Silvio Tanasoiu, Head Coach of Men’s Tennis at Cornell, led a discussion around a subject matter that was atypical when compared to previous ones on the life of a student athlete. Granted, I will not be experiencing such a life in the foreseeable future but it is interesting to see how students balance their workloads, both academic and extracurricular, in this case being sports. Athletics is an important part of our lives and I hold great admiration for those who pursue such a path, particularly during college, because of how difficult and time-consuming it can be. Coach Tanasoiu didn’t mince words when he said that the schedule of a student athlete is incredibly packed and full. Time management, as one would imagine, is very crucial to a student athlete because he or she must be able to fulfill academic commitments and still perform at the highest level in the sports they are involved in. The US’ system of collegiate athletics is quite unique in that it allows athletes to have access to higher education and not really derail them from the path to competitive sports. This of course, as mentioned before, has the disadvantage of having very rigorous schedules and regimes to fully harness the potential of those individuals, but I would imagine the payoff is immense.

The support structure and the interest the coaching staff and athletic department take into the lives of each student athlete is remarkable and says a lot about the dedication and passion individuals have working in that industry. Coach Tanasoiu remarked how difficult it is to recruit top class talent to become student athletes and why wouldn’t he? Aside from misconceptions from foreigners about getting education precluding development into a professional athlete, it is an immense amount of time and effort one has to put into to balance both academics and athletics. Thus it becomes very hard to convince athletes to go through college athletics, a field that is already very competitive in recruiting, so it is fascinating the lengths Coach Tanasoiu goes to in order to recruit those athletes. In one of the stories he was tellings us about athletes he recruited, he went through the effort of writing a letter in Russian to a player’s mother, who incidentally was quite supportive and key in the development of her child becoming a world class tennis player. His mother typically was never included in the conversation of recruiting her son because she didn’t speak English, unlike her husband and child. Thus, when Coach Tanasoiu went above and beyond, unlike recruiters from fellow Ivy Leagues, the player accepted because of his mother’s approval. It is small things like this that makes me appreciate the dedication of Coach Tanasoiu. This guy gets student athletes at the very core: their struggles, hardships and the need for support.

Developing student athletes takes effort from both the player and the coach. It is taxing, tiring oneself out from playing a physically strenuous match, traveling 10 hours back to campus and also completing very complicated homework and questions. However, handwork and inspiration allows these individuals to flourish, picking up key skills that allow them succeed in life because of whatever they have learned and experienced in time management, athletics and academics. It has been a pleasure listening to Coach Tanasoiu and allowing me to view an unadulterated view of student athletics. If you had a chance, would you become a student athlete?