By Holly Little, Contributing Writer
Being a student-athlete can be tiring, stressful, and tough, both physically and mentally. You have to want to be a student-athlete because it is a challenging commitment.
I am a cross country and track athlete at Saint Leo University and my team are my family! I have never been a part of a more diverse but amazing group of people, and I encourage anyone reading this to get involved in a sports team at the university. You can find what NCAA sports Saint Leo has to offer at https://saintleolions.com/.
If you want to get involved, but not too competitively then you can find intramural sports at https://www.saintleo.edu/student-experience/get-involved/recreation#toc-intramurals where there is a schedule and sign up link to the events.
As a student-athlete, this is a typical day in my life:
6:00am: Wake up, snooze alarm for five more minutes, get changed for practice, grab a snack, and head out the door.
6:30am-8:30am: Practice with the team. We usually meet at the soccer fields and start with some dynamic movements and drills to get our bodies moving – mostly to try and wake ourselves up! Then we head out for a two-three mile warm up run and find out from our coach what session he has for us that day. This can be anything from a tempo (a faster 5-7mile run), a fartlek (interval running), or 400m repeats on the grass. It changes every week, and we all have something different depending on our event distance and our goals. Then we will finish with a two-three mile cooldown run. After this, some of us will take an ice bath.
9:00am: Head to the caf (the cafeteria) to re-fuel after a big workout!
10:00am: Shower and head to Benedict’s Coffeehouse to study, where a lot of the team end up going. Sometimes, some of us will visit the Marion Bowman Athletics Center to use the recovery boots or see one of the athletic trainers. Or, more often than not, we will head back to our apartments for a much-needed nap.
12:30pm: Back to the caf for some lunch.
2:00pm-5:00pm: I have class: three-hour classes are a master’s student’s life. This is different from undergraduate students who usually have multiple, shorter classes.
It is useful to create a plan at the start of the week to make sure to get all of your reading done prior to class and give yourself time to go over anything that was covered. When choosing classes at the start of the semester, try to have them on days where you don’t have a lot of practice or competitions, because it can get overwhelming if you miss days or are always trying to fit everything in on one day.
5:00pm: Team meeting. This is where we usually talk about achievements from that week’s meet, and any plans for the following meet or travel itineraries.
6:00pm: Run again.
7:00pm: You guessed it, back to the caf for dinner.
7:40pm: Prime time to see the sunset at the lake. Usually, a lot of the team head down there and we end up staying for a while.
8:30pm: Movie night with my roommates and other people on the team.
10:30pm: Usually get to bed around this point, as we are up for another day of early morning practice.
Travelling as a student-athlete
One of the best things about being a student-athlete is the opportunity to travel. Our team spends a lot of time in the minivans, travelling for hours to meets around Florida and out of state. It sounds like a bad thing, but this is where a lot of memories are made and why our team is so close.
We will often miss a day or half a day of classes in order to travel, but this doesn’t mean we get to skip out on work. Instead, we must plan things well and make sure to complete projects and study for tests even earlier. You’ll often see the team sitting in airports, hotel lobbies, and in the minivans working away on their class projects. After all, the student part of a student-athlete comes first!
Several athletes shared what their favorite and least favorite part of being a student athlete is.
“Doing what I love with people that I am so close with, that I can call them my family,” said Connor Chapman, one of the team captains and a senior majoring in criminal justice. “And time-management is the hardest part. It’s an all-day sport, you have to consider preparation for practice and recovery whilst being on top of your schoolwork.”
Another teammate described what being a student-athlete means in three words.
“Challenging but rewarding,” said Paige Patterson, a senior majoring in biomedical health sciences.
The life of a student- athlete is hard, but a very special experience. You get to live every day with your closest friends whilst doing the sport you love, all in the process of earning your degree. Time-management, pressures, and expectations are few of the many challenges we have to face, but if you work hard and strive to achieve your goals, the rewards make it all worth it.
We could not do what we do without the perpetual guidance and encouragement from our coaches, they are pillars to our success. In addition, at Saint Leo there is a noticeable understanding and support given from professors that help each of us make being a student and an athlete doable. I would not change being a student-athlete for the world!
