Impact Of A Scholarship: Karla Elena Vázquez Setzer

Over 2,600 miles away from home, Karla Elena Vázquez Setzer found a family.

A graduate student at the University of Maryland with an impressive collegiate career in her rearview is still pushing forward and thriving thanks to the M Club Rodman Scholarship.

She’s the perfect example of how one teammate — one friend — can change a person’s world and make them want to give back. 

“I’ve always thought that you need to pay people with the same coin,” Vázquez said. It’s an idea of passing down kind treatment. She said former Maryland golfer Elena Verticchio was the one to take her under her wing when Vázquez was new to the program, and she wants to do the same for future Terps. 

“She showed me how to be a good friend and a good student,” Vázquez said of Verticchio. “I was already a golfer, but she helped me through all the challenges that being a freshman comes with. I (said to myself) ‘One day, I want to be that person for someone else’, and I’ve been trying to become the best version of myself while also lifting others along the way.”

After years of giving back to her younger teammates, Maryland gave back to her, naming her a 2025 M Club Rodman Scholarship recipient and giving her a chance to stay in College Park and finish her academic career, one that will end with a master’s degree in finance. 

“It means the world to me and my parents because we also have to take into account the exchange rate,” Vázquez said of the scholarship. “Having that support also takes a weight off their shoulders and my shoulders, too.”

Growing up in Villahermosa, Tabasco, Mexico, the idea of collegiate golf in the states wasn’t always part of the plan. An additional master’s degree certainly wasn’t, either. 

“When I told my parents, they were so happy because they know that it’s a prize for my effort and my dedication to Maryland Athletics and delivering my best on and off the golf course.”

Off the course, she tallied two Academic All-Big Ten Team accolades (2023, 2025) and two Big Ten Sportsmanship Awards (2022, 2025). She knows everything and everyone she’s representing in all facets of life. 

“I think it’s just knowing what your identity is and that you are more than just an athlete,” she said. “You’re here to represent Maryland and go to tournaments and go to events and have people look at you and say ‘Oh, these golfers are pure class.’”

Her athletic drive stems from her family, specifically her dad’s side of it. Competing was always in her blood. Her aunt competed in the Pan American Games as an elite tennis player and her great aunt made it to Wimbledon. 

Her grandparents are the golfers that got her hooked on the game. Both over 75 years old, they’re still competing in seniors tournaments. Her grandmother signed her for her first tournament when she was nine years old, and she never looked back.

“I look up to them a lot,” Vázquez said. “One day, I want to be like them, reach that age and be able to still move and be active. That’s the main thing I admire a lot about them.”

She was a swimmer at the time she started golfing, but the travel and connections immediately drew her from the pool to the greens. At 11 years old, she competed in a Tex Mex Cup, an event put on by the Mexican Junior Golfing Association (MJGA). It was early exposure that allowed her to compete at Junior World Championships at Pinehurst, NC, the following year. 

“That’s when it really clicked in that ‘This is a big deal. I get to meet people from all over the world. I get to be in such a historic place and see everything about the game’,” she said.

A few years later, she competed in a tournament for teens, paired with girls older than she and already with college offers. After the first day, she was tied for first. 

“I was like, ‘Why can’t I do the same thing and try to go to college’,” she recalls asking herself. “So then that became my goal: coming to college in the United States with a full-ride scholarship.”

After a funky 2020 freshman season at Charlotte where covid robbed her of a season, the Miners went through a coaching change. Vázquez decided to try her luck in the transfer portal. 

“I found Maryland,” she said. “And thank God I did because I had the best experience with the Maryland Athletic Department in all of the aspects.”

She’s appreciative of everyone that supported her along her collegiate career in College Park. She said Maryland Made helped her figure out what she wanted to do in life and the “holistic” Maryland staff of sports nutritionists, psychologists, conditioners and advisors set her up for success. 

“I’m sad my eligibility is over,” Vázquez said. “But I’m happy at the same time because I know that the Maryland Athletics Department equipped me with the tools that I’m going to need for this next stage in my life.”

So far, that stage has included an internship at LandCare LLC, one of the biggest landscaping companies in the United States. It’s an internship she’ll stay with through this upcoming fall semester. 

When asked what she wanted people to know about her, a smile spread across her face: “That I will always be a proud Terp and that I am Karla Vázquez and I have Maryland pride!”

About The M Club

The M Club was founded in 1923 as a letterwinner organization and is one of the oldest athletic letterwinner organizations in the United States. It has been dedicated for more than 100 years to empowering and uplifting University of Maryland student-athletes and letterwinners and continues to foster a growing community of Athletes Helping Athletes through the generosity of its members. Current support for Maryland Athletics includes awarding post-graduate scholarships, funding team reunions, providing letterjackets to graduates and hosting the bi-annual Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony, among other areas.