Editor’s note: This is the first in a three-part series exploring the balance Ohio student-athletes strike between their academics, athletics and extracurricular activities.
Put a whiteboard in a college dorm room and what will most likely grace its surface are inside jokes from nightlife escapades or drawings too graphic for newsprint.
The whiteboards that hang in Alexis Milesky and Kinsey Swartztrauber’s room are used for their intended purposes, however, as a series of to-do lists and sticky notes squeeze into their margins.
“As soon as I think of something that has to be done, it’s on the whiteboard,” said Swartztrauber, a freshman studying high school science education.
She and Milesky, a pair of soccer players finishing their freshman year, are not exactly your average students at Ohio University, though. They are just two of the hundreds of student-athletes who navigate balancing an academic lifestyle while representing their school on the field.
Although student-athlete life sometimes appears to occur solely on the field or the weight room, time spent in and around the classroom competes for a student’s attention. As soon as the season concludes at the end of the fall, the off-season starts and student-athletes’ balancing acts continue.
“Personally, the off-season during the week is more strenuous than it is during the season,” said Milesky, a freshman studying biology.
Milseky’s off-season days, which typically begin well before 7:30 a.m., consist of her attending class for three to five hours, depending on the day. From there, a meal and homework session last until a 3 p.m. practice. Team drills, scrimmages and lifting comprise the bulk of their practice, which lasts until 7 p.m., but there is no room for rest after play ends.
Milesky, a nursing student from Plain City, Ohio, takes several chemistry and biology courses that require her to go to supplemental instruction and peer-led tutoring at night after practice.
Some nights after these sessions, she’ll head to Ping Center to run sprints. In what seems like a never-ending day, Milesky believes that she is being adequately compensated for the work she puts in.
“(OU is) paying for my college, so it’s like a job,” Milesky said. “(Coach Aaron Rodgers) tells us it goes religion, family, school and soccer. If there’s not time for anything else, then these are what I have to focus on.”
In an exhausting day overrun with a schedule that would seemingly topple if anything were to break routine, Milesky often hears the voice in her head as she lies in bed in the morning. It’s a voice that begs her to stay and sleep and forget the responsibilities she has. She silences the voice every morning, no matter the temptation.
“(Coach) Aaron said, ‘No one ever said it was going to be easy to be a student-athlete, you chose this for yourself. So whether it takes five years to get your education done, so be it. You’re here for an education but also here to play soccer. And if people don’t understand that, you have to work around it.’”
Milesky credits the support staff of her coaches and fellow players to get her through the daily grind. Fitted in her schedule is a daily chat with her parents — her original support staff — which is the only event that fails to make the pages of her planner.
“I talk to my parents each day,” Milesky said. “That is in the schedule. My mom is the one who will say, ‘You know, Alexis, just keeping working, and in the end it’ll be worth it.’ ”
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