Year One: Student-athletes make adjustments in first year of college
Published in The Daily Journal, Friday, Dec. 25, 2009
Marcus Ware is a freshman men's basketball player at Monmouth University. (Ben Watanabe/The Daily Journal)
As Marcus Ware showed a visitor around the Monmouth University campus this week, the informal tour was occasionally interrupted with a wave from a smiling girl or a brief greeting from a classmate.
Every interaction revealed that while Ware had only just finished his first semester, the Vineland High School graduate was already on his way to making himself at home.
“I think I’ve adjusted well,” said Ware, a freshman on the men’s basketball team. “I have a lot of friends here. If you play sports, a lot of people know who you are. First, I got close with my roommates, then my teammates. Then I started meeting new people and building friendships with those people.”
The first year of college requires adjustments for student-athletes, who juggle additional responsibilities to those of average students. First-year student-athletes quickly learn to manage their time, since falling behind in the classroom or on the playing field can mean a hard climb to get back on track.
Ware walks through Woodrow Wilson Hall at Monmouth University.
“I have to fend for myself with a lot of things my dad used to stay on me about at home,” Ware said. “Eating right, studying, waking up to run at 6 a.m. Me and my teammates all lean on each other, because if one person messes up, it can affect the whole team.”
Set in stone
Brooke and Britney Kott were never the type to get nervous before the first day of school. As honors students and standout runners at Millville Senior High School, the Kotts had reason to feel confident when classes began each fall.
Even by their standards, the first day of class at East Carolina University in September was remarkably unremarkable. A four-day preseason camp in the Appalachian Mountains with their cross country teammates in August had given the Kotts a built-in group of almost 30 friends before they attended a single class.
“It felt kind of awkward when we moved in, because I didn’t really know my roommate, even though she was a runner,” Brooke Kott said. “We went to camp, came back and were best friends.”
For many students, arriving at college can be the scariest first day of school ever. But the built-in network of teammates, coaches and advisors eases the social and academic transition for student-athletes.
“Even though you only need about a C average, somewhere around a 2.0, the coaches are always making sure you get good grades,” Britney Kott said. “My coach just texted me last night saying, congratulations on your grades. If you’re doing well, he’s going to notice. And if you’re doing bad, they’re going to get on you about your grades, because we’re representing the school not just in athletics, but academics as well.”
Athletes have a better chance of success in college than the general student population because of the institutional support, said Mickey C. Melendez, an assistant professor in the John Jay College Department of Counseling at The City University of New York.
The challenge is to avoid over-identifying as an athlete, rather than a student, and closing off from other experiences on campus, he said. Melendez called this “identity foreclosure.”
“At the Division I level, when I was working in support of student-athletes, the biggest thing for student-athletes to adjust to was the regimented aspect of their lives,” Melendez said. “From the first moment they step on campus, they are told this is where they live, this is when they eat, these are the classes they take. That brings with it advantages and pitfalls. Oftentimes, how well student-athletes adhere to the regimented aspects of their role is used to determine how dedicated they are and, further down the road, how much playing time they get.”
The regimen may help explain why 79 percent of Division I athletes graduate within six years, according to NCAA data, a far greater rate than the general student population. Various data place the six-year graduation rate of all college students between 54 and 62 percent.
“Even if they have no interest in academics, one thing is keeping them there, and that is a desire to pursue their sport,” Melendez said. “That is a powerful motivation.”
On rare occasions, an athlete is unable to graduate from his original school through no fault of his own.
Being recruited … again
All things considered, Andrew Anastor considered his first semester at Northeastern University a success as the Huskies’ football season neared its end.
Anastor, a Vineland native, did not play a down as he served a redshirt year, and the team won just three games. But as he filed into a team meeting the day after the Huskies concluded the season with a win over Rhode Island on Nov. 21, he felt optimistic about his next four years.
When head coach Rocky Hager began to tell the players this would be his last time addressing them, Anastor wasn’t shaken. Hager posted a .299 winning percentage in six seasons. Everyone figured the administration would relieve Hager of his duties eventually.
Then Peter Roby, the director of athletics, stepped in. That struck Anastor as odd.
“I recommended to the board of trustees that we discontinue football,” Roby said, in Anastor’s recollection.
“We were like, Wow,” Anastor said.
An athlete never imagines he will be making official visits to colleges while enrolled in college, but that day, Anastor set events in motion to do just that. Granted a blanket release from Northeastern that would allow him to transfer and be eligible to play immediately, Anastor fielded offers from Monmouth, Robert Morris, Wagner and Sacred Heart, and made visits to Lafayette and Lehigh.
On those visits, Anastor set the tone by insisting his hosts not introduce him like a typical incoming player.
“Don’t call me a recruit,” he warned. “I did this last year. I’m a transfer. I’m not a recruit. I didn’t want to be called a recruit again. I wasn’t in high school. I’ve done this. I’ve been through a camp. I’ve been through a whole season. I went through just as much as you have.”
After flirting with Lehigh, Anastor plans to enroll at Lafayette in the spring. Yet his first-year story is far from over. It remains to be seen how many of the 18 credits he took to get ahead of his studies at NU will transfer to Lafayette. Since the Patriot League, to which Lafayette belongs, does not offer athletic scholarships, Anastor has to apply for grants to offset the scholarship money he received from NU.
He also hopes to receive four full years of eligibility because he did not play this season. Getting that could be complicated by the fact that the Patriot League does not offer redshirt seasons.
If the transfer goes through as planned, Anastor believes the move could ultimately be a good thing. He was “blown away” by Lafayette’s brand-new facilities and said the coaches project him as at least a three-year, all-league left tackle.
Still, Northeastern was his first choice. No amount of winning or awards can change that.
“I mean, we weren’t that great,” Anastor said. “We weren’t winning football games, but it was a great school. I loved the school, loved the social life, when I had a chance to have a social life outside of football. I was looking forward to playing next year. I really had a chance to start at guard or even tackle. So I was looking forward to getting things turned around.”
Keeping up
The men’s basketball program at Monmouth is in no danger of being cut, but Ware’s first year has had its challenges. In the team’s final scrimmage before the regular season, he suffered a stress fracture in his left foot and missed eight games. He returned against Rutgers, playing four minutes, and scored his first points two games later in a four-point loss to Princeton.
He re-aggravated the injury in practice the next day, and is now shelved until mid-January.
Ware watches his teammates practice in the Monmouth Athletic Center. Ware is unable to play with a stress fracture in his left foot.
While he unable to play, Ware bore down in class. His stepmother, Felicia Harris, cannot help him with his schoolwork like she did when he was in high school, but Ware attended mandatory study halls and worked with tutors supplied by the school this fall.
“My stepmom used to help me when I needed help,” Ware said. “Now I take the initiative on my own to study, get a tutor if I need to, and basically keep my own schedule. I keep a planner so I don’t get caught behind.”
Unlike at Vineland, where any extended absence by Ware would have forced the Fighting Clan to completely reassess their season, the injury barely registered as a blip for the Hawks.
“Here, the team moves on, and it’s on Marcus to jump back on board,” Monmouth coach Dave Calloway said. “As a freshman, he’s way behind. If it’s a sophomore or junior that gets hurt, they’re behind, but they still know what they’re supposed to be doing and they’re in tune with everything that’s going on. He’s still new and doesn’t understand everything, so being hurt really, really set him back in the basketball part of things. But he’ll be OK.”
At practice later that day, Ware sat on the sideline in the palatial new athletic complex as his teammates ran through their 1-2-2 matchup zone defense. With each drill, it became clearer how much Ware is missing on the bench, even though he absorbed as much as he could by watching.
During a water break, sophomore center Phil Wait came over and sat beside Ware. Every player has his first-season saga. Wait’s included playing 11 games at St. John’s before transferring to Monmouth.
The two had a brief, quiet conversation. Wait stood up and gave Ware a reassuring pat on the head before returning to the court. He had been there before. They were all freshmen once.
Benjee
