Five minutes into her official visit to campus, Melissa Hawkins had a feeling that Vanderbilt was the place she wanted to spend the next four years. She fell in love fast with Nashville, the school’s special education department and its lacrosse program.

The rest of her tour convinced her that Vanderbilt was not just the place she wanted to be, but the place she was meant to be. As Hawkins, her mother Karen and then-assistant coach Beth Hewitt turned the corner out of the lacrosse locker room, they saw a sign for Hawkins Field, the Commodores’ baseball stadium.

Her mom nearly in tears, Hawkins immediately thought of her father, Mark, a former college baseball player who had passed away in August of 2013. It felt like a sign — Vanderbilt was the place for Hawkins to continue the athletic and personal legacy that her sports-loving father had passed onto her.

“Growing up, he was always the person who was like a best friend, and a figure that I looked up to, being in the athletic field,” Hawkins said. “That’s where my brother and I have gotten our athleticism from, for sure. He never gave up on us and just always pushed us to our highest limits.”

Now a senior, the Bridgewater, N.J. native has developed into the Commodores’ top defender, earning preseason All-AAC honors ahead of the 2021 campaign and leading her team in caused turnovers, just as she did in her first two seasons in Nashville.

Hawkins had a late start to the game — she didn’t pick up her first stick until around fifth grade, but she quickly fell in love with lacrosse’s speed and aggressiveness. Her family didn’t have a background in the sport, but her father spent hours in the backyard practicing with her: Melissa making passes with her stick, Mark catching them with his baseball glove.

His passing on August 13, 2013, just before Hawkins was set to start her freshman year of high school, was a difficult and trying experience. She credits her mother for guiding her and her older brother, Russell, through the pain — in the weeks after Mark’s death, Karen Hawkins presented two options for their future.

“She said, ‘You have two paths to take,’’' Hawkins remembered. “‘Either we go down this road of giving up and throwing everything away, or we can overcome this obstacle we’re facing now and create this new normal, going on with life and doing what Dad expected of all of us.’”

They chose the second path. Hawkins found a deeper passion and motivation for lacrosse. That same summer, she tried out for Steps Elite, one of the top girls’ club teams in the state of New Jersey. While her friends made it onto the A-level squad, Hawkins found herself with a spot only on the B-level team.

She was discouraged, but with a strong support system — her brother, her mom, a family friend who had pushed her to play lacrosse for the first time back in middle school — behind her, she stuck the course and stayed on the B-team.

A year later, she was playing regularly with Steps Elite and starting to earn recruiting interest from schools up and down the East Coast. Vanderbilt felt like the perfect fit, and she headed down south in 2017, after a high school career at Bridgewater-Raritan that featured a Tournament of Champions title and four straight all-conference honors.

She needed some time to develop her stickwork, but was able to contribute right away for the Commodores. She started all 17 games as a freshman and then earned All-AAC second-team recognition as a sophomore.

“One of the things that separated her from everybody else when she first got here was her work ethic,” said Hewitt, now Vanderbilt’s head coach. “She’s such a competitive person, and being someone who started the sport a little later, she has always wanted to be the best. She wanted to be that top defender and top player.”

In the last two seasons, she’s focused on growing her own confidence on the field — working in the weight room, picking up ground balls, even trying to become as comfortable with her stickwork as a defender as attackers are.

The progress has shown — Hawkins helped the Commodores to the second-longest winning streak in school history this season in an 11-2 start, with a big doubleheader against AAC rival Florida on the table for this weekend.

Hawkins still keeps the memory of her father close: She wears No. 13 in his honor, and every now and then, will notice a hawk flying in the sky above Vanderbilt’s field.

She’s even inherited his longtime nickname — her teammates decided to call her “Hawk” as a freshman, and it’s stuck to this day among coaches, players and fellow students alike. Whether in her nickname or the name of the baseball field she passes on the way to practice, Hawkins’ career has been full of signs that show her father is still here with her.

“He was always just known as ‘Hawk.’ And (now) I’m like, ‘Well, I guess my name’s not Melissa anymore. It’s just ‘Hawk’ at this point,’” she said. “It’s all carried over and really been a big part of my life.”