At Tech, student-athletes are students first.

Their grades are not inflated, they are held to higher standards, and they do have plans for post-graduation life.

The Technique headed to the Edge building next to Bobby Dodd Stadium to speak with the Georgia Tech Athletic Association (GTAA) and student-athletes themselves to address these myths and misconceptions.

NCAA Compliance

To maintain eligibility as a student-athlete (SA), certain GPA and degree requirements must be met. These are set by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and, therefore, must be followed across the country.

NCAA compliance for Division I schools has strict guidelines. In addition to needing a higher minimum GPA at the end of freshman year than non-athletes, SAs must also fulfill “progress toward degree” requirements.

At least six degree-applicable hours must be taken each semester, 18 each academic year, and SAs must be full-time students. Rising third-years must be at least 40 percent done their degree, fourth-years 60 percent and fifth-years 80 percent.

The current progress toward degree requirements were added in 2003. Previously, recruiters at many schools brought athletes in knowing full well that they would not complete their degrees.

As a result, the NCAA created the graduation success rate (GSR) and academic progress rate (APR) metrics in 2002 and 2003.

GSR is the six-year graduation rate. The latest data from 2008 shows that the freshman class of 2008 had a higher GSR than Tech’s overall graduation rate.

APR is a more timely measure of SAs’ progression toward their degrees. Four Tech teams have APRs in the top 10 percent across the NCAA in their respective sports, according to Chris Breen, assistant athletic director (AD) for student services.

Staying academically compliant is hard enough, but GTAA provides ample support to ensure the success of their SAs.

Support Structure

Instead of trying to internally offer all the support SAs could need, GTAA works with their “key liaisons” across campus. C2D2, the Language Institute and others offer their services to the SAs. These are services offered to all students, but GTAA heavily promotes its on-campus partners.

“If we attempted to do all, that would be the travesty of what may go on in athletics, and we’re not about that,” said Phyllis LaBaw, associate AD for Student Services.

A primary service that GTAA itself does provide is tutoring.

“The amount of [tutoring] requests from our student-athletes is growing,” said Michael Woo, assistant AD of tutoring.

In addition to the Hearn Academic Center on the third floor of Edge, tutoring also occurs in the Tech Center, meeting rooms, the Edge dining hall and the conference room — up to 16 appointments at any one time.

“We’re trying to figure out creative ways on how to build upon our current space,” Woo said.

GTAA relies on its experienced staff to provide graduation plans and academic support, all dependent on each individual student’s needs. This staff helps SAs plan their class progression, schedule travel and makeup work with professors and seek the on-campus resources they need to succeed.

In addition to academics, GTAA also provides more holistic support for its SAs.

TPP: Pipeline for Success

The Total Person Program (TPP) is Tech’s way of making student-athletes more well-rounded and prepared for their futures. The program was originally implemented by Homer Rice, athletic director from 1980–1997, and serves as the model for similar programs across NCAA universities. The Homer Rice Center for Sports Performance, home to TPP, also resides in the Edge building.

TPP is divided into six categories: health and wellness and nutrition, leadership development, community service, personal growth and development, spiritual growth and career planning.

Leah Thomas*, nutritionist and director of TPP, works with Sodexo and Sysco to coordinate meals and snacks in the Edge dining hall and Nutrition Center.

Beyond her role as a nutritionist, though, Thomas fulfills the latter five tenets of TPP by hosting presentations, workshops, trainings and guest speakers. These include finance 101, sexual violence prevention and a small-scale career fair. SAs are provided help with resumes, business cards and career planning in conjunction with C2D2 and the Comm Lab. Many do community service with Girls on the Run, Special Olympics and others.

One event is mandatory for all SAs to attend each year. The rest are mandatory for specific groups: freshmen must take sexual violence prevention training; upperclassmen must attend the SA-only career fair.

The point of it all, according to Thomas, is to make SAs “feel like they’ve been prepared for life,  … to leave here prepared for anything and to feel supported.

“Those who [choose] to not just be a part of it but to actually engage, participate and get something out of it will leave here feeling like [TPP] did a lot for them.”

What do the SAs have to say?

Student-Athlete Speak

Sam Pierannunzi*, fourth-year BA and centerfielder for softball, was able to get a minor in Spanish and even study abroad in Spain over the summer while leading the team in runs and bases stolen.

Pierannunzi is currently deciding between graduate school and pursuing connections made at the SA career fair.

“There’s everything you could ever need. … They help you in every way, shape, and form. It’s pretty incredible,” Pierannunzi said.

Andrea Demick*, fourth-year BA and co-captain of the diving team, recently set a personal best in the 3-meter dive and is secretary of the Student-Athlete Advisory Board.

Demick is going to law school and used the LSAT prep that GTAA offers in partnership with NCAA and Kaplan.

“[TPP] proves that the Athletic Association and the school as a whole care more about just us being athletes. It proves they care about us as individuals after Georgia Tech and when we graduate,” Demick said.

Teegan Van Gunst*, fourth-year ME and outside hitter for volleyball, leads the team in kills and maintains an impressive GPA.

Van Gunst wants to keep playing volleyball after graduating, whether that means getting a Masters degree while playing sand volleyball or going overseas to play in an indoor league.

“[Thomas’] wisdom and the people she brings in help us out give us a bigger worldview, a bigger picture of what we’re doing now and the struggles we’re going through now and how we can use them … to propel us into the workplace and wherever our careers take us,” Van Gunst said.

Jonathan King*, fifth-year IE (redshirt senior) and left-handed pitcher for baseball, was a key starter in 2015, pitching the most innings on the team, before an injury early in the 2016 season.

TPP has helped King decide that he wants to eventually move into coaching after graduating.

“I think that the Total Person Program and some of the speakers that have come and spoken to us have really taught me and helped me to understand that it’s almost wrong for me to not pursue something that I feel like I should do,” King said.

Concluding Remarks

Student-athletes are an integral part of Tech, but many others feel disconnected from them and the affairs of GTAA. This has led to pervasive myths and misconceptions about student-athlete academic performance and professional development.

Some of the inner workings of the association have been explained here. Many were left out. These and more will be expanded upon in further articles.

As the Technique and GTAA continue to demystify athletics to the general Tech community, hopefully the community discards its preconceived notions and comes to appreciate these hard-working individuals and the effort that Tech and GTAA puts into their continued success.

*Full-length interviews are linked.

Leah Thomas is a dietician and nutritionist and director of the Total Person Program. Hailing from Oak Ridge, Tenn., Thomas has led the more holistic side of GTAA, preparing Tech’s student-athletes for their futures.

Technique: What exactly is the Total Person Program?

Thomas: The Total Person Program basically has six categories. Everything that we do throughout the year falls into one of those six categories. Those categories are health and wellness, … leadership development, community service, personal growth and development — which is kinda generic, you might put any number of things into that category — a spiritual growth piece and a career planning and placement piece. Everything that we do, like I said, can be classified into one of those categories.

Throughout a semester, there are six or seven or so presentations or trainings or workshops or events that the student-athletes participate in.

Technique: Are those mandatory?

Thomas: Once a semester, we have an all-required event, which is actually tonight, but usually we require by class. All freshmen, for example, go through our sexual violence prevention training back at the beginning of the school year. There was a financial 101 presentation we did a couple weeks ago that was for all freshmen and sophomores. The juniors and seniors will get a similar but more advanced one in the spring. We just did a student-athlete-only career fair that’s required for juniors and seniors, open to anybody, so freshmen and sophomores can come for a learning experience for sure, but we require it of our juniors and seniors.

Tonight’s presentation is into that personal growth category. It’s very much an inspirational speaker, Kyle Maynard, who was born without any arms or legs and has done a lot of amazing things. So he’s coming to speak tonight, and they’re all required to attend. Some population is required for each thing that we do, but only one is required for everybody. But by the time they leave here, they will have progressed through this Total Person Program.

Technique: Looking around the Nutrition Center, there is a lot of food and diet information. Is that something you take care of or something the SAs take care of for themselves?

Thomas: I was hired in 2003 as the sports dietician, so I look at my job as to educate and teach them on nutrition, certainly for long-term health. We want them to leave here and be healthy individuals, but it’s very performance-based while they’re here. We have our dining hall on the second floor, which is another Sodexo cafeteria just like any on campus. It’s open to any student, but their meal plans work up there, so a lot of them eat in this building for lunch and dinner. The rest of the time, this is meant to provide good snacks.

We know that their calorie needs are very high, and there’s a right way to get that many calories and a wrong way to get it. The right way would be to eat frequently and to snack, so we provide those snacks, good healthy snacks. So too, when they leave here, if they want meal ideas or snack ideas, they can think back to the things that we provided. … All of this is here to provide for them but is also meant to be educational. I wouldn’t give you a snack here that I would rather you not snack on.

Technique: Are the meals upstairs in the dining hall planned on your end, or is it just what Sodexo gives you?

Thomas: It is not planned on my end. It’s Sodexo run, and we have a food service manager who makes all the menus. But it’s part of our deal with Sodexo here that all the menus have to go through me. So they plan it, and we meet about it pretty regularly, especially at the beginning of each school year for me to OK or to make requests or suggestions or changes to it. I think it’s better than your average — I mean, it’s small; it’s not like North Ave where you have lots of choices, but the choices that you do have there are always very good, healthy choices.

Up there also, I do some educational posters as to how to build a good, healthy plate. That’s obviously not specific to any one sport or any one position on a sport as far as the carb, protein and fat makeup, but it’s just general guidelines on how to build a good, healthy plate. So that’s all up there to educate them as they go through.

Technique: To that point, do you have to work with athletes in the same sport differently?

Thomas: Yes. I’d say, sport-to-sport is different and athlete-to-athlete within a given sport is different. In almost any of our teams, not all, but even the track team has some power, strictly anaerobic, burst-of-energy type athletes like jumpers or even sprinters or hurdlers versus the 10k runners. The needs are very different. You can say the same for the football team: an offensive lineman is very different than a wide receiver as far as the energy systems that they use.

So that dictates what makes up your plate, your meal and the percentages of carbs, proteins and fat that go into each of those athletes. It’s very individual. Even within a given sport, there are a lot of differences.

Technique: What are the main takeaways you want student-athletes to get out of the whole four-year progression — or however long they’re here?

Thomas: We want them to feel like they’ve been prepared for life, assuming they’re not going to go pro in their sport, which I know most do not. We want them to feel like they grew as individuals and personally and really in all of those areas — that they were exposed to leadership development, that they were exposed to giving back to the community, provided with chances to focus on their career goals and fine-tune their resumes and make business cards and participate at a very small-scale career fair that wasn’t intimidating as practice, if nothing else. All of these things are good preparation for life.

I want someone who graduates as a student-athlete to feel like we provided them with a lot of opportunities. A lot of them will leave here not necessarily feeling that way, but a lot of them who chose to not just be a part of it but to actually engage, participate and get something out of it will leave here feeling like we did a lot for them, gave them a lot of chances and opportunities and things that many other students across campus long to participate in. … We just want them to leave here prepared for anything and feel supported.

Andrea Demick is a fourth-year BA and co-captain of the diving team. The Atlanta native has been diving since third grade and recently set a personal best in the 3-meter dive. Demick shares her story of balance and how the Total Person Program has helped her succeed.

Technique: Being a senior, diving, being co-captain, how do you specifically balance that?

Demick: Personally, for me it’s all about time management. I like to think I’m a very organized person, and I don’t think I would be able to balance it all if I wasn’t. I have three calendars, todo lists, all that kind of stuff. But honestly, I feel like it’s making priorities and sticking to what’s important for me, like a list of priorities and how I want to get things done.

Technique: What do you do in your free time, if you have free time?

Demick: Free time is pretty much on the weekends. It’s up to the individual when they want to decide they have free time. I leave my room at 6 in the morning; I get back around 7–8 at night. If you have an hour between classes, you can’t use it to take a nap or do video games; you have to prioritize. I personally have decided that my free time is going to be Friday and Saturday. Sunday, I catch up or get ahead on work so that I’m not stressed all week.

In my free time, the team all hangs out. We all watch movies together and go to dinner and stuff. It’s kinda nice that we hang out together outside of practice and pool so that inside practice we can support each other and know what each other is going through.

Technique: We’re trying to highlight some of the misconceptions people have about student-athletes. Do you have any experience with that?

Demick: I have had a little bit of experience, yeah, mostly revolving around group projects and meeting times outside of class. Our presence in the classroom is not the problem; it’s our availability outside the classroom just because we do have practices and workouts and stuff like that. That’s where I feel the biggest misconception is. Then again, that varies sport by sport.

Technique: How has the Total Person Program helped you?

Demick: It proves that the Athletic Association and the school as a whole care more about just us being athletes. It proves they care about us as individuals after Georgia Tech and when we graduate. Our talks are anywhere from how to handle finances to how to be a better leader, stuff like that. It prepares us for our future. I definitely think the opportunities I’ve had to be a leader in the Total Person Program have helped me be a leader in the team and be a leader in classrooms. Skills like that, through experience and listening to how other people have handled their situations.

Technique: How have they helped you specifically with leadership?

Demick: Well, I’m on the student-athlete advisory board. It’s a group of maybe 30–40 athletes. We plan events for the entire athletic department, and I’m the secretary on that. Through formal positions and also through opportunities, like we are so involved in community service and just reaching out to the community — Girls on the Run, Special Olympics, stuff like that. Being able to have that other outlet and realizing that there is more important stuff than just athletics, through small things. Community service and stuff like that.

Technique: Some non-athletes say that athletes aren’t able to experience what Tech has to offer. Do you feel like you’re experiencing Tech?

Demick: I think we experience it in a different way. I wouldn’t change the way I’m experiencing it at all, if I could go back and do it again. Sometimes our time is very taken up by athletics, so we can’t join sororities and fraternities just because there’s not the time. Same as other students, we choose where we put our time. Those students chose to put it whether it’s in Greek life or other clubs or organizations. We chose to put it in athletics, and that’s what’s important to us. We’re not hindered in other ways. We’re allowed to take what majors we want. We’re allowed to take what classes we want, stuff like that. Sometimes it doesn’t work out with practice times, but that’s the same for any student.

So no, I don’t really think that way. I think the athletic department does a great job of giving us as many opportunities as they can, and they’re trying to promote us getting more involved with the full student body as well.

Technique: What are your plans for after graduation?

Demick: I am going to law school.

Technique: Nice. GTAA also has a program to help with the GRE, LSAT, etc. How has that helped you?

Demick: I took the LSAT once before using that study tool and once after. Having that option and knowing they do want us to succeed post-graduation … they were so helpful in making sure I could get involved and get some studying for the LSAT. I think it’s something that’s great that they are doing. I know some of my teammates also used it for the GRE and stuff like that. It’s the same program that everyone [else] has access to, but they make it known that we can use it.

Teegan Van Gunst is an outside hitter on the volleyball team. From Fayetteville, she and her twin sister Annika lead the team in kills. The Technique sat down with Van Gunst to discuss her path through the ME curriculum, Total Person Program and future plans.

Technique: How would you say you balance class with volleyball and anything else you do?

Van Gunst: That’s a good question. I feel like I’ve done it since I’ve been growing up, even through high school. I played multiple sports for high school and club ball, so I was always going from school to practices, finding time to eat in between and do homework when I got back late at night. So for me, it’s been more of something I’ve been accustomed to. It’s a lot of work, and it’s something that you definitely have to get used to. It’s not something that comes easy, and it definitely takes a lot of time management.

Technique: Followup, how did you balance ME 2110 with everything else?

Van Gunst: Well, that one we took over the summer, so that helped. We were only taking two classes, so we had a little more time. We didn’t have regular practices then.

Technique: Do you think student-athletes have to take classes like that in the summer?

Van Gunst: Not necessarily. A lot of athletes don’t take summer classes, but I knew for me that was a class that I had heard took a lot of time. It was one of those where I was like “I’m going to take this over the summer to try to make my life as easy as possible. So I didn’t have to take it either in-season or in the spring when we’re still practicing all the time.

Technique: Another student-athlete said that the perception that people have of athletes doesn’t really happen in the classroom. It’s from group projects and stuff where student-athletes have to balance their schedules with everyone else’s schedules, and yours are so much more hectic. Have you seen anything like that with your lab classes?

Van Gunst: Yeah, to some extent. When you’re in a group of [non-athletes], they don’t quite get the time demand. Say we would have a group meeting to talk about whatever project or report that we had to do. I’d text in the group message, “We have practice at 3:30, so we can’t meet,” and they’re like, “Ok, let’s meet until 3:30,” and that’s not something, y’know … we need to be in the gym at least by 3. Things like that, where they just don’t understand the “yeah practice is only from 3:30 to 5:30, but you still need to be there at least 30 minutes before, [and] you’re still not getting out of the gym until at least 6.” That type of thing has been my experience: trying to find times to meet with groups is a lot harder.

Technique: Are you doing capstone now or next semester [(Spring 2017)]?

Van Gunst: Next semester.

Technique: How do you think you’ll manage that, where you actually have to meet a lot per week?

Van Gunst: Luckily, we’ll be done with volleyball, [and] because I’m a 4th year, I’ll be done [with practicing]. It also helps that we found a group of athletes: me, my sister and two others, track girls, … most of us are athletes. The two track girls will be in-season, but at least we understand what they’re doing, so we can make it easier for them.

Technique: How has the Total Person Program helped you make the transition from high school to college or helped you for the professional world after you graduate?

Van Gunst: Leah [Thomas] is super awesome and a great resource and a great leader for the Total Person Program. Her wisdom and the people she brings in help us out give us a bigger worldview, a bigger picture of what we’re doing now and the struggles we’re going through now and how we can use them — the experiences and the struggles — to propel us into the workplace and wherever our careers take us. So that’s definitely been something that I’ve enjoyed.

The different activities and service projects that we’ve done, volunteer hours that we’ve put in, whether it’s Girls on the Run or Special Olympics — things like that that get us away from our sports bubble to kinda see what else is out there.

Technique: What about the diet aspect of the Total Person Program?

Van Gunst: I’ve definitely used [Thomas] as a resource because she is also our nutrionist. Getting her advice on how to best fuel everybody because there are a lot of misconceptions about, like, “You don’t want to eat too many carbs, or you don’t want to have too much fat.” It’s knowing what healthy fats are, knowing when to eat carbs and when they’re going to replenish your fuel for a game the next day. Things like that that have really helped me navigate through how to best fuel my body for competition.

Technique: What are your plans for after graduation?

Van Gunst: I want to keep playing volleyball, either professionally, which would take me overseas somewhere because there’s not an indoor league in the U.S. yet, whether that’s South America or Puerto Rico or Europe or Indonesia or …

Technique: Where would you want to go?

Van Gunst: I don’t really know. It’s all about contacts and who’s interested in you and all that kind of stuff. So either that or start a Masters and play sand volleyball for my fifth year of eligibility. That’s something that I’m also looking into, but because we’re in the middle of the season, we can’t contact coaches and stuff like that now.

Once season ends is when we’ll start getting offers for indoor teams overseas and also be able to contact other coaches about continuing play. Definitely I want to keep playing volleyball.

Sam Pierannunzi, fourth-year BA with a marketing concentration, leads the softball team in runs and stolen bases. The centerfielder from Suwanee was able to find time to study abroad in Spain and pick up a Spanish minor along the way. The Technique was able to sit down with Pierannunzi to discuss how GTAA has helped her succeed.

Technique: You went to Spain over the summer; how was that?

Pierannunzi: It was incredible. It’s hard to explain it to people because it’s unlike anything I’ve ever done before.

Technique: Why did you decide to go there?

Pierannunzi: It was a really good opportunity for me to branch out and try new things. I loved Spanish all throughout high school. I took AP Spanish and was able to place into the program here and get my Spanish minor, something I was super passionate about. Getting an opportunity that fit perfectly because study abroad is really difficult to do with athletics because I can’t afford to just go away for a semester. Like, I would never be able to do that and play a sport.

Being able to do it in the summer, and it just fell perfectly because it was the second half [summer semester], so if we went into post season, that would run into June, and I couldn’t do a full summer. So perfect opportunity, love Spanish, and I was trying to do something new, build myself a little bit.

Technique: One of the misconceptions people have is that student-athletes are very limited in what they can do because of school, workouts, training, games and all. Do you feel like you’re experiencing what Tech has to offer?

Pierannunzi: Oh yeah, 100 percent. The biggest thing I’ve learned from this place is that if you want something bad enough, then you can do anything that you want. Our coaches are super supportive because at the Athletic Association, our mission statement includes that we’re “student-athletes.” “Student” comes first, and they’re trying to build us to be champions in school, athletics and life.

So the way they frame our work ethic is school comes first always, and then athletics is also a big part of it. We have to work to prioritize our time so that we can be great at both, and our coaches help us with that. Last semester [(Spring 2016)] when we were in season for softball, me and a couple of my teammates who are marketing concentration as well wanted to take this digital marketing class because it’s super interesting, and we thought it’d be really beneficial for our education. But it ended right at the time practice was supposed to start. There’s a certain time we’re kinda supposed to try and fit things in as far as practice times. We went and talked to coach about it, and she’s like, “School comes first. If that’s what you want to do, then sure.” We were able to finagle the schedule so we started practice a little later on those days.

It was really cool because it says to us that Georgia Tech is such a hard place, but they’re supportive in every way they can be. We can be whatever major we want to be. One of our pitchers doesn’t even come to practice on Fridays. She has to schedule around practice. She comes in the morning and works really hard in the morning so she can have this lab that she really wants to take for biology. It’s really cool. Georgia Tech is a special place in that way.

Technique: With all of that said, how do you specifically balance all of it?

Pierannunzi: I had to fall kinda hard to learn that I wasn’t that great at time management, y’know. You have to fail so you can learn. When I came in as a freshman, I didn’t have a good study — I mean, every kid here in high school could go to class, not really work that hard and make great grades. That’s just how we’re wired, although we do have the work ethic. So I didn’t know how to study right, and I didn’t know how to manage my time. But I did know how to work hard, and I was super passionate about what I did.

I struggled, really couldn’t figure it out. Here, we have advisors help us lay things out, like, “What do you have this week? What do you have coming up in the next two, three, four weeks?” so that we’re thinking on a bigger scale. I went to sessions at [Clough]: study smarter not harder, a time management seminar. And I have this planner. I’m not the most organized person, but my planner is my life. It’s how I function. If it’s not in there, I’m not going to remember.

There are all sorts of programs on campus and here [at GTAA]: there’s tutoring on campus; there’s tutoring available here. We have to do study hall depending on who you are — all of our freshmen have to do study hall, some of our sophomores. We had five hours a week of study hall that we had to do here.

It’s little steps that they put in place to make sure, like, “Hey, we understand the transition is hard. It’s a lot, so we’re going to try and help you filter in.” That was a big thing for me. Having the support of my teammates too was a huge thing because they’ve been through it.

Technique: What do you think about the Total Person Program [(TPP)]?

Pierannunzi: So, Homer Rice, [*points to the Homer Rice building, home to TPP*], he’s an incredible, incredible guy. Total Person is basically a living breathing function of our mission statement, if you will. That’s where the mission statement of the Athletic Association came from. Talking about being a champion in all of your aspects.

Tonight, for example, we’re going to see a speaker. His name is Kyle Maynard, and … he climbs mountains and has no arms and legs, and he talks about doing what you want and working hard. There’s everything you could ever need from athlete career fair: resume building, networking tips. They help us make business cards if we want them. They also have classes that freshmen can go to that are financial-aid-based because not a lot of kids know how to do that.

They help you in every way, shape and form. It’s pretty incredible.

Technique: So would you say they’re setting you up for your future?

Pierannunzi: Oh yeah. The resources that we have here are incredible, and I would not survive without them I think. I’m pretty blessed in that way.

Technique: What are your future plans?

Pierannunzi: It’s pretty interesting. I don’t know yet. I want to look into my grad school options; I think that that is the way I want to go. But at the same time, the career fair here and the career fair up at the CRC were all really helpful because I was able to make some connections there. So if that pulls through, push off grad school for a couple years and get some experience. I don’t know. If I can get grad school paid for somehow, I can’t pass that up.

Jonathan King is a fifth-year IE in the supply chain concentration and also a lefthanded pitcher of the baseball team. King, from Murfreesboro, Tenn., pitched the most innings in the 2015 season but sat out most of Spring 2016 with an injury. Confident that he will be back in action in February, King sat down with the Technique to discuss school-baseball-life balance and his future.

Technique: How do you balance practice, games and school?

King: It’s definitely an adjustment. There’s definitely an adjustment period, especially for freshmen coming in. I remember freshman year, just how difficult it was to get adjusted. Luckily we’ve got a lot of resources in the athletic department and within the team to guide you and help you out with that, if you just find the time to do it.

One thing that has really helped a lot of guys is being very, very attentive wherever you are, especially in the classroom. The more that you learn in class, the less you have to do extra. That’s one thing we’re not blessed with is a lot of extra time, so we find the hours in the day. It definitely keeps us busy.

Technique: You’re a redshirt, so do you think that helped you that first year, getting acclimated to Tech? Or do you think it hurt you not being able to play baseball?

King: I actually did not redshirt my first year. I played my first year, and in my second year, I had a medical redshirt — that’s where the redshirt came from. It was about the same. The only real difference to me that year was I didn’t travel during the spring because I played the first few games of the season and then was injured and got the redshirt. So the only real difference was that I didn’t travel on the weekends. Other than that, I was still at practice every day. At that point, I had a bunch of doctor visits. So it was about the same with the time management.

Technique: You’re graduating in May, so you’ve started with capstone. How is that going for you, in a big team with group meetings and all?

King: I’m actually in the second phase of capstone. The way that we’re doing it is I’m doing my capstone course this fall, and next spring I’ll only have one course to take. The reason for that is you have to take at least 12 hours every semester unless its your graduating semester. So next semester, I’ll have one three-hour course, and I’ll be done. I’m looking forward to it. But it’s definitely interesting — that first few weeks with the team is always a difficult transition, getting to know everybody, seeing what makes each person tick, that kind of stuff.

Playing on a team my entire life has definitely helped with that, definitely helped with being able to understand different types of people, being able to work with people you don’t necessarily click with or don’t necessarily know as well or think the same way as. It’s interesting, and there’s definitely a transition period with it. But definitely playing a team sport helps with that. It’s going well though. We’re almost done, progressing. So we’re getting there.

Technique: Ok so, the Total Person Program, do you work for them, like under Leah Thomas?

King: I work under Leah as a Nutrition Center monitor, so — that’s exactly it. I work in the Nutrition Center a couple hours a week. Those are typically the people Leah goes to talk to about the Total Person speakers and to ask our opinion, get our feedback on what our players thought about this speaker or what we think about the Total Person Program in general.

Technique: What do you think about it? How has it helped you?

King: I think it’s great. We’ve had incredible speakers come in: we just had Kyle Maynard recently, and we had Inky Johnson last year come in and speak to us, and those were both outstanding speakers. It provides you with knowledge that is necessary, especially in college. For some of the people that went to one of the most recent ones, they had a financial planning Total Person speaker. They’ve had a sexual violence speaker, especially with the issues that have come up in pro sports right now. That’s very important for student athletes to understand, the consequences of that and how to prevent that.

Basically, the point of it is to make sure when we leave the Institute, we’re well-rounded. We’re not just an athlete because that’s important. As much as we want to, we can’t play this game forever. We can’t play baseball forever; we can’t play football forever. But it’s more than just building an athlete, the program is building better people.

Technique: What are your plans for the future, and has this helped you in deciding?

King: The biggest thing that it’s helped me with is it’s made me really think what I want to do. It’s really forced me to think what do I want my life to look like. It’s easy once you get your degree to try to get a job in that field, and the more I’ve assessed myself and thought about what I want to do, I think I eventually want to move into coaching, and that’s just following a dream that I have. I love this game so much, and I don’t want it to be over. I want to be a part of it, and I feel like I have a passion to teach to younger people and to help them understand this game, to play it and enjoy it as much as I have.

I think that the Total Person Program and some of the speakers that have come and spoken to us have really taught me and helped me to understand that it’s almost wrong for me to not pursue something that I feel like I should do. That’s one big thing I’ve gotten out of it.

Technique: Some non-athletes feel like student-athletes are limited because of their schedules. Would you say you’re experiencing what Tech has to offer?

King: Absolutely. This is what we signed up for, getting to be part of our team and representing our Institute on the field, on the court, is what we get to do. It’s one of our privileges. That’s why we came here; that helps us go through school. For a lot of people, that’s what helps them get into school. That’s the way it is. Sure, maybe we don’t get to go to everything, but that’s the tradeoff. That’s what we give up to be a part of something like this.

I’m sure if you ask 99 percent of the student-athletes here — probably 100 percent of the student-athletes here — they would have no regrets on that. The experiences that we get are unmatchable. It’s incredible how much we get to actually do by being a student-athlete and by being at this place.

I’m perfectly happy and content with where I am, and I have zero complaints about this place. It’s done nothing but bring good to me. Hopefully I and we bring some good back to it.

Instead of somberly wandering the deserted campus while their classmates stuff themselves with turkey and other treats on Thanksgiving, international students will get the chance to celebrate the holiday with local families.

As part of the Home for the Holidays program, about 120 students will be paired with 80 hosts who are willing to share their houses with those who can’t manage to make it home for the break. Most students looking to be paired are graduate students, but hosts include professors, faculty, alumni, graduate and undergraduate families, and even higher-up Tech officials.

The program was initiated in 2014 by Brandie Banner, then Vice President of SGA, and has been brought back each year due to the positive feedback that SGA has received. Last year, nearly 100 percent of hosts and students said the program facilitated a positive exchange of cultures. In the future, SGA intends the program to be run by the special events
team, since it is becoming more solidified.

“It was really born out of the fact that a lot of international students don’t really get the chance to go home since it’s so far away,” said Ben Nickel, chief of staff for SGA and program director of Home for the Holidays.

In order to reach the most people as possible, promotions for the event began in early October. Flyers were put up in dorms and common spaces, and SGA encouraged academic advisors to send emails out to those their major.

The process of pairing students with eager hosts began about a month ago. The first step is dealing with transportation concerns so that students can easily get to hosts homes, and then he begins to look at the preferences that students and hosts indicated on a questionnaire. Some generous hosts are even willing to let students stay with them for the entirety of break, so that must also be taken into consideration.

Nickel tries his best to facilitate the creation of groups of people that can have an enjoyable and fruitful experience. He combines people with aligned preferences, common home countries and similar interests.

“It’s really cool when you can pair someone with someone that speaks their own language. For example, there is a host that speaks Turkish, so I paired them with the one student that spoke Turkish,” Nickel said.

Safety, finances and a desire for community are all concerns to international students.

Home for the Holidays is a program that not only attempts to make up for the absence of family in the U.S. but also actively tries to develop Tech’s community.

“Culture change is a very specific point. It starts with getting to know and understanding people who are different from you,”  Nickel said.

“It’s a two-way street between people who are Georgia Tech community members learning about the background and the history of the students they’re hosting, as well as international students who don’t know what it’s like to have Thanksgiving in America.”

The distribution of international students participating is generally reflective of the overall population of Tech: there are people from all over the world. India and China were the most represented countries, but participants also come from Pakistan,
Germany, Czechia and many others. Nickel says that once the program has the ability to expand in the future, they will be able to place students who live in the U.S., but not in Georgia, as well, sparing these students from having to spend their break on campus on their own.

Home for the Holidays at Tech has been so successful and rewarding to its participants that other schools have shown interest in trying to mimic the program. There are even murmurs about creating a program for the Christmas season in coming years as well.

Home for the Holidays hopes to finish pairing and send emails out to participants by early next week so that they can begin planning their break.

“I am super excited. I won’t get the chance to host anyone, but I anticipate getting lots of emails and phone calls the day of,” Nickel said. “I truly believe that it promotes an opportunity for change in culture, and I hope that they get a chance to get to know the culture of the community they go to school in and explore Atlanta.”

He looks forward to receiving photos from families and students who are actively building connections in the Tech community while participating in an American cultural holiday.

Water polo has arguably grown in popularity since the Summer Olympics in Rio; and luckily, the Tech women’s club water polo team is here to give women the opportunity to play.

Prior to last spring semester, the team did not exist. Only a co-ed club water polo team played on campus. Ana de Give — a former member of the co-ed team and now the president of the women’s club water polo team — spoke of the difficulties in initially recruiting women.

“A lot of girls were scared to join because it’s scary to play with guys if you’re not used to it,” de Give said. “So we had a hard time getting … girls [to join], but over time we started to get some [girls] going. It got to the point where it made sense to make a new team.”

The new team was chartered in the spring of 2016, making it one of the youngest competitive club teams at Georgia Tech. Starting with around 10 people, the team grew to include 25 members, adding 15 women to its ranks since the start of the fall semester.

“Right now, we have more people coming in who actually know water polo because the sport is [growing] across the country,” de Give explained.

The team attracts women who have had some experience in competitive swimming or rowing, but some tend to not have extensive competitive experience in the water whatsoever.

“If they don’t really invest themselves, it’s not the sport for them. It’s a lot of swimming. In a tournament … your muscles get sore from multiple intense games.”

The club team competed at a tournament hosted by the University of Florida earlier this week; the team has also competed in tournaments at FSU and UNC. Currently, the women’s club water polo team is seeking to join the Collegiate Water Polo Association (CWPA) in order to provide itself with more competition.

Anna Janoff, the original president of the team, said that the group will “probably get invited in and see if we can make it and hold our own as a new team.

“They have really strict rules about attendance and being able to come to tournaments. … If [a team] misses a tournament, you’re kicked out for two years. … Right now, we’re working on getting that commitment level up.”

CWPA membership would allow the team to participate in more tournaments and interact with more teams in the area. Janoff asserts it would help with networking outside of the pool.

“It’s really fun to know people from other schools and get connected to the water polo community, which is good for lots of things. Even job networking,” Janoff said

Janoff also gives credit to the Emory polo team for its assistance in forming connections with local teams and growing as a unit. “Emory has been amazing. They’ve really helped us grow, and it’s really helpful that they’re in our backyard.”

Another helpful resource in the Atlanta area is the CRC. McAuley Aquatic Center at the Campus Recreational Center is home to arguably one of the best swimming facilities in the nation thanks to the 1996 Summer Olympic Games.

“The pool is a hot commodity,” de Give said. It provides the team with an excellent training ground to hone its skills and become more dominant in the sport.

Connections within the team are equally strong. Through competitions, members bond with one another beyond their basic responsibilities as teammates. De Give was particularly effusive in her assessment of the experience she has had through water polo.

“[Water polo] is a really great sport. We’ve worked to create a really close-knit community that’s really supportive,” De Give said of the group she competes with.

“I’ve made some of my best friends [here]. Phoebe [Edalatpour] — the current captain — she’s one of my best friends. I don’t think we would’ve had that relationship without water polo. … It’s one of the coolest things I’ve done in college.”

Initially, my letter to the editor was supposed to be about why I disagreed with an article the Technique ran earlier this month. Then the American political cycle reached its dramatic conclusion and, well, it became impossible to think about anything else.

My election night was, I would imagine, the cookie-cutter college election night experience. Me and 30-or-so undergrads piled into a room, ate snacks and heralded the end of what has been a long race. I am a third-year; at this point candidates have been campaigning for approximately half of my time at Tech. I am very tired of politics.

Spirits quickly plummeted as it became clear our favored nominee would not pull through. The far-off horrors we had joked about were suddenly our most likely reality. Red-rimmed eyes became the norm. People paced and stood alone, unable to grasp what was happening. Behind me, a couple discussed the way the next four years might pan out. In front of me, people watched the Dow plummet and wondered about the job market they would graduate into.

I thought mostly of the headlines crying millennial apathy. Young people, according to the media, do not vote and do not care. Last night I sat in a room of 20-somethings who were enraged, bewildered and frightened. We care. We care so much we have developed political anxiety.

I care, of course, that we have elected a bully. I care more, however, that we elected a bully who made his throne out of hatred, and that so many people bought into that hatred.

Some of us do not have the luxury of denying Trump’s personality in favor of his policies or dismissing the way he demonizes minorities. Some of us see ourselves directly threatened by his words and will not (and cannot) move past them. Personally, I cannot look at the president-elect without thinking of the atrocious comments he made about his entitlement to certain parts of the female anatomy.

I do not pretend to think I speak for all millennials — the term “millennial” describes a diverse group of people who only share a range of birth dates. There are, of course, college students who cared about the election and are happy with the results. But the group I do speak for — the liberal-minded 20-somethings of various races, gender identities and sexual preferences that I watched CNN’s stressful election coverage with — has voiced its concerns. And it will continue to voice those concerns. To ignore us because you cannot empathize is to give up sympathy.

This is the part where I am supposed to tell people to do something. The thing is, we millennials already know that — we are already doing things. Young people, as previously stated, do actually care. Continue doing what you are doing, millennials, this is not a letter for you. Raise hell on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Continue to disagree with those who make hate commonplace. Hug your neighbor. Live your life in a way that will change the bleak future we have been gifted.

This is a letter for the people who have bought into the media’s portrayal of young people. Last night, my generation saw the diversity and acceptance we believe in threatened.

It is possible the businessman could win back our trust — he just proved he can surmount impossible odds — but he will have to retract some of the campaign rhetoric that led us here in the first place. We will let him try, of course. We are prepared to
make noise no matter the success of his efforts.

My point is that millennials are watching you, Mr. Trump. And we care.