HONOLULU — Especially in a state like Hawaii without any professional sports teams, it sometimes is easy to forget that college athletes are students first, athletes second.
A nice reminder of this is on Graduation Day, when the athletes we are so accustomed to seeing in football jerseys or basketball tank tops suddenly are adorned in green caps and gowns along with about 1,400 of their classmates — athletes or not. We are there to watch them not to hit home runs or spike a volleyball or score a touchdown but to proudly walk up to the stage to accept a “piece of paper” symbolizing four or five years of hard work — early mornings in a classroom, long afternoons in a science lab, late nights studying for midterm exams or typing up research papers.
Here we see our favorite players not as the starting first baseman or a punt return specialist or outside hitter/middle blocker but rather a future teacher, lawyer, doctor or engineer.
This is the reason they are in college, at the University of Hawaii at Manoa — not to prepare for the NFL, Major League Baseball, or the NBA. But to prepare for a career designing and building bridges, climbing the corporate ladder, or starting and operating their own small business.
The experience of college athletics no doubt will be memorable and provided thrills, but it was only part of the total university experience, and ultimately what they did in the classroom was just as important — really, more important — than what they achieved on the court or field. Fame is fleeting; as former North Carolina State men’s basketball coach Jim Valvano said, when you come to work at the office every day, there won’t be a PA announcer’s voice coming through the speakers saying, “And now, coming in at Left Desk … John DOEEEEE!!!”
But that is fine.
These athletes will now join the rest of us, trying to build a career in jobs they enjoy and earning an honest living to pay the bills, take the annual trip to Las Vegas or Disneyland, eventually stake a claim on that suburban house with the two-car garage and white picket fence, raising 2.2 kids and the family dog.
Some will make it big — like interim Los Angeles Clippers chief executive Richard Parsons, who played UH basketball before becoming chairman of Citigroup and CEO at Time Warner — and others may struggle for a while to achieve their dreams.
But all of them will leave Manoa equipped with not just the physical development and glory attained through athletics but also the intellectual knowledge and skills validated by their bachelor’s degrees.
All of a sudden, when looking at the list of 104 current and former student-athletes listed in Saturday’s commencement exercises, it doesn’t matter so much that baseball players Kalei Hanawahine and Austin Wobrock struggled with their batting averages this season. Their grade-point averages are more important, and they will walk away with bachelor’s degrees.
Yes, former Hilo High standout Jordan Loeffler’s football career was plagued by injuries, but he earned a bachelor’s degree. So he leaves here as a success story, a winner.
The Rainbow Wahine softball team fell flat toward the second half of the season and ended up with a losing record, but hey, Jazmine Zamora and Sharla Kliebenstein will be college graduates. That is a home run in itself.
Many of the 104 UH student-athletes who graduated Saturday had up-and-down sports careers here, but they ended up on top when it came to finishing what they started academically. That alone says something and makes the journey worth it.
So the next time you watch a Rainbow Warrior baseball player strike out, or a football player drop a pass, or a basketball player miss a 3-pointer, remember that they are not professional athletes who train in their sports eight hours a day, five days a week. They have classes to attend, exams to study for, papers to finish — just like any other full-time student at UH.
And when you think they are failures because their team finished the season 1-11, or they can’t hit a curve ball — remember that they might have gotten an “A” on their Spanish test that day, or gave a knockout presentation in their business administration class.
Because in the end, what is most important for these UH athletes is not the victories or NCAA tournament appearances or All-American recognition.
It is that one piece of paper they receive on stage, wearing the green cap and gown.
