PMP25: Student Life For Athletes
Here's exactly how dumb I am.
I started writing this article, the last of the set of questions from last year's fundraiser (at least I think it's the last - if your question hasn't been answered, contact me) and as I'm writing it, I start to get this "didn't I already do this?" feeling. I can feel the realization working its way through the cobwebs in my brain until it hits me: I did the interview for this article. I just never wrote the article.
This was going to be the next PMP question answered in early August last year. I set up an interview with a player the very first day of fall camp. You'll hear that interview below (with Collin Dixon). And then I wrote about practice that afternoon, started laying out the football preview, and completely forgot about it until this morning.
I guess when I said "sorry I'm just now getting to these PMP questions - once the season starts, I flip into this different mode that doesn't flip back until April", I mean it. I COMPLETELY forgot I had this interview just sitting on my phone. I mean, I didn't even remember it was there when I got to the question on the list and started writing the article. I had to start before my brain finally said "hey dummy, before you went into Season Mode, you did an interview for this."
You don't care about any of this. Let's get to it. First the question, then the interview, then some thoughts.
Having lived with UI FB players I often finding myself wondering what the "student" side of FB/MBB/Golf/WBB/VB players is these days. I don't only mean academics but all the rest of being 18-23 at a B1G university. I truly enjoyed all the possibilities (some better left unmentioned) that living in CU in the early '70s provided. Did you ever go the recitals at Smith Hall for instance? Fabulous music and concerts for free. The FB players I lived with had relatively normal lives. Went to class, graduated, had girlfriends, were at the house by 7-8pm even in season, etc. You seem to have connections with the players. Has being a "student", in all that means, disappeared for players in the revenue/major sports in the House/NIL era? Seems the pressure to be a full-time athlete must be intense. just wondering.
~John
I took that question directly to wide receiver Collin Dixon in this interview (an interview 291 days ago). I'll play you the entire interview now and then give my thoughts. And really, the first 45 seconds here answer John's question completely (whether student life is the same for athletes now as it used to be): for his redshirt sophomore season, he's living off campus by himself.
Two quick notes:
- We went outside the facility to do this interview (to get away from all of the other interviews during this media breakout) and I still couldn't escape background noise. I kinda wish I had video of it all, especially my face, because the managers pulling the carts up and unloading stuff right next to us – it was clear this was an interview being recorded – made me long for the days of the fully aware student managers back in 2013. When those kids started tossing the mats on the floor right next to us, I was losing it internally.
- They also backed the golf carts right behind Dixon (twice) during the interview as part of a three point turnaround to head back out to the field. As a St. Louis Cardinals fan from 1985, all I could think about was Vince Coleman and the tarp. Collin wasn't really in danger of getting hit, but I had him move twice just in case.
Here's my big takeaway from that interview. And I'll combine it with another story.
During the basketball season, I was driving home one day and I saw Ben Humrichous crossing the street to a coffeeshop near my house. I'm not far from campus, but I'm not on campus. This was clearly a "walk to the local coffeeshop" trip. I know that Ben is in a different life phase (he married former WBB player Adalia McKenzie in December), so it makes sense for him to be off campus walking to get coffee, but it still speaks to John's question here. Student life is just different now. At least it's a lot different from when a few football players were near me in Forbes Hall back in 1991. (RIP Forbes Hall.)
And I think we know that from – yes, I'll say it – the complete lack of a single story of a single athlete getting anywhere close to getting in trouble? It is, I believe, very business-like now. Losing a scholarship with some off-campus incident comes with much more risk now. In 2008 I'm pretty sure there was a football player in a fight at a bar every month, and now that stuff is seemingly nonexistent.
I think a lot of that comes from what Collin talks about there. Yes, he's in class and yes, he's a successful student (Academic All Big Ten as a marketing major), but he also lives off campus by himself and clearly enjoys downtime with no one else around. The "fraternity" he enjoys (his term) is the camaraderie with other players around the facility.
But it should be noted that those facility interactions, at least how he described them, are much closer to an office environment than a 1970's student athlete. Here was the beginning of his answer about a typical day:
"I get in the building in the morning, probably around 5:30 or 6:00. I'll do any modalities needs – ice tub, hot tub, stretch – and then you go through your morning routine of practice and meetings."
I don't know that football players you lived with in the early 70's, John, but I'm pretty sure they didn't get to the facility at 5:30 to take care of any "modalities needs." And I think that does tell the full story here.
No, it's nothing like it used to be. Not when you were in school in the 70's, not when I was in school in the 90's. Yes, the freshmen still live in the dorms (Bousfield Hall is on the corner of 1st Street and Gregory Drive on the southwest corner of the Six Pack so within walking distance of the facility), but after that, a lot of them head off campus (with some, yes, buying houses and condos). What was 12 players living in a single house in 2012 (and sometimes getting into trouble) just seemingly isn't a thing anymore.
But hey, that gets them a degree from Illinois. So maybe someday, thirty years in the future, they'll do an interview with someone and then forget they have it recorded on their phone for 291 days. Go Illini.
Comments ()