When watching college sports either in person or on television, it is very easy to get lost in the on-field performance of a freshman athlete. Most times it is those performances of the athlete that we remember without considering the pressures the scholar athlete encounters throughout the first year of college life.
Although USM may be a Div. III school in athletics, the burdens of the first-year students are the same here as they are at larger Div. I schools like the University of Maine at Orono. The only difference between these schools is that up in Orono, many of the scholar athletes are playing under scholarships. Due to NCAA rules, at USM there are no scholarships and the students are here because they want to be here and to also receive a quality education in the intimate settings of the Portland and Gorham campuses.
Kim Turner, assistant director of Athletics, is just one of the sources that the scholar-athlete turns to for guidance and assistance.
“The athletes come in with a certain set of goals to aim for and we help them all we can to strive and to achieve these goals,” Turner said. “The athletes appreciate the structured life and it helps them to perform better in class as well as in their sport.”
All USM athletes are required to spend four hours every week in the Athletics Department’s study lab. The players may use this time however they wish. Time in the lab is monitored by making sure players sign in and out before and after study sessions. It is not unusual that players spend more time than the required four hours. The time spent in the study lab also allows athletes to meet players from the other Husky teams which generally develop into new friendships.
Valerie Atkinson, Audra Hill, and Sarah Sandwick, freshmen on the women’s hockey team, agreed that the biggest challenges to freshmen are managing time on and off the ice and adjusting to life away from home. “Although downtime is usually at a premium, being athletes helps us manage our time more efficiently and also in planning ahead,” Sandwick said.
“My time during the week is structured in a way that between classes, homework, practices, weight training, and meets on the weekends, I have to use my time efficiently,” said wrestler Jeremy Verroccio, a freshman media studies major.
What little time they have to themselves or time to get away and clear their heads is usually spent with other teammates or relaxing around the house watching television.
“Sports helps me to structure my time,” said hockey player Franco Narcisi, a business major. “I came from a prep school back home which has made things easier here for me to handle. Our academic workloads were very similar and that has helped me quite a bit in getting through my first year.”
All of these athletes spoke of the help, encouragement, and support that the coaches and the upperclassmen on their respective teams provide. Both Narcisi and Verrocchio said their captains and teammates are a great source of advice because they went though many of the same things.
For these athletes and many more like them at USM, professional sports is realistically not in their futures. However, it is the emphasis on using their time efficiently and wisely in this first year of academics and athletics that these men and women will be able to use and teach their children in their lives long after life at USM.
Jim Ward can be contacted at [email protected]