Over 1,000 new freshmen will caravan onto the UR campus when 9 a.m. rolls around on the morning of Tuesday, Aug. 25, their cars filled with family members and packed with entire closets worth of clothing. While lines of vehicles run down Wilson Boulevard and Intercampus Drive, and as students attempt to maneuver hefty boxes through dorm stairwells and hallways, a select number of individuals will be pushing themselves through intense agility training and hard sprints in Fauver Stadium.
For many varsity athletes, the standard commotion of freshman move-in day is not a part of their college experience.
Each year, roughly 80 new student-athletes get a head start on their UR careers. Members of the traditional fall sports teams—soccer, volleyball, cross country, field hockey, and football—are required to arrive on campus anywhere from two weeks to a few days early to begin their intensive preseason training. These practices—often held at least twice a day—last until the commencement of fall competition schedules.
“It gives us the chance to adjust to sports first and then school second,” women’s soccer midfielder and forward and junior Jean Chakmakas said. “It’s nice to not just be thrown into everything at the same time.”
Even before Chakmakas arrived on campus her freshman year, she was, like athletes in many other sports, instructed to follow a strict summer regimen.
“I was so motivated to train before freshman year,” she said. “You’re scared coming in because it’s so new and you don’t know what to expect.”
Summer workouts can include anything from tri-weekly lifting routines to timed miles to sprinting, and are designed to ensure that athletes come to preseason already in shape and prepared to train. The early stages of the season are also used to gage the skill sets of rookie athletes.
Prior to the start of her first UR preseason, women’s volleyball captain and senior Ashley Hunter said that she worried she wouldn’t be able to compete with her older, more experienced teammates.
“I didn’t expect to be accepted because I was a freshman, the lowest person on the totem pole,” Hunter said. “But being on volleyball, this was not the situation at all.”
Although training schedules are designed to be demanding, a key part of the preseason experience is team bonding. Without acting as a cohesive unit, it is difficult for a team to be successful.
“It’s really a true training camp where you eat meals together, you do training together, hang out in the dorms together,” men’s varsity soccer coach Chris Apple said. “It’s a great opportunity to develop the team unity that you want.”
Each team has its own unique way of creating a comfortable environment and promoting camaraderie among its players. Apple said that on the men’s soccer team, each freshman is paired with an upperclassmen mentor who shares some sort of commonality outside of sports—be it a major, an interest or a hometown. In addition to one-on-one meetings that younger players have with the coaching staff, these mentors also check in regularly to make sure that they’re doing well on and off the field.
The field hockey and women’s soccer teams give the same type of attention to their new athletes, through sessions with a sports psychologist and similar “buddy” programs.
“Coming in and having such a great group of girls to look up to, just the quick conversations with them really meant a lot to me,” Chakmakas said of her more senior teammates. “It would be nice for me to do the same [for the new freshmen].”
The idea behind developing these relationships is to create a team environment that is both supportive and competitive in the earliest stages of the season.
“When the guys are going against each other, they’re constantly competing and pushing each other to be stronger,” Apple said of his team dynamics. “But they’re also collaborating and encouraging each other to work together to be successful.”
“One of the nice things about being an athlete is that you always have something in common with the people around you,” rookie field hockey midfielder and freshman Lauren Sharpe said. “It’s hard work but it provides really good structure, and it’s a lot of fun along the way.”
As a new player and a new student, Sharpe said that although she loves the bonds she has already created with her team, she is also excited to become oriented with the greater student body.
“It’ll be interesting to see who all [my freshmen teammates] become friends with,” she said. “We all have sports, but we have other interests as well.”
Douglas is a member of the class of 2017.
