The Daily Tar Heel
Printing news. Raising hell. Since 1893.
Thursday, March 28, 2024 Newsletters Latest print issue

We keep you informed.

Help us keep going. Donate Today.
The Daily Tar Heel

No days off for UNC student-athletes

The women's field hockey team finishes up a difficult practice on Wednesday afternoon, Oct. 7. Senior Emily Wold (9) and junior Caroline Plyler (12) stretch together at the completion of the team's session.
The women's field hockey team finishes up a difficult practice on Wednesday afternoon, Oct. 7. Senior Emily Wold (9) and junior Caroline Plyler (12) stretch together at the completion of the team's session.

Seventy-five years later, he is North Carolina’s oldest living basketball alumnus, but then, he was just another student-athlete starting his day.

Like his modern-day companions, Gersten went to class in the morning, followed by practice in the afternoon. Unlike many student-athletes today, though, Gersten fit more into his schedule aside from athletics.

He was the president of the Monogram Club, involved in the student honor council, played fall baseball and helped his parents run a camp during the summer.

“There’s more to being in a college life than just athletics,” Gersten said. “But unfortunately, I think athletics takes up too much time now.”

Fast-forward

Shakeel Rashad gets up for his 8 a.m. class just like Gersten. But the UNC senior linebacker’s schedule is regimented down to the minute.

After class, he snags breakfast at Kenan Stadium, works on his online class for an hour and watches film for an hour and 15 minutes before heading to the weight room. From 12:45 p.m. to 1:30 p.m., he works out, then goes to get taped for practice before team meetings start at 2:10 p.m.

Several different meetings run until 3:40 p.m. Then he has 25 minutes to get dressed and head to practice at 4:05 p.m. Around 6:30 p.m. — maybe longer if he has to do interviews with reporters — he can finally go home to finish homework and perhaps unwind with some Netflix.

Rashad is underloading this semester, as it’s his final one at UNC, so he has less time devoted to classes. But he admits when he first arrived at UNC, the time demands of being a student-athlete nearly swamped him.

“From January up until the end of that next season, I felt so overwhelmed,” Rashad said. “I felt like I was always behind on everything.”

The NCAA limits athletes to only four hours per day or 20 hours a week of official practices in season and eight total hours a week during the offseason. But in a 2011 NCAA survey, Division I athletes regularly reported spending between 30 and 40 hours per week on athletic activities.

Higher-profile sports like baseball, men’s basketball and football averaged about 40 hours per week, while women’s basketball reported an average of 37 hours per week.

This discrepancy comes from voluntary activities, such as weight-lifting, training room activities, travel and other sport-related activities initiated by student-athletes instead of coaches. Especially out of season, teams still hold weight-lifting and film sessions that, while not mandatory per se, players are still expected to attend.

The time commitment for students doesn’t relax during the offseason, either.

That same survey reported a majority of athletes spent as much time on athletics out of season as they did in season, including more than 75 percent of baseball players and about 70 percent of football and men’s basketball players.

During the spring, Rashad had classes, meals and film every day from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m., then alternated days of either weight-lifting or practice with more meetings and film.

“There were really no days off,” Rashad said.

Balancing act

The same NCAA survey also reported students’ spending 30 to 40 hours each week on academics.

Between that and athletics, many students don’t have time for other student organizations.

To get the day's news and headlines in your inbox each morning, sign up for our email newsletters.

“I feel like I don’t participate in a lot of different events,” senior field hockey player Emily Wold said.

“When I have a little bit of time, I typically want to spend it on myself.”

The growing amount of time demanded from student-athletes is one of the shifts UNC Director of Athletics Bubba Cunningham has noticed in the past 30 years. Athletes today have a harder time than Gersten did doing much else outside their respective sports.

Cunningham noted media growth and the flood of money pouring into college athletics as factors in why time demands on athletes have grown.

Sports like college football and college basketball have shot up in popularity and now compete with professional leagues like the NFL and NBA for viewership. The pressure leads coaches and athletic departments to demand more from players.

The growth of social media has also created a different environment for student-athletes. With constant connection to people and information in their pockets accessible at a moment’s notice, student-athletes face more time demands than ever before.

“I do think that it’s much easier now to get overextended, because opportunities have continued to grow for kids to be involved on campus,” former UNC basketball player Eric Montross said.

“There’s never a time when the phone stops receiving alerts or that you ever really can slow it down.”

But some student-athletes do manage to find time for things outside of athletics and academics.

Senior Houston Summers successfully ran for student body president in 2015 and also throws javelin for the UNC track and field team, while senior fencer Jake Bernstein balances fencing with CommuniGift.com, a charitable project he helped design to help poorer families find gifts during the holidays.

“Right now, looking back to when I was a student-athlete and not involved in student government, I wonder what I did with all of my time,” Summers said.

The year is no longer 1940. Student-athletes involved in major activities outside their sports like Gersten and Summers are the exception rather than the norm.

Some are beginning to push back against the increased time demands placed upon student-athletes. Former UNC football player Devon Ramsay and former women’s basketball player Rashanda McCants have filed a lawsuit against the University, claiming they were deprived of a meaningful education.

@loganulrich

sports@dailytarheel.com