By Jacob Trump
There are a lot of different extracurriculars, clubs, and organizations on WPU’s campus. The school’s athletic department, however, is one of its most popular aspects of the school. Ranging from volleyball, to soccer, to tennis, to lacrosse; the campus offers a variety of different sports for students to commit to.
Students not only have the opportunity to attend a campus with smaller class sizes for more engagement and variety of majors, but they can balance it out while making memories playing their favorite sports. With so many sports as well as academics, how do student athletes balance the athletic and academic life?
The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) has three divisions. WPU competes in Division Three. The division three model emphasizes the love of the sport, placing an emphasis on academics by only allowing academic scholarships, not athletic scholarships like Division One and Two schools offer.
According to research, most student athletes practice about four to six days a week accumulating about eight to ten hours of practice time in total. Practice time can start as early as 7:00 a.m or as late as 6:00 p.m.
“The most challenging part of being a student athlete is finding time to breathe,” says WPU volleyball alumni Alyssa Poteat. “Between classes, responsibilities, and practices/games, it can be pretty overwhelming at times. However, I find that setting designated times in my calendar allows me to have some much needed me time during the day”
Athletes are required to have a certain G.P.A. ranging from 3.0-4.0, having to sustain it both in and out of season with some athletes having required hours which can range from only one, to four, to ten hours a week.
With these aspects in mind, it’s not a surprise that there is a lot of pressure put on the student athletes. Students not only have to worry about their physical health, but also need to make time for mental health
“I’ve been saying for a long time that mental health needs to be just as much of a priority as physical health for a lot of athletes,” says WPU volleyball alumni Ashley Wyrick. “I don’t think it’s something our school or just society as a whole does a good job of emphasizing.”
Students and faculty are making an effort on campus to make sure that there are better strategies to help the student-athlete experience as well as having the rules of the NCAA met by the school’s coaches.
“I love this school, I love the people that I’ve met,” says Wyrick. “I made the right choice for myself and for my future. But I think the only way to make other people’s experiences better is to speak up on the experiences that we’ve had.”
There have been notable issues among student athletes as well as the student body in general to improve the quality of the athletic program on campus. But even with this, the school should succeed in their athletic program with many of the athletes attaining high GPAs, achieving academic awards, and doing well in their respective sports.
One of the recent accomplishments was WPU’s men’s soccer team earning a spot in the NCAA Division III Tournament. This achievement was the team’s first in history, setting a new standard for pacer athletics. Things like this make the overall Peace athlete experience even more memorable.
“Being at a small campus like WPU allowed me to become immersed in other things on campus, which is way more and better than what my initial expectations were,” said WPU baseball alumni Nick Tyler. ““If anyone has the opportunity to be a college athlete, do it. You will gain so much experience and so many extremely valuable memories, no matter what your next steps are after school.”
Photo by Isaiah Grady