The sweat is dripping down his back, his chest is on fire, and his lungs feel as though they are going to collapse.  All he can think to himself is, “Was it worth it?” At the end of the day he knows that yes, it was.

Trent Shaw, class of ’11, has an extremely demanding schedule. He wakes up at 8 a.m. and is in class until 12:30-1:00 p.m. After class, he practices on his own for about two hours and then has a team practice that lasts until around 5:30 p.m. That is only for Wednesdays and Fridays. Tuesdays and Thursdays are a little different. It is the same schedule, but from 4:30 to 5:30, there is weight training. During the weekends Shaw has scrimmages.

“Being signed with a D-I or D-II school you definitely have more of an obligation to the sport,” Shaw said. Shaw plays Division I baseball at University of North Carolina, Asheville.

Tuesday through Thursday Allison Siegel, class of ’11, goes to school, University of Richmond, and then has practice from 3 to 6. Some days she has to stay after practice with the team to watch videos of the teams they will be playing that week.

Since it is field hockey season, Siegel has games on the weekends. They get back from their away game at 2 a.m. on Saturday and then have a home game on Sunday. Monday is an off day for Siegel, but since she does not get much
playing time she often goes to the gym to run and lift weights.

“My schedule is busy, busy, busy,” Siegel said. “Balancing school and field hockey is really difficult some days. At least for my first semester of school so far,
I’ve really just tried to focus on those two things – school and hockey,”

Siegel goes to a mandatory study hall where they are required to log in six hours of homework a week. “Most nights when everyone is going out I’m walking home from study hall and getting ready for bed because I have to get enough sleep to make it through a long practice the next day,“ Siegel said.

Shaw had his doubts about signing with a Division I school after a rough practice or scrimmage, but he is happy that he signed. “When I look at the big picture it is a great experience that I would not trade,” Shaw said.

Siegel was recruited, but if she had not have made a Division I team, she would have played club. “For people who don’t play sports or who don’t like them it may seem like there’s not much ‘freedom’, but I’m doing the thing I love and I don’t think it’s really getting in the way of me doing much,” Siegel said.

Shaw and Siegel both have advice for prospective athletes looking into Division I sports.

“Know what you want. If you want to go to college to party then playing a sport will make that tough. If you want to make friends that will last a lifetime and have a great experience for four years than play a sport,” Shaw said.

“The best advice I have for them is to start as soon as possible and to contact as many schools as possible,” said Siegel. She would email the entire NCAA coaching staff before tournaments so that every coach would know she was playing. “You can’t get discouraged the first time a coach tells you they’re
not interested. If I had done that, I would have missed a lot of other opportunities and wouldn’t be at Richmond,” Siegel said.

Megan Foard is the Multimedia Editor for The Patriot and jcpatriot.com