The graduating seniors of the 2013 Eastern Michigan University softball team are all in the midst of making the transition from college student to various different endeavors, but before they begin, they took the time to leave some parting words for the Eagle community.
Nellie Coquillard, Jenna Ignowski, Courtney Nicholson, Courtney Loe and Katy Blaharski all played their respective roles on the team, but all five had different words of advice to give and different lessons to take away from their time at EMU.
Coquillard and Ignowski both said the key to success was working hard and taking ownership of one’s destiny.
“As a student-athlete the biggest thing I have learned at EMU is working hard for what it is you want,” Coquillard said. “Nothing is going to come easy in the world, so it really showed me how to become a very hard worker and become determined to achieving my goals.”
“One lesson I learned here that will always remain with me is that you control your future,” Ignowski said. “Only you can ask questions when you don’t understand, only you can push yourself a little more then you did yesterday, only you can force yourself to spend the extra time study and only you can make the correct decisions for you.”
Both Loe (after the weekend series against Bowling Green State University) and Nicholson (after the season was over) said time management was their advice to student-athletes looking to be successful both on and off the field.
“I think the biggest thing I have learned is time management,” Nicholson said. “It is extremely time consuming being a student-athlete, so knowing when to do homework and making sure you get everything done on time was so important, especially with traveling all the time in the spring.”
“As a student-athlete I would say learn to time-manage,” Loe said. “That’s something I’m still bad at.”
Blaharski said the key to her success was learning that constructive criticism was just that: constructive. She said it was important to differentiate between taking things seriously and taking them too seriously.
“As a student athlete, the biggest thing that I learned was how not to take things too seriously or take things to heart,” Blaharski said. “Learning to accept both positive and negative criticism was huge. It’s just a game, and although it is incredibly important, life is too short to take it too seriously.”
In the classroom, many students are able to isolate one class or professor as their favorite. Coquillard, Blaharski and Nicholson were able to share theirs at the end of the season.
“My favorite class at EMU was my retail math class with Holly Mosher,” Coquillard said. “It was in the merchandising department and it really sparked my interest and showed me what I want to do in the future.”
“I really enjoyed my exercise physiology lab,” Blaharski said. “We were our own test subjects and we exercised and learned the physiological processes behind what we were doing. I always looked forward to going to that class with Andrea Workman. She even came to a few games.”
“My favorite class was kinesiology with Professor Moreno,” Nicholson said.
Loe and Ignowski couldn’t pick one favorite out of their time at EMU, but Ignowski said that was not for a lack of good professors and classmates along the way.
“I can’t say I had a favorite class,” Ignowski said. “I had many wonderful professors and classmates through the speech and language program which made learning and working hard in all my major classes great. I also got to experience some really fun electives with my friends such as taking an acting class.”
Before coming to EMU, Loe attended West Liberty University in West Liberty, WV and was highly active there. Loe said her advice would be to get involved, if time allows for it.
“I transferred here and at my other school, I was more involved, but it was also Division II,” Loe said. “Being Division I, it seems like you don’t have as much time so I haven’t been very involved, but if they have time, I would say [get involved] because it’s fun to be involved in a different variety of things.”
Coquillard said her advice to student-athletes centered on staying focused and not losing sight of why they play their respective sports.
“Some advice I would give would be to stay focused and remember why you started playing the sport you love,” Coquillard said. “So many people lose sight of that and it can really change the way you play.”
Both Nicholson and Blaharski said similar things when it came to their advice for student-athletes.
“My advice to current and future student-athletes is to enjoy every moment of your college careers,” Nicholson said. “It goes by extremely fast but will be the best and most rewarding four years of your life.”
“To current and future student-athletes I would tell them to enjoy every moment and every game to the fullest,” Blaharski said. “Our four years go by incredibly fast and it’s important to really enjoy every part of it. Always remember that we play a game. Enjoy the good moments and let go of the bad.”
Ignowski’s advice was simple.
“Work hard and play hard,” she said.
When it came to the things they would be taking away from their time at EMU, Coquillard, Nicholson and Blaharski all said it was the friendships they made with teammates and people off the field as well that would remain with them after they left Ypsilanti.
“I will take all the friendships, memories and experiences that I got to do as a student athlete,” Nicholson said. “I got to live my childhood dream of playing college softball and got to do something in college that not many people get to experience. I have met some amazing teammates while I have been here and all the memories and trips we got to go on together I will never forget. This was the best four years of my life and I wouldn’t trade it for nothing.”
“The number one thing that I will take from my time at Eastern was all of the friendships that I made, both with my teammates and all of my friends outside of softball,” Blaharski said. “The athletic world is so interconnected and all athletes form a family away from home. I will cherish all of the friendships that I built over my four years.”
Ignowski was quick to tell me her time in Ypsilanti was far from over.
“Well, I will be back in the fall for graduate school so my time here at Eastern isn’t over yet,” she said.
