University of Memphis Athletics
Photo by: Matthew A. Smith
Leaving Her Mark
Jun 17, 2019 | Rifle
Dempster paints a Memphis skyline masterpiece in R.F. Fogelman Rifle Range.
On May 4, Leighton Dempster, a member of the University of Memphis rifle program from 2016-19, walked across the stage at the University's Commencement inside FedExForum and accepted her bachelor's degree. The proverbial "icing on the cake" to her outstanding collegiate career as a Tiger.
Her resume reads like that of an all-star student-athlete: 2019 NRA All-American in smallbore. 2019 Collegiate Rifle Coaches Association (CRCA) All-American in aggregate and smallbore. School record holder in smallbore and air rifle (tied with another former Tiger). 2018 NCAA Championships qualifier in air rifle. Four-time CRCA Scholastic All-America honoree.
The Loranger, La., native had left her mark at Memphis. But maybe her imprint could be long-lasting.
"I say all the time Memphis was the best college for me," said Dempster, who graduated with a degree in accounting. "I'm so glad that (former head coach) Butch Woolbright gave me the opportunity to be here. I glad I got to shoot under Coach (Dan) Hermsmeier because he made my last two years fantastic. I was always pushed by my teammates and coaches.
"I really made a family here. My best friends are those at Memphis and those that shoot at other schools that I got to meet because I came to Memphis. The University of Memphis has given me a lot, and there's no way I'd go back and make a different choice.
Hermsmeier added, "Leighton gave so much to this program, and when I saw the blank wall here in the range, I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to have one of our seniors, now alums, leave a more permanent mark on the program than just in the record books."
Which brings up "The Wall."
The Tigers rifle program moved into its new on-campus home, the R.F. Fogelman Rifle Range, in January 2017 – the middle of the Dempster's sophomore season. Although the program competed in the range since its move, the facility was officially named Apr. 19, 2019. The facility underwent some minor upgrades for the public unveiling that day, but there still were needed some "personal" touches, especially to the team locker room and meeting room area.
"When our graduate assistant coach Beth (Lee) and I were renovating some of the back areas of the range, we had this big white brick wall we had just painted," said Hermsmeier, who is entering his third season as head coach in 2019-20. "We were thinking about what we could do that would bring some color and some uniqueness to our team area we have here. There was a lot of gray in here, so I wanted to do something with colors other than blue and gray.
"I thought back to Leighton's project that she was working on for her friend. The work she did was impressive."
Dempster said, "Near the end of this season, a teammate asked me to paint a wall in her apartment. I did, and Coach Hermsmeier saw it. Coach and Beth thought it would be cool to paint the Memphis skyline on the wall. I started sketching it out, and they liked it."
However, this year wasn't the first time she had displayed her artistic talents. It's a hobby for Dempster that has developed over time.
"My mother has always been super crafty so I think I get it from her," Dempster said. "I always remember drawing, whether doodling in class or when I got to high school and took art classes where I learned to actually draw and paint things. It was something I enjoyed.
"That and reading were two things I did in my free time. I didn't consider rifle practice free time because I was working to earn a scholarship. Although I loved rifle, it wasn't something I could do at any time. That was more of a set thing, whereas drawing and painting were things I could do whenever I didn't have anything else to do.
"My interest in drawing and painting began as a hobby, but then in 4-H – that's where I also got interested in shooting – it had parish and state fairs where people could enter art work. I entered contests and won a few times. It was nothing big enough that made me want to change route and start pursuing art."
She entered the University of Memphis as a freshman in the fall of 2015. Though she took a break from painting because of the time commitments to school and rifle, Dempster kept drawing.
"The painting part got pushed to the side because I didn't have the time it took to create a good painting," said Dempster, who was a six-time Dean's List student at Memphis. "I also didn't have the funds to get the good paint and brushes that I wanted.
"I still sketched and did a lot of drawings. I have some tattoos that I drew. I took them to the tattoo artist to put on me. I never stopped sketching and drawing; I just put the painting to the side for a little bit."
Her painting "itch" re-emerged this semester with the two projects – her friend's apartment and the rifle range. Despite getting reacquainted with her painting side only recently, Dempster's mural masterpiece at the R.F. Fogelman Rifle Range didn't take all that long for her to complete.
"It took me two weeks, but I wasn't in here all day every day," Dempster said. "I would spend 4-to-5 hours a day here. Once I got the sunset done, the buildings took me a day and a half."
While many athletics facilities are adorned with the Memphis Tigers logo or wordmark or tiger stripes, Hermsmeier was looking for something a little different for the range.
"There are a lot of University of Memphis, a lot of Memphis Tiger logos around here. We even have the wall vinyl outside the range with Memphis and the tiger stripes," said Hermsmeier, who also was a rifle All-American at Memphis from 2011-14. "I was thinking, 'What would be a little more unique? What could bring in some of the Memphis culture into our range?'"
Dempster added, "Coach was interested in the Memphis skyline. We are a part of the University, and we're proud of that. But, being at the University of Memphis is also being a part of the city of Memphis and its culture.
"For me personally, I love the city of Memphis. I've always loved downtown and the skyline. I think bringing that into the range shows that we're not isolated as the University of Memphis. We're representing the city of Memphis. It's something different. I've never seen a building on campus have anything like this."
So, the two looked at some examples of the Memphis skyline on the internet. They picked one, and Dempster went to work. But, instead of using measurements and rulers to sketch the skyline, she drew the entire mural freehand before painting it.
"One reason is I didn't have a ruler handy when I began drawing the outline on the wall," said Dempster. "But, with the wall being brick, I had some guidelines to go off of. I took some chalk and sketched out the buildings first. I went back with a really thin paintbrush over the outline, and then filled in the buildings.
"It took me a little longer than if I had a ruler and a pencil. It would have been quicker to do it that way. But, doing it the way I did adds more character to it. It's not like I printed out a skyline wall sticker, which is what it would have looked like if I used a ruler. I was going to measure out each building, but once I started drawing, I just eye-balled it and made sure it was proportional. That's kind of how I've always drawn. I've never really used exact measurements because it's easy to get caught up in those, and it can become disproportionate because you're sticking to those measurements. So, I went with my gut – and my eyes."
While the buildings were the easy part of the project, the sunset over the skyline tested Dempster at times. Her determination, though, to get the sunset the way she wanted it added more to her piece.
"We did the sunset because that was going to make the wall pop. The sunset was the 'wow' factor of the wall because I could have just painted the skyline, which took me under two days to do," Dempster said. "The sunset was the hardest part, to get everything to blend the way I wanted it to.
"I actually restarted the sunset once because I didn't like it. I had the center fading out to the orange done, but I didn't like it. It got a little too dark for me on the edges. I wanted to keep it brighter. I painted over it with white paint and started again. That took the longest because I was so picky with what I wanted.
"You can look at pictures all day, but everyone paints differently. Everyone has different styles of painting. Painted sunsets following the same color pattern, but how you blend it is different. I just played with it until I liked it. I put everything in it, and then I blended it some more. Then, I blended it some more and added the clouds. That definitely took the longest part, making sure it was where I felt it needed to be.
"The sunset added more depth to the wall, and made it more of a piece of art than just a skyline."
Hermsmeier said, "I believe we have one of the largest spaces of all the NCAA rifle programs with our range, team room and meeting area. Now that we have the space the main goal is to take small steps into making it a better facility for our student-athletes and improve the student-athlete experience. This (painting) helps us go in that direction, making this a unique range and making this a space our student-athletes can be proud of. It (the mural) ended up looking like this, and I'm really pleased with how it turned out."
Dempster's painting puts an exclamation point on a tremendous career as a student-athlete at Memphis. Now, she turns the page and heads out on her next step in life: Army-West Point rifle assistant coach. Dempster starts her new job today and is thrilled with the opportunity.
"I'm an assistant coach for the rifle program at Army-West Point, and I start June 17," said Dempster, who tied the Tigers' air rifle record (596) in a match at Army-West Point last fall. "I love the cadets up there, and I love being able to stay around the sport. It's such a close-knit sport, and I wasn't ready to leave it yet. When this position opened up, I jumped on it."
So, where does her heart lie when Memphis hosts Army-West Point in late October 2019?
"I will always be a Tiger," Dempster said. "But, Go Army! Beat Navy!"
Her resume reads like that of an all-star student-athlete: 2019 NRA All-American in smallbore. 2019 Collegiate Rifle Coaches Association (CRCA) All-American in aggregate and smallbore. School record holder in smallbore and air rifle (tied with another former Tiger). 2018 NCAA Championships qualifier in air rifle. Four-time CRCA Scholastic All-America honoree.
The Loranger, La., native had left her mark at Memphis. But maybe her imprint could be long-lasting.
"I say all the time Memphis was the best college for me," said Dempster, who graduated with a degree in accounting. "I'm so glad that (former head coach) Butch Woolbright gave me the opportunity to be here. I glad I got to shoot under Coach (Dan) Hermsmeier because he made my last two years fantastic. I was always pushed by my teammates and coaches.
"I really made a family here. My best friends are those at Memphis and those that shoot at other schools that I got to meet because I came to Memphis. The University of Memphis has given me a lot, and there's no way I'd go back and make a different choice.
Hermsmeier added, "Leighton gave so much to this program, and when I saw the blank wall here in the range, I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to have one of our seniors, now alums, leave a more permanent mark on the program than just in the record books."
Which brings up "The Wall."
The Tigers rifle program moved into its new on-campus home, the R.F. Fogelman Rifle Range, in January 2017 – the middle of the Dempster's sophomore season. Although the program competed in the range since its move, the facility was officially named Apr. 19, 2019. The facility underwent some minor upgrades for the public unveiling that day, but there still were needed some "personal" touches, especially to the team locker room and meeting room area.
"When our graduate assistant coach Beth (Lee) and I were renovating some of the back areas of the range, we had this big white brick wall we had just painted," said Hermsmeier, who is entering his third season as head coach in 2019-20. "We were thinking about what we could do that would bring some color and some uniqueness to our team area we have here. There was a lot of gray in here, so I wanted to do something with colors other than blue and gray.
"I thought back to Leighton's project that she was working on for her friend. The work she did was impressive."
Dempster said, "Near the end of this season, a teammate asked me to paint a wall in her apartment. I did, and Coach Hermsmeier saw it. Coach and Beth thought it would be cool to paint the Memphis skyline on the wall. I started sketching it out, and they liked it."
However, this year wasn't the first time she had displayed her artistic talents. It's a hobby for Dempster that has developed over time.
"My mother has always been super crafty so I think I get it from her," Dempster said. "I always remember drawing, whether doodling in class or when I got to high school and took art classes where I learned to actually draw and paint things. It was something I enjoyed.
"That and reading were two things I did in my free time. I didn't consider rifle practice free time because I was working to earn a scholarship. Although I loved rifle, it wasn't something I could do at any time. That was more of a set thing, whereas drawing and painting were things I could do whenever I didn't have anything else to do.
"My interest in drawing and painting began as a hobby, but then in 4-H – that's where I also got interested in shooting – it had parish and state fairs where people could enter art work. I entered contests and won a few times. It was nothing big enough that made me want to change route and start pursuing art."
She entered the University of Memphis as a freshman in the fall of 2015. Though she took a break from painting because of the time commitments to school and rifle, Dempster kept drawing.
"The painting part got pushed to the side because I didn't have the time it took to create a good painting," said Dempster, who was a six-time Dean's List student at Memphis. "I also didn't have the funds to get the good paint and brushes that I wanted.
"I still sketched and did a lot of drawings. I have some tattoos that I drew. I took them to the tattoo artist to put on me. I never stopped sketching and drawing; I just put the painting to the side for a little bit."
Her painting "itch" re-emerged this semester with the two projects – her friend's apartment and the rifle range. Despite getting reacquainted with her painting side only recently, Dempster's mural masterpiece at the R.F. Fogelman Rifle Range didn't take all that long for her to complete.
"It took me two weeks, but I wasn't in here all day every day," Dempster said. "I would spend 4-to-5 hours a day here. Once I got the sunset done, the buildings took me a day and a half."
While many athletics facilities are adorned with the Memphis Tigers logo or wordmark or tiger stripes, Hermsmeier was looking for something a little different for the range.
"There are a lot of University of Memphis, a lot of Memphis Tiger logos around here. We even have the wall vinyl outside the range with Memphis and the tiger stripes," said Hermsmeier, who also was a rifle All-American at Memphis from 2011-14. "I was thinking, 'What would be a little more unique? What could bring in some of the Memphis culture into our range?'"
Dempster added, "Coach was interested in the Memphis skyline. We are a part of the University, and we're proud of that. But, being at the University of Memphis is also being a part of the city of Memphis and its culture.
"For me personally, I love the city of Memphis. I've always loved downtown and the skyline. I think bringing that into the range shows that we're not isolated as the University of Memphis. We're representing the city of Memphis. It's something different. I've never seen a building on campus have anything like this."
So, the two looked at some examples of the Memphis skyline on the internet. They picked one, and Dempster went to work. But, instead of using measurements and rulers to sketch the skyline, she drew the entire mural freehand before painting it.
"One reason is I didn't have a ruler handy when I began drawing the outline on the wall," said Dempster. "But, with the wall being brick, I had some guidelines to go off of. I took some chalk and sketched out the buildings first. I went back with a really thin paintbrush over the outline, and then filled in the buildings.
"It took me a little longer than if I had a ruler and a pencil. It would have been quicker to do it that way. But, doing it the way I did adds more character to it. It's not like I printed out a skyline wall sticker, which is what it would have looked like if I used a ruler. I was going to measure out each building, but once I started drawing, I just eye-balled it and made sure it was proportional. That's kind of how I've always drawn. I've never really used exact measurements because it's easy to get caught up in those, and it can become disproportionate because you're sticking to those measurements. So, I went with my gut – and my eyes."
While the buildings were the easy part of the project, the sunset over the skyline tested Dempster at times. Her determination, though, to get the sunset the way she wanted it added more to her piece.
"We did the sunset because that was going to make the wall pop. The sunset was the 'wow' factor of the wall because I could have just painted the skyline, which took me under two days to do," Dempster said. "The sunset was the hardest part, to get everything to blend the way I wanted it to.
"I actually restarted the sunset once because I didn't like it. I had the center fading out to the orange done, but I didn't like it. It got a little too dark for me on the edges. I wanted to keep it brighter. I painted over it with white paint and started again. That took the longest because I was so picky with what I wanted.
"You can look at pictures all day, but everyone paints differently. Everyone has different styles of painting. Painted sunsets following the same color pattern, but how you blend it is different. I just played with it until I liked it. I put everything in it, and then I blended it some more. Then, I blended it some more and added the clouds. That definitely took the longest part, making sure it was where I felt it needed to be.
"The sunset added more depth to the wall, and made it more of a piece of art than just a skyline."
Hermsmeier said, "I believe we have one of the largest spaces of all the NCAA rifle programs with our range, team room and meeting area. Now that we have the space the main goal is to take small steps into making it a better facility for our student-athletes and improve the student-athlete experience. This (painting) helps us go in that direction, making this a unique range and making this a space our student-athletes can be proud of. It (the mural) ended up looking like this, and I'm really pleased with how it turned out."
Dempster's painting puts an exclamation point on a tremendous career as a student-athlete at Memphis. Now, she turns the page and heads out on her next step in life: Army-West Point rifle assistant coach. Dempster starts her new job today and is thrilled with the opportunity.
"I'm an assistant coach for the rifle program at Army-West Point, and I start June 17," said Dempster, who tied the Tigers' air rifle record (596) in a match at Army-West Point last fall. "I love the cadets up there, and I love being able to stay around the sport. It's such a close-knit sport, and I wasn't ready to leave it yet. When this position opened up, I jumped on it."
So, where does her heart lie when Memphis hosts Army-West Point in late October 2019?
"I will always be a Tiger," Dempster said. "But, Go Army! Beat Navy!"
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