Patricie Mackova Is Making The World A Little Greener One Swing At A Time

The golf course is a safe haven for Patricie Mackova of the Maryland women’s golf team. But it has become much more than that over the last few years. In February 2023, Mackova partnered with a company called EcoAthletes as a Champion. The company identifies athletes (college ranks to professional), scientists, climate scientists, business leaders, and eco-entrepreneurs to come together to combat the climate crisis, hopefully leading to action worldwide. 

Since its founding, EcoAthletes has partnered with hundreds of athletes across the globe in different disciplines to come together to combat climate change, including former Terps women’s soccer All-American Jasmyne Spencer.

“I’ve always cared about sustainability and climate change and how we can help the environment safe and the world from warming up,” says Mackova. “It’s hard to do this by myself because I haven’t met many people that would share the same thoughts. But all she needed was a platform.

It all started when she posted a story on her social media about how we can be more eco-friendly with shopping at the grocery store. That’s when one of her friends (Inja Fric, who plays golf at NC State) from Slovenia reached out to Mackova to tell her about the organization and to let her know that she’s not the only one thinking about how to save the Earth. It would be soon that the biochemistry major would have a one-on-one conversation with the founder, Lew Blaustein, and after that, she was 100% in. 

“I really like chemistry and biology, how human chemistry works, and how chemistry and the human body interact. I like to discover, and I think it’s pretty close to what I tried to do here with sustainability because it connects us to human nature.”