While attending college provides the opportunity to grow and begin your career. It is a time to explore yourself, and see what you really would like to do, become engaged in their community and make a difference. They are able to join clubs or even NCAA sports. NCAA Division III sports allows students to participate in multiple sports and at Cabrini University students are encouraged to be involved as much possible. Here at Cabrini there are several students who are full time and participate in two sports that they are passionate about.
Deqwan Phillips is a junior criminology, sociology, and chemistry major who not only plays club lacrosse, but club roller hockey as well here at Cabrini. Phillips started lacrosse at the age of eight after moving to a better neighborhood where a lot of kids were playing it.
“Since I was playing a lot of sports at the time they figured why not try this and as soon as I tried it I liked it and that was it,” Phillips said.
Phillips enjoyed lacrosse, but once he started high school his friends convinced him to try out a new sport. With it working with his schedule he started hockey his freshman year. He played both ice and roller hockey and was awarded league honors in both.
“School work always comes first so get that done as soon as you can,” Phillips said when balancing both sports and school.
While he is unsure of what he would do having a game for both lacrosse and roller hockey, he does believe that having all of the school work, practices, and games helped him become more organized.
“It gives me somewhere else to go besides doing school work all of the time so I don’t feel like I’m trapped here always working,” Phillips said.
Jess Breuning, a senior graphic design major who plays lacrosse and soccer. She began lacrosse at the age of 10 and soccer at the age of six. Soccer she began mainly because her mom suggested it and her grade school offered it at such a young age. Her older brother also played soccer.
“When he started I had to start,” Breuning said. “I always wanted to do what he was doing.”
Lacrosse was another sport that Breuning was interested in, but this time it was an older cousin that influenced her. While she didn’t actually play on a team until high school, she frequently played with her cousin. To this day, Breuning can’t decide which sport is her favorite.
“People always ask me this question and honestly I don’t know. I could never, if someone asked me to pick one I don’t think I could do it, like I just wanted to play one sport in college and I couldn’t pick,” Breuning said.
Her passion for both sports drives her to succeed in both. She has always played soccer year round being in clubs and her school team, while with lacrosse she has only played during the season. Balancing both sports and a full course load, she also has a job at Cabrini’s Dixon Center.
“I’ve been doing this since grade school juggling multiple sports, homework, school it kind of just comes natural, it’s just like okay I have to do this,” Breuning said.
While students who aren’t involved in sports deal with conflicts getting assignments with the same due date in, athletes also have to tackle having the two sports they play interfere with each other. For Breuning, she finds that most common with soccer games running into lacrosse practices. Where some would think that coaches would be upset that they are missing it, appears different for Jess.
“They love when their athletes play two sports because then you are always in shape,” Breuning said.
Jess has been juggling multiple sports and school for so long she thinks that it has become natural. She believes that taking on multiple sports while in school has helped her become the student she is.
“When you have less time you are more organized to get things done quicker, when you have to much time you’re more likely to lay around and do nothing and then procrastinate,” Breuning said.
Brittany Runyen is a junior secondary education English major who plays soccer and basketball. When Brittany was only three years old she began to follow in her two older sisters footsteps and only a year later she started basketball. Her sisters were in a recreational league and once she was old enough her parents put her in and she loved it.
“I think it is pretty equal, but I think I do like soccer more than basketball because I played it longer and played it more. I have spent more time with soccer between travel teams and club teams and I kind of made it my primary sport,” Runyen said.
While soccer she has the ability to enjoy year round, basketball only seems as though it is because the season is so long. This can cause conflict, for example as the soccer season is winding down and the focus is on the playoffs, Runyen also has to get her mind ready on entering into a fresh season of basketball. Sometimes it was difficult for her to manage both but has understanding coaches.
“There were a couple time my junior year of high school I had a couple (soccer) tournaments during basketball season technically, they were on the weekends so when we had weekend practices, I had to miss them and my coach was sometimes a little bit upset about it,” Runyen said. “But at the same time those tournaments were going to help me to get into college for soccer so I kind of had to at that point always choose one. Otherwise I was always dedicated to soccer if it’s soccer season and if it’s basketball season I’m at basketball.”
Runyen believes that being involved in these sports has helped her with time management. She makes a game plan for the day knowing if she has a game or practice or even a project due. While this can make for some long late nights she knows that it is all worth it. While she is able to accomplish everything she needs to get done, sometimes she feels as though she burns herself out.
“My biggest issue is that I spread myself too thin. I get involved in so much because other than sports, I get involved in clubs and activities. I get to a point where I am so tired from a practice and I have that paper that I said I was going to do. Sometimes I think that I am invincible but I’m not,” Runyen said.
Taking part in activities, classes, clubs, jobs, and sports, athletes at Cabrini try to absorb as much as they can while in school. To all the Cabrini students that are afraid that they can’t do it all, let these students be the motivation for yourself.
“Being an education major, I am going to working with teenagers and older kids and I think that the problem nowadays is that so many of them feel like they need to quit every sport that they play and get good at just one thing but that’s not true at all,” Runyen said. “Being a basketball player has made me a better soccer player and being a soccer player has made me a better basketball player. If there’s ever advice I could give to anybody that wants to do this, it’s to just do it because it is doable and it’s the best decision I have ever made and I would never ever change it, no matter how tired I get.” Runyen said
