Tyson Hinz and the Carleton Ravens men’s basketball team practice five days a week, and regularly have games on Fridays and Saturdays. On top of this, Hinz said he spends about three hours a day practicing on his own.
It’s this kind of lifestyle that gives athletes common ground, said Devan Bruce, a second-year criminology student who was a member of the men’s soccer team last year.
Bruce said he often spends time with players on the men’s basketball team.
“I know they work just as hard as we do [. . . it’s] just the same lifestyle,” he said.
This just adds another dimension to the life of “regular” students, who are balancing work, academics, and their social lives, said Bob Rumscheidt, Carleton’s manager of interuniversity sport programs.
And with this added dimension, coping methods are a must for varsity athletes. An important tool in juggling these responsibilities is having a strong support system. Often in team sports, a player’s teammates become like a second family.
“With the hockey team, we’ve got 20 guys,” said Ravens men’s hockey team captain Brandon MacLean. “[So it] helps to have someone like a big brother here.”
When this isn’t enough, forging friendships with athletes in different sports can make a difference.
“You know there are going to be other athletes in your classes, so if, on a weekend, you have games or something and it’s tough to get in some studying, you know there’s probably some other athlete in your class who doesn’t have such a heavy weekend,” said Ravens men’s soccer player Peter Manginas. “You support each other and help each other that way.”
Some athletes find the pressure difficult to manage, and some might leave their sport to focus on academics.
Bruce said he had to take a year off from the men’s soccer team to focus on his academics, but is hoping to rejoin them next year.
“It was a really big learning curve for me,” he said. “I really didn’t appreciate the mentality of student athlete . . . you’re a student first.”
Yet having fellow athletes who understood this also helped him tremendously, he said.
“Knowing that they’re working to help you get back to your goal, so that you can play with them again next year [really helps],” he said.
There are certain opportunities which athletes can take advantage of to build these relationships. One of these is having common facilities, according to Ravens women’s soccer goaltender Rachel Bedek.
“We all go into athletic therapy if we have problems or injuries to get worked on, so it’s so easy to strike up conversations with other girls and other people who are on other varsity teams,” Bedek said. “It’s so easy to get a conversation going about how their sport’s doing, when their big game days are and what they’re going through.”
At the same time, facilities can also get in the way of these inter-team friendships.
“We’re just not over on that side [of the athletics complex] as much so that might make it a little more difficult in terms of seeing people on a regular basis during the school year,” MacLean said, speaking of juggling friendships and his time at the rink.
With different sports, there’s also the necessity of working around different schedules to see a fellow athlete.
“When we’re in season, everyone else is off-season,” Manginas said about the rigours of the soccer program. “And when we’re off-season, because [the soccer season] is so short, everyone else is in-season.”
This is part of the reason why Carleton’s department of recreation and athletics shies away from organizing events.
“The nature of all the teams’ different schedules and everything makes it difficult . . . to have them all attend,” Rumscheidt said. “The benefits probably wouldn’t be huge if we tried to formally do something.”
This isn’t to say that athletes don’t look for their own ways of spending time together.
Athletes get to know each other through the summer coaching camps Carleton puts on, said Carleton Ravens men’s basketball player Elliott Thompson.
“I always go golfing during the summer with a few of the hockey guys and we see each other every once in a while,” he added.
This year especially, varsity teams are also making more of an effort to support each other and attend each others’ games, Bedek said.
They also play a role in organizing social events themselves. Carleton’s awards banquet, which Manginas organized last year, seems to foster a closer bond between athletes.
“I think it’s great that, at the end of the year, we’re all able to come together and celebrate each other’s achievements,” Bedek said.
“It starts advancing our varsity sports system as a whole,” she added. “So as a community it’s great.”
