For last week’s Becker-Rose Café, Coach Silviu Tanasoiu of Cornell’s Varsity Men’s Tennis Team gave a talk concerning the lives of athletes at an Ivy League university. Not only do these individuals have to balance a workload with respect to their majors, but they also have to wake up at 6:30 in the morning for practice before going to class, followed by another practice and homework. Coach Silviu also highlighted the difficulty of being an Ivy League athlete. In the whole world, there are 48 Ivy League players, meaning that there’s a higher chance that you’d win the lottery than to represent one of the Ivy Leagues. He has also mentioned that there are currently six tennis players competing against each other to represent Cornell.

After talking about the logistics of the Ivy League sports circle, Coach Silviu brought up points that dealt with personal issues, and it was eye-opening to see things from a completely different perspective. When Cornell recruits, Cornell aims to attract the best players and they are often international players. The issue with international players are that they’re often grounded in their decision of playing their sport at the professional level and do not realize the value of an education. In fact, in most countries, many players think that education hinders their progress towards professionalism to some extent, and Coach Silviu reaches out to the player’s entire family to let them know that Cornell is there to enrich their lives with an educational experience as well as offering them an opportunity into one of the most selective sports leagues in the United States.

Since some of these players do not have the academic background and preparation like many of us do, it was refreshing to see that coaches as well as professors (such as Rose House’s Professor Blalock) are there to help these players overcome these deficits. In fact, sports players are not only boggled down by their practice routines, but they have classes and studying to do just like the rest of us. I feel that I’ve come to know a little more about the Cornell community and having a friend who plays varsity baseball at Cornell, I think it’s only now I realize how much tougher school is for him.

Coach Silviu stressed the importance of personal values and it’s great to see that Cornell has such supporting advisors that only wants the best for our students.