It Takes Three to Tango: A Tale of Unique College Love

As part of a week-long series alongside Valentine’s Day, we’re featuring stories about UF couples, past and present, called “Findlay Faithfuls.” Did you meet the love of your life on campus? We want to hear about it! Share your story via Facebook or Twitter using #IHeartUFindlay #FindlayFaithfuls.

Bethany and Shane, first date, late 90s.

When Bethany (Ramsey) Sarchet ’01 was a freshman at UF, she had a class with a fellow freshman soccer player to whom she took a liking. She asked some of his teammates about him, told them how she thought he was cute and, much to her dismay, found out he had a girlfriend. Her disappointment was extremely short-lived, though, as she discovered within the same conversation that the young man she was inquiring about just happened to have a twin brother who was single. And, after that bit of luck in the decade of the 90s, Bethany and Shane Sarchet ’01 started a love affair that has lasted well into this second decade of the 2000s.
The two, now married with children, still argue over who was the first to call the other, pre-cell phones. “I seem to recall he looked my number up in the student directory and called me in my dorm at Bare Hall,” she said. In actuality, it doesn’t matter who made the initial contact. It’s what happened from that point forward that really makes the story.

Bethany, Madison and Shane on their wedding day.

There was a bit of a unique wildcard to Bethany Sarchet. “I had a 16 month-old child coming in to college,” she said. “I stayed in Findlay to attend a smaller college where I had my family nearby to help and could juggle school and parenthood. Of course, I figured this may put a damper on my dating life. Would a college guy want to date a girl with a child?”
Shane’s answer to that question, she soon found out, was a resounding “Yes.”
Shane loved Bethany’s little daughter, Madison, immediately. It turned out that what Bethany and he would have together would resemble his own upbringing. Shane’s dad married his stepmother when Shane was just two years-old, and she played a major role in the young man he had grown up to be. “Because of that,” Bethany said, “he didn’t take his duty lightly.” From nearly the beginning, he loved and treated Madison as if she were his own.
And so, when the two would get together, Madison went everywhere with them, and, as UF had fraternities back then and Shane was a Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity member, “everywhere” included visits to the fraternity house. “I was a remote student,” Bethany explained, “so Shane used his dining dollars to treat us to lunch at the dining hall or we would order pizza and hang out in his dorm room and eventually at the TKE house.” From the beginning, Madison was a part of the relationship. Not only did Shane play soccer, but Bethany was a UF cheerleader for football and basketball, which meant lots of athletic events for them and the little girl. It was a busy college life, but one that they both knew early on would eventually lead to an official commitment.
The couple graduated from UF on the same day in 2001, and, as Bethany was to start a position with Marathon a month later in Indianapolis, a decision for their future together needed to be made. “Shane proposed to me over a romantic dinner on my birthday. We had to decide if we were going to move together, so I knew it was coming, but it was still a surprise.” She said yes, and they eventually bought a house in Indianapolis and added another child to their family, a son named Michael, in 2003.

The Sarchet family now (l to r), Madison, Bethany, Michael and Shane.

The Sarchets’ lives are moving along nicely, and they still make a great team. “We had to grow up together,” they said. “Make mistakes together. Hold each other up during the challenging times. To make things work—college, marriage, careers—you have to look at the big picture and be willing to put in the work.”
And Madison? She’s now a junior at the University of Alabama, where, Bethany and Shane joke, she’s strictly forbidden from visiting fraternity houses.