By: Stacie Teevens
The fall season brings a lot of things: the changing of leaves, Halloween, Thanksgiving, pumpkins, apple picking, and for high school seniors, facing the stresses of applying to college.
One of the big questions that have been haunting many college applicants is whether or not you want to play a sport in college. Fortunately, some great Westborough High School alumni can help you out in solving your indecision and trepidation. Recently, I tracked down WHS 2008 graduate Emily Mongeau (or “Monge” to most of us). Mongeau was an outstanding athlete here at Westborough High School for many seasons.
Mongeau is currently attending Southern New Hampshire University in Manchester, New Hampshire. She is majoring in Education and is playing sweeper for the girls’ soccer team. She will also be participating on the lacrosse team in the coming spring. She was pleased to answer the questions I had for her and hopefully her wise words and advice will serve as some helpful advice for those of you contemplating being a collegiate student-athlete.
Did playing soccer have a big impact on the schools you looked at? It did have a big impact on where I was looking for colleges, but I would say it was about 50/50 for actual school and sports. For me, high school wouldn’t have been the same if I hadn’t played sports, so I knew that college wouldn’t be the same. I really wanted to maintain sports and it was really a bonus to be able to play soccer and lacrosse because I was only looking to play lacrosse so I was really lucky to be able to play both here.
What’s the biggest difference you’ve noticed so far between high school and college sports?
The competition is on a whole different level. You could’ve been the best on your high school team, but then you get to college and you’re surrounded by people who were all the best on their high school team so you really have to step up your game. Also, a big difference was school work. I have to maintain a 3.0 [GPA] here, whereas in high school you just have to not be failing two of your classes. It’s a big difference because here if I don’t keep close to a B average, I can be kicked off the soccer team. It teaches you to work hard though in school and in sports and teaches you that hard work really does pay off. Overall, it’s a big challenge and I like a challenge.
How many hours per day do you spend on the soccer field or training?
Well, we spend one hour in the locker room and then we have two hour practices so it’s about 3 hours per day for six days of the week, but games take up a lot of time. This past weekend we had a game up in Le Moyne [College in New York] and we had to wake up at 7 am, take a seven hour bus ride, get to the hotel, wake up the next morning and play. Games are a really big commitment.
What’s the farthest place the team has to travel to?
Le Moyne is the farthest we have to go and that’s the seven hour bus ride, but we have some five hour bus rides, four hour rides, and a few six hour rides. For preseason, we went down to Florida and that’s a flight away, but during the season seven hours is the longest. Sometimes we completely miss Friday to travel or go play somewhere so you miss school and all of your classes, but you just have to be able to make up all of your work and work hard to keep up with everything.
Do you think that playing a sport has helped you get used to the college life? Definitely. If you play a sport you have a group of friends you can rely on and it’s quicker. The thing is you see them everyday so you get to know them really well and we had to come down for preseason before anyone else and so by the time everyone else came down and the school was new to them, we already knew our way around the school and what was going on. It’s kind of like having a destined group that you know you’ll always have so it’s really easy to make friends.
Do you think that playing a sport has taken away from experiencing the college life at all?
Yeah, it is harder sometimes because you are around the same group of people and you feel like you have to get along with them because you see them everyday, but at the same time you can easily make friends with other people. Not all the soccer girls live on campus and not all of them live in my dorm. Some of them live in apartments or they live in different parts of the campus and you can easily meet people who are in your classes too. It’s definitely possible to make other friends or do other things, it just depends on if you want to or not.
On a scale from one to ten, ten being that you are just about to go insane, what would you say the difficulty level of balancing schoolwork and sports is?
I would say 3. It’s not that bad if you focus on managing your time well. Everyone on the team does it; they all get their work done and get to practice. It just forces you to be responsible. It’s definitely doable if you work hard. If you could give any piece of advice to kids applying to college and who are thinking about playing a sport, what would you tell them? I would tell them that you are going to school for school first, not for playing sports. I always believed it when people would ask ‘If you tear your ACL and don’t play are you still going to like where you are?’ Don’t focus on one thing. Look at all the aspects of a school like if it’s big or small, or if you like the food. There’s a lot to think about, not just sports. And definitely make sure to have fun. Don’t play a sport if you don’t think you’ll have fun and don’t let it stress you out because having fun is really important.
