a scholastic Emmy or we ended up winning it. In high school I was a part of a journalism program at my high school called Convergence Media. There was a statewide journalism conference I think it was called SIPA. We had 24 hours to produce some kind of news story. That day we were in downtown Columbia. We went to Main Street and were looking for ideas to do a story and saw a lady with a truck and some flowers and figured we'd do a story on her, and I think we ended up winning the best package or story competition. I still like to do kind of video production stuff when I get a chance. That was something I learned a lot about in high school... that skill set of video editing and asking people questions... Getting out of my comfort zone as well. 

And you met your fiancé at Anderson? 

We met each other at Anderson. She was here one year before me, so we're the same age. She skipped a grade when she was younger, so she was a sophomore when I came in as a freshman. I think she got saved a few months before I got there. She started going to a church called Mountain Spring Baptist Church where one of our professors, Dr. Noble, was. That was one of the first churches that I ended up going to and the church that I went to majority of my time while I was in Anderson, and so that's where we met first. I thought she was much older than me and I found out that she was the same age, which was kind of surprising. We were just friends for a few years before we started dating. 

I heard that you proposed to her on the Anderson campus. 

I did, yes. I knew I wanted to go back to Anderson to propose. I wanted to do something with the swings, but I wanted to kind of make it a surprise and I was like “If we sit on these swings she's gonna know.”   

What are some college memories that stand out? 

I ended up walking onto the soccer team in Anderson. It was really good because I got the experience to be a student that didn't play sports and also a student-athlete, so I really felt like I got the best of both worlds because I was able to make friends that weren't just associated with soccer, had nothing to do with soccer, and then also make friends that did play soccer. I would say my most memorable moments were with my friends that I met before I was playing soccer. It's interesting now… I think two of them got married. I can just think back to the times where we would just be in The caf (AU Culinary Center) and we would have like these debates—just about anything—it could be sports. I loved to debate them and it was funny when people would get emotional and they would be getting serious. Then later in my college, my last two years, I lived with some other friends that I made, and there would just be nights where we would stay up till like two in the morning, three in the morning and just be in the room talking just about literally anything. Those are the moments I looked back at favorably...  I really just felt alive. Obviously, the soccer stuff was fun as well—just experiences I wouldn't be able to have, but the times with friends and my teammates as well are probably some of the best memories. 

Do you see yourself continuing to play semiprofessional soccer?
Right now I'm coaching at my high school and I'm playing. Once I’m married... There are two seasons for semi pro and then one season for high school, so... right now I'm coaching and playing, which can be a lot. My motivation now—a lot of it is with coaching and thinking about just the future generations, even kids at my church that play soccer and kind of look up to me now, which is really rewarding. I want to be the best that I can so I can transfer everything that I learned to young boys that I have the opportunity to coach. 

Where do you go to church? 

It’s called Right Direction Church International in Columbia. 

Who are some of Soda City’s opponents? 

There’s now only one other team in Columbia and that's our local rival. I spent a lot of time in North Carolina, so there's a few teams in Charlotte, there's a couple teams in the Cary-Raleigh area. There's a team in Virginia which we haven't had to travel. They've had to come to us, which has been better. Gastonia North Carolina, Asheville North Carolina. Once we go on to the playoffs, that's when we start to travel. We've had games in Atlanta, we've played in Pittsburgh, we played in Indiana, close to Louisville. We played in Tennessee, and now in Irvine, California.  

How did you get interested in computer technology? 

I used to take computers apart. I was just intrigued about how things worked. I’ve always been interested in computers and just problem solving in general. We have a summer program at my church where I used the same program to teach students called Scratch—it’s a block-based programming software. Kids can make different games where they can start to understand computer logic and get the payoff of creating something they can see in the real world. I think I was introduced to that in elementary school and reintroduced to it again in high school when I took computer science class. That's kind of when I knew I was really enjoy getting to build apps and games and all these different things. Even now at Blue Cross I think I've also always had an interest in economics—that was probably my number one or two in terms of ranking my favorite classes that I got to take in high school. Not just the finance aspect of it but understanding the cause and effect of distributing scarce resources and why something might be the case as opposed to just the numbers that deal with it. 

What advice would you give to someone interested in computer-related work? 

Do what you’re interested in now. There are so many resources available now. A program like Scratch that I’ve used in the past where you can literally create something that you enjoy or get the opportunity to solve a problem. Try to put yourself in as many situations like that as you can. Probably the best thing that I did was taking a computer science course in high school and I did an engineering computer science camp over the summer. Getting exposed to that kind of stuff showed me what I liked and what I didn't like. I thought I wanted to be an engineer when I was younger just because I was pretty good at math. I like to solve problems. Now that I'm in computer science and my fiancé is an engineer, I would not have been as interested in it as what I'm doing now, so I would say just being exposed to as much as you can. 

My fiancé, she's a structural engineer. They build a lot of hospitals, so sometimes we have overlap in some of our work, because I will be working with the hospital and they'll be building or some kind of extension of hospital. 

I would imagine there’s a lot of systems where you work. 

I work technically more in operations, if I had to put a title on it. In my department we contract with hospitals, pretty much the predetermined rates that the hospitals have on their charge master that can vary based on the insurance company. The people I work with are the ones who negotiate those rates to keep them as low as possible, and I pretty much provide the analysis from a support standpoint to back up some of our claims or some of our interests.