For Allycia Santa-Cruz, a junior on Queens College’s Women’s Tennis team, her commute is the first challenge as a college athlete and can be described in one word: terrible. “I take the Q88 from the terminal, and it doesn’t matter what time I take it at, there’s always a long line. On freezing days, it’s even better. While it should take 30-40 minutes, it takes me 1-1.5 hours.”
Being a student athlete requires dedication and commitment to academics as well as athletics. For QC, a commuter school with a student population as diverse as the sports teams it offers — baseball, tennis, softball, volleyball and more — the QC Knights are no stranger to the trials of student athletics.
QC has six men’s teams and eight women’s teams, all of which compete at a division II level. The Knight News has spoken to several student-athletes about their experiences playing for the Knights.
“I came here not being a part of a team,” said Santa-Cruz. “It was my first time playing at a college level which wasn’t easy at first but with my passion for the sport and the support from the coaches there, specifically Leighann Sahagun at QC, it has been a wonderful journey.”
Leylani Muniz, a sophomore on the Women’s Dance team and Softball team, starts her mornings at approximately 5:30am. She takes two buses to get to school, and at 7:00am, she prepares for either dance practice or softball lift until 9:00am. Throughout her day, she takes classes including badminton and soccer. In between classes, she goes to Sports Medicine, a service for QC student-athletes that offers medical assistance including physicians and medical aid for injuries such as ice bags and crutches. From approximately 3:30pm to 6:30pm, she’s in Fitzgerald Gym for softball practice. “I end up getting home around 7:45pm every day.”
“Being a student athlete at QC is truly a blessing,” said Muniz. “This year, I get the privilege of being a dual-sport athlete. Balancing both practice schedules and classes was definitely a little difficult to manage at first but I love and thrive off the support, encouragement and environment of both my teammates and coaches.”
“Being an athlete at QC is a lot of work,” said Lindsey Osterhoudt, a senior on the Women’s Volleyball team. “Between lifts, meetings, practices, games and treatment, I am constantly moving. Yet, it still pays off by just having a community I can rely on when things get hard.”
“It was very easy to be motivated to succeed when you’re putting in so much work. We would have conditioning or longer practices occasionally and I knew that if I was obligated to do it then I would give it my very best effort. Also, the girls around me were always cheering me on,” says Osterhoudt.
Injuries, big or small, are some of the scariest moments for student athletes. For Santa-Cruz, it was spraining her ankle. For Osterhoudt, chronic knee issues.
“In the fall of last year, I was on a bike and got hit by a car,” said Muniz. “I fractured my hip, had a slight tear in the labrum of my hip and had a slip disk in my back. I missed the beginning half of the dance/basketball season and it was really hard to get back into the flow of things. I missed out on a lot of team bonding and learning all the new routines for the season. I felt like I was running a race I was meant to lose.”
When asked about the hardest part of being a student-athlete, several answers came to mind: balance, sacrifice, exhaustion. “No matter how motivating people are around you, no one stops to wait for you if you fall behind – physically and mentally,” said Osterhoudt.
Like all students at QC, athletes face their own set of unique challenges that they must face in order to succeed. However, the hard work eventually pays off.
“I really love playing this sport,” said Santa-Cruz. “Although it has been a long and tough journey, knowing how much I have improved over the past couple of years continually shows me how much I am capable of. With people like my coaches, my closest friends, and my family supporting me through the way has really helped me push through as well.”
