Coaches know what players are facing
Todd Johnson vividly remembers his first season as a studentathlete. “I didn’t do much in the first semester,” the former member of the University of Calgary Dinos men’s hockey team recalls with a chuckle. “At one point, I couldn’t believe it: ‘ How many chapters do I have to read?’ ’’
Johnson made it through that season and four more with the Dinos.
In fact, the Regina product ended up being an Academic All-Canadian twice during his CIS playing career.
Now the head coach of the Regina Cougars men’s hockey team, Johnson regularly reflects on what it takes to be a university student-athlete.
“(Time management) was the biggest thing for me to learn,” he says.
“It’s mostly hockey, unless you have a coach who really stays on you or if you’re fortunate enough to live at home and have your parents push you.
“A lot of it has to come from within or it has to come from other players on the team.”
Coaches at the U of R can’t see the grades of their athletes during semesters, so the one sure way the coaches can keep tabs on their players is to ask them how things are going.
That said, Dave Taylor — the head coach of the Cougars women’s basketball team — says he has heard from professors suggesting players are struggling.
“I have a bit more of a hammer than (the profs) do,” Taylor says.
“I had a case once where I said (to a player), ‘If you keep missing classes or not doing assignments, you won’t be travelling or playing.’ She quickly stopped missing classes.”
Taylor says the possibility of getting scholarships through good marks also can be a strong motivator for student-athletes, who have to juggle schoolwork with the responsibilities required for their chosen sports.
“We demand probably 12 hours a week of them outside of games,” Taylor says of his players.
“Lots of students on campus are full-time students working 15 to 18 hours a week (at jobs). Well, this is (the athletes’) job and they get compensated for it (through scholarships).”
James Hillis, who guides the men’s basketball team, talks with the Cougars’ first-year players to see how they’re doing and also with players who admit they’re struggling. Those having problems who “self-report,” as Hillis calls it, then can be directed to the resources they need to succeed.
Road trips, however, can cause setbacks.
“(The players) have to stay ahead of what’s coming, communicate with profs and get notes from the classes they miss,” says Hillis, who played basketball for the U of R in the 1980s.
“We try to minimize the time away as much as we can. That said, it’s the prairies and it’s winter. Our budget doesn’t allow us to fly to Winnipeg, so we take the bus and when we take the bus, we have to leave the day before.”
Johnson sees his players in their books or on their computers on the road and is confident the Cougars are getting their work completed on time.
He also admits to sitting out players who have faced multiple exams in a week in hopes of helping ease their minds.
“You can see when players are thinking about school when they come to the rink,” Johnson says.
“You can definitely see it during midterms; there’s a difference in their demeanours.”
L ike Johnson, Sarah Hodges played university hockey.
Her time a t Dar t - mouth (where she also competed in track and field) gave her an understanding of being a student-athlete — including the amount of free time one has outside of school and sports.
“You have to make choices other students don’t have to make,” says Hodges, the head coach of the Cougars women’s hockey team.
“You know you don’t have time to go out partying two nights every weekend like some other students may. But there’s time for everything.”
That said, there are times when school takes precedence over athletics.
Taylor says he’s OK with players missing practice if they have responsibilities at school. As we l l , he — like many other coaches — grudgingly has to accept the fact that players are going to be absent because of scheduling issues.
Athletes try to pick classes around their teams’ schedules, but sometimes there are conflicts. Hodges, for example, says her team won’t have any goalies at its Monday practices next semester.
Then again, the coaches are well aware that their charges have dual responsibilities — and the coaches themselves emphasize that.
“I tell kids when I’m recruiting them, ‘You’re not just coming here to play hockey,’ ’’ Hodges says. “They have to put a value on their education.
“The kids do pretty well. At the end of the day, it’s worth it.”
ihamilton@leaderpost.com