Collegiate Times

Athletes in today's world make the news for two things: They're good or they're in court.

Rarely does one discover through the likes of major news networks that athletes such as Chuck Liddell have degrees in accounting and are Certified Public Accountants, or that legends like Lou Geherig had Ivy League educations.

While the term "jock" is associated with prowess of the athletic kind, it is rarely associated with prowess of the mind.

Virginia Tech's women's basketball guard, senior Laura Haskins, is pursuing her MBA and is a seven-time member of the dean's list.

"I'm sure people have the perception sometimes of athletes being slackers," Haskins said.

"You might have one or two that don't take school seriously, but I don't think it's any different from regular students," she said. "You have your good students and the ones that don't care."

Every season, the Atlantic Coast Conference picks the best of those who care and names them to the ACC-All Academic team.

In her four-year basketball career, Haskins was named to the team every year she played. Most recently, she was honored for the fourth time in March and was the recipient of the inaugural Kay Yow Award - named for the late North Carolina State women's basketball coach.

"It's a tremendous honor," Haskins said. "I was really excited to get it, and it was definitely a surprise, but I'm just very appreciative of Kay Yow. She was a great lady and meant a lot to women's basketball."

Being recognized four times on an academic level and playing competitively in the Atlantic Coast Conference, a conference that includes prestigious universities all around, isn't easy.

"You've just got to remember what you're here for," Haskins said. "It's hard - it really is."

"I think when you're looking from the outside in, you don't really realize everything that an athlete has to do," she said. "It's not just practice - it's the film sessions, the weightlifting and travel. It's difficult."

Sometimes, it's so difficult for student athletes that they just can't do what they want to.

For Brent Bowden, Tech's starting punter on the football team - his original choice of major, architecture, didn't work out because of his rigorous schedule.  

"They have a four-hour studio three times a week, and they were during practice times so I didn't have the time necessary," Bowden said.

Despite switching majors to interdisciplinary studies, Bowden earned All-ACC Academic honors this year and maintains a GPA above 3.0, which has landed him a spot on the ACC Honor Roll on two occasions.

While catching up and participating in both athletic and academic activities, Bowden said free time is hard to find.

"Usually if I get any free time, it's maybe for an hour or two, or it might just be three or four hours a day at most," he said.

Yet, extreme time constraints and heavy workloads are something student athletes get used to right when they arrive on campus.

Senior Tasmin Fanning, Tech's standout distance runner, finished third this year in the NCAA Cross County Championships.

While recording the highest finish ever for a Virginia Tech male or female runner in the championships, she was also working hard on her degree in human nutrition, foods and exercise.

Fanning, who was named the U.S. Track and Field and Cross County Coaches Association's Division I scholar-athlete of the year earlier this month, sees the job of a student athlete as a 50-50 balance.

"In high school, academics is weighted a whole lot more," Fanning said. "But when you come to college, I think it becomes more of a business deal."

In other words, for student athletes like Fanning, Bowden and Haskins, schoolwork goes hand-in-hand with practice.

"You're forced to develop time management skills, which are essential in getting through college in general," Fanning said.

"But, they're refined with the fact that OK - I have to go to practice, and practice is going to take this much time in the morning, this much time in the afternoon, and I'm going to be gone all weekend," she said. "You really have to figure it out."

Around campus, Tech athletes have the opportunity to get help in the process of "figuring it out."

Special academic advising and one-on-one tutoring are available to student athletes at Tech whenever they need it.

Bowden said these services help a lot.

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