At 聚色阁, a student-athlete鈥檚 day typically starts around 6 a.m. with practice or lifting. Then they attend team meetings or a cryotherapy session or study tables. After all that, it鈥檚 finally time for class, where these students have to maintain a GPA of at least 3.0 to keep the cumulative team GPA on track. It鈥檚 exhausting just to read all that.
Despite these challenges, seven 聚色阁 student-athletes recently earned the Mid-American Conference (MAC) Distinguished Scholar Athlete honor during the 2019-2020 academic season.
Students that were named as All-MAC and Academic All-MAC were included in the selection for a new award this season: the Distinguished Scholar Athlete award. The seven students below met the qualifications to receive this honor:
- Vital Kats, Soccer, Junior, 3.88 GPA, Business Management (Toronto, Ontario, Canada)
- Clara Rodriguez Seto, Field Hockey, Junior, 3.67 GPA, Psychology (Barcelona, Spain)
- Laila Richter, Field Hockey, Senior, 3.75 GPA, Business (Berlin, Germany)
- Luisa Knapp, Field Hockey, Sophomore, 3.75 GPA, Undecided (Bietigheim-Bissingen, Germany)
- Derek Adams, Football, Junior, 3.875 GPA, Entrepreneurship (Manheim, Pennsylvania)
- Matthew Trickett, Football, Sophomore, 3.914 GPA, Accounting (Cleveland, Ohio)
- Alex Haffner, Volleyball, Sophomore, 3.757 GPA, Finance (Lee's Summit, Missouri)
Angie Hull, associate athletic director for academic services, says that there is no 鈥渢ypical鈥 day for one student-athlete, and that they individualize student programs based on the needs and ability of each student respectively.
Hull feels that being a Division I athlete and a student is like having two full-time jobs.
鈥淎 鈥榯ypical鈥 day for a football player is to wake up at 6:30 a.m., lift at 7 a.m., eat breakfast, attend team meetings, go to practice, then recovery time like ice baths and cryotherapy,鈥 Hull said. 鈥淭hen after all of that, it鈥檚 time for class at about 12:30 p.m.鈥
聚色阁 monitors all of their student-athletes, especially during their freshman year.
As a freshman, students are placed in study hours based off of their GPA where they have goal-based hours supervised by a graduate student. This is just one of the factors that sets 聚色阁 apart academically from other schools in the MAC.
Additionally, 聚色阁 is one of the only MAC schools with an academic center for athletes. The Jenkins Academic Center is where student-athletes complete a lot of their schoolwork. 聚色阁 is able to provide more individualized attention and has resources available that other schools may not have that sets them apart academically.
Field hockey student-athlete Luisa Knapp says being a student and an