A Juggling Act

The term student athlete is one that has been associated with collegiate sports and that Keene State College has prided itself on.

Volleyball head coach Bob Weiner said the student athletes at KSC are representatives of the college out in the world and have a certain standard of conduct, in-edition to all the other requirements that every other student has.

Baseball head coach Ken Howe said it is important to know the student comes first in student athlete.

“They are here to be students first and foremost,” Howe said.

Women’s head basketball coach Keith Boucher said his players take out a four to six hour chunk of their day for practice and other activities related to the team that the normal student does have to deal with.

“It’s a demand other students don’t have and a huge commitment that people don’t understand,” Boucher said.

Women’s basketball senior forward Jenn Kinney said she is a part of many organizations on the college campus and some of those organizations don’t realize how much work goes into what athletes do.

“Sports are a full time job. Practices and games come second to schoolwork and other organizations don’t realize it,” Kinney said.

Kinney’s teammate, junior Jen Cleaveland said she does not blame the people that underrate the amount of work athletes do.

“I wouldn’t think they would understand unless they were doing it,” she said.

Both Cleaveland and Kinney are biology majors and members of the Little East Conference All-Academic team. Kinney said it is a great achievement, but she didn’t do any more work to be apart of it.

“I don’t think about it when I am in the library all hours on end,” Kinney said.

“It’s good to be recognized and know people know how much work we do,” Cleaveland said.

With coaches having to deal with many aspects of their job, they can not keep track of all their players’ academics every day. Every Friday, Howe said his players have to give him their academic progress reports. The progress reports list the courses, their professor, test and quizzes, upcoming assignments and current grade in the class.

Along with the weekly progress reports, Howe said he has his players take a midterm academic feedback sheet for the professors to fill out. The sheet just asked the professor to fill out what that athlete’s current grade is, along with asking how his or her attendance is and if the athlete is in need of tutoring.

All the paperwork that the players fill out is stored in a folder marked with their names, in Howe’s office in the gym. The basketball teams at KSC also do the same thing with their players, said Howe.

“After their freshman year, I have a pretty good idea how well they can do,” Boucher said. 

He added that all the coaches in the athletic program want their players to reach their maximum potential.

Junior Sarah Apold, an outside hitter and middle blocker for Weiner’s volleyball team, said they have never had a big issue with grades to where they would have to do a study hall.

“He does check on us during the season,” Apold said, “and he helps us if we need or ask for it.”

Sophomore right fielder Bobby Doyon said it is harder to deal with academics during the season, contradicting what some other athletes at KSC said.

“Your mind is with the season and winning games,” Doyon said, “it’s sometimes hard to keep on academics.”

Cleaveland and Kinney both said during the season they do better with their time management than they do in the off-season.

“I personally do better during the season because I know I have to get it done. In the off-season I get a little lazy,” Apold said.

The process of scheduling classes for each semester is one that every student goes through, even the student athletes on the campus.

Boucher said his players, and most other athletes, plan their class schedule around practices and games, but he does not discourage players from taking classes they need.

Melissa Small, a sophomore who played for Boucher this past season, said she did not want to miss practice or games, so she had to plan around them as best she could.

“You don’t have that much variety for classes that other students get,” she said.

Weiner said the purpose of education is to get wisdom, not money.

“We get to be the carrot that moves the donkey forward,” Weiner said, “we don’t pay anyone to play.”

Chris Hopkins can be contacted at chopkins@keeneequinox.com