Student-athletes juggle schedules

Many student-athletes wake up at 5 a.m. on the first day of registration each semester to claim the classes they need. Some question if they deserve it, but those students probably do not have to worry about half of the things on an athlete’s schedule. Athletes have to juggle schoolwork, practice and games for their sports, as well as any added time spent preparing/traveling for games or taking care of injuries.

Ginger Chaffinch, GCSU’s head softball coach, feels that learning to balance things can be beneficial to students.

“It helps them definitely learn how to manage their time,” Chaffinch said.

Chaffinch tries to help her team keep up with academics while still focusing on practice and games.

“We send progress reports out to the professors twice a semester. My softball players do weekly progress reports on their own,” Chaffinch said. “Those are a couple ways we try to keep on top of what’s going on.”

The progress reports provide a way for students and coaches to know that they are above the grade-point average required to play by the National Collegiate Athletic Association.

“The NCAA sets the GPA standards, so it’s different every year they’re in school,” Chaffinch said. “After their freshmen year, they have a certain GPA. After their sophomore year, they have a different GPA.”

The athletes are able to look not only to their coaches for assistance, but also to their teammates.

“In softball, if somebody has had a class before, they try to help them and try to tutor them somewhat,” Chaffinch said. “We do utilize the learning center often. With them being gone so often, they definitely need a little extra help sometimes just keeping up because they miss class.”

Andrew Evans, a redshirt senior outfielder on the GCSU baseball team, recognizes the positive effects of a busy schedule.

“It was pretty overwhelming at first,” Evans said. “You just get used to not having much downtime. It can be good for you. You’re more efficient with your time because you know you have ‘x amount’ of stuff to do and you only have ‘y amount’ of time to do it. I feel like it makes me more efficient. When I sit down to do something, I can’t just say, ‘oh, I’ll come back to it later.’ I know I have to get it done, so I just sit there and do it. For somebody driven at all, it’s actually helpful.”

Evans can also look to his coach, Tom Carty, for help.

“(Carty) is a little different from some coaches I’ve seen,” Evans said. “He actually pushes GPA. He wants the team GPA to get up. In the past two years, it’s gone up. I think the team GPA is a 2.8 now, which for a group of almost 40 college guys is pretty good.”

Outside of normal practices and weight training, Evans makes time in his schedule for private practices.

“I personally take a lot of time on the side to do hitting,” Evans said. “I try and go at least once a day to go hit.”

Taylor Mulryan, a freshman goalkeeper for the GCSU soccer team, also keeps a busy schedule. Outside of team practices, Mulryan also must attend physical therapy in the Centennial Center for an injured thumb.

“I’m in here once a day,” Mulryan said. “I’ll be in here for thirty minutes. When I had my knee surgery, it was twice a day for two hours.”

There are other sacrifices that Mulryan must make besides free time.

“You have to give up something,” Mulryan said. “I’ll eat in my room a lot, like I won’t go to (the campus dining hall) at all. I’ll have to stay up late finishing up a paper because we’ll be on the road. When we’re on trips, we bring all of our homework and just try to do it. Multi-task as much as you can.”

There are some positives to the team doing homework while traveling.

“We help each other all the time on the bus,” Mulryan said. “If someone’s already taken the class, we help tutor each other and ask questions.”

The tutoring must be working because the soccer team has a 3.49 GPA.

“We just missed our goal,” Mulryan said. “That was the highest out of all athletics.”

Members of the athletics department are proud of the athletes for being able to keep their GPAs up, as well as their dedication to their sports.

“We all think our student-athletes do a great job of being students and also being student-athletes,” Chaffinch said. “It’s a tough job. It’s like having two full-time jobs. They do very well at it. We’re very proud of our above-3.0 GPA that our student-athletes have as a whole.”

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Nov 6 2009. Filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry