The story of Daryl and Claudia Vander Pol began in 1963 when Daryl ’66 was studying in his dorm room on the fourth floor of Hill Hall and the phone rang. It was Claudia Teel ’66, and, as she tells it, she watched him pick up the phone from her fourth-floor Hill dorm room across the parking lot. Though the two had never said more than “hello” in passing and she was “scared to death” to make the call, she was inviting him to Tolo (a school event where the women invite the men). Daryl suspected she was initially drawn to his 1958 Ford Fairlane two-door hardtop, but Claudia insists she invited him because she sensed he was a “really neat guy.” Whatever the reason, that call changed the course of both their lives. Claudia and Daryl have now been married for 56 years and have two children and three grandchildren.
The Vander Pols raised their children and a couple of horses on 3.5 acres in Lynnwood, Wash., where they lived for 44 years. But Claudia had always wanted to live across Puget Sound on Whidbey Island, where her family had owned a farm for many years. So about 10 years ago, after buying a five-acre parcel of land with ample room for their horses, they built their current home, which offers up stunning views of Useless Bay, Double Bluff, Admiralty Inlet, and the Olympic Mountains.
Raised by devout Christian parents on a small dairy farm in Whatcom County, Wash., Daryl was the first in his family to attend college. His mother, the oldest in her family, had to care for her sick mother and younger siblings. As a result, she never had the chance to finish high school, but cherished education and loved to read. “She was the primary encourager for me to pursue college,” said Daryl, who never doubted that higher education was in his future. “I was a good student in high school, and I knew I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life under a dairy cow.”
Claudia also grew up in a Christian home. Her father, Edwin Teel, who founded Vitamilk Dairy during the Great Depression, graduated from Seattle Pacific in 1936. Claudia’s mother, though, never had the chance to finish college.
In 1962, by the grace of God and with the help of scholarships, both Claudia and Daryl enrolled in Seattle Pacific College and graduated four years later — Claudia with a degree in zoology and Daryl with a degree in mathematics. Daryl went on to earn an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. The family legacy of meeting a spouse in college continued in the next generation when their daughter met her husband-to-be at Seattle Pacific.
Since day one at Seattle Pacific, Claudia and Daryl have been avid supporters of SPU Athletics, including being season ticketholders for decades. They have channeled their love for the athletics program into being generous donors, which has including establishing an endowment for men’s basketball, providing the women’s rowing team with new racing shells, and donating $4,000 to help the men’s soccer team travel to Europe in 2023.
“Daryl sums up their philosophy of giving to SPU Athletics this way: “It is our desire that SPU will continue to reflect excellence in all its programs, both athletic and academic. We feel athletics can touch and influence an element of SPU’s audience, as well as the greater public, in a manner separate from academics. Our desire is that the excellence of SPU Athletics presents a strong, positive institutional image to the community.“
