Senior Dylan Cottrell, a two-time NCAA qualifier who now competes at 165 pounds for the Mountaineers, will give fans an inside look at his final semester as a student-athlete in his blog. In the second edition of Short Time, he talks about the benefits and challenges of life as a student-athlete in two-semester sport.
There are so many benefits to being a student-athlete, from tutors to early registration for classes. As a student-athlete, you are held to a higher standard than a typical student. These benefits are in place to help you achieve that level and represent the University in a positive light at all times.
Time management is a challenge for any student, and adding two practices a day and a lift onto a 15- or 18-hour semester of classes can be grueling and overwhelming. I feel like over time, I personally adapted to this, like many other student-athletes do. The hardest part is getting through that first semester because it’s the unknown - you don’t know anything about your day-to-day schedules and are just going and learning on the fly. That can make or break a young student-athlete.
I’m doing an internship this semester but for the past few years, a normal day consisted of waking up at 7 a.m. for an early practice at 8 a.m. directly followed by a 9 a.m. lift. Next was class from 10:30 a.m. -12:30 p.m., then back to the second practice of the day at 1 p.m. followed by treatment/ice baths/therapy until 2 p.m. The last part of the day is a combination of either night class or study hall hours from about 2:30 p.m. until 7 or 8 p.m., depending on the day. The rest of the day was getting home, relaxing and studying from about 9 p.m. to 11 p.m., then off to bed to repeat everything the next day.
Balancing school work on the road trips is extremely important and also difficult - even more so in our sport of wrestling. I say this because we spend half out time on trips working out and managing weight. After that, it can be hard to find the drive to do the work you are missing instead of recovering or taking a quick nap before the next practice. But, as I said earlier, you learn to prioritize and plan ahead over time. One thing that I learned was to get ahead on my work before trips. That way, I didn’t have to worry about anything on the road. I found that this helped me compete at a higher level and appreciate the sport a lot more because I was able to enjoy myself on the longer road trips.
As a two-semester sport, the wrestling season is really long and grueling. It can be tough to stay focused at all times. Injuries are incredibly hard to overcome in such a long season. I personally went through that for the first time this year. The season is tough on your body and injuries can snowball, so you have to really take care of your body early in the season. That way, you can try to be as healthy as you possibly can at the end of the year for the postseason.
As I said before, maintaining weight can be hard. Your body is constantly telling you it wants more, and having to limit your portions while getting the nutrients you need can be a challenge and can hinder your focus on academics. Luckily, we have a great team dietitian in Nettie Freshour. We can go to her and get a nutrition plan to be able to make weight and continue to eat and drink what we want. It’s another great benefits that we’re offered as student-athletes.
