Nursing a long day Jeff Carpenter knows the daily grind of being a Division III athlete with a demanding major
By TOM KING, Telegraph Staff
sports@nashuatelegraph.com
Published: Sunday, Mar. 25, 2007
NASHUA Its 7:50 a.m. on a bone-chilling, mid-winter Monday morning, and Jeff Carpenters day is just getting underway, one that wont end until late that evening.
He emerges from Trinity Hall, one of the dorms on the campus of Rivier College, wearing his basketball sweats and jacket. Theres no time for neat dress; no time for breakfast, either. A 2-hour nursing lecture is a five-minute walk away, the first in a day that will feature three classes, a noon time shoot around, lunch and dinner, homework, a coffee break, a nap, and a pre-Great Northeast Athletic Conference tournament practice.
It is a typical day in the life of an NCAA Division III student-athlete. While theres a lot of talk during the current NCAA national tournament about Division I programs being short-term way stations for the NBA, with players dropping out right after the season ends, its so much different here. Class isnt an option, its mandatory, because in all likelihood the basketball career ends here.
Theres no scholarship money, and basically students are on their own to produce in school and on the court. As Raiders head coach Dave Morissette said, In Division II and Division I, when they invest $120,000, $130,000 a kid, theyre going to take care of every aspect. And they own them. They own those kids. We dont own those kids. And they have to be treated like every other student on campus. Thats the Division III philosophy.
Putting that philosophy into play, The Telegraph accompanied Carpenter, a 6-5 junior from Meredith who is one of the programs top players, around campus from the start of his class day early one morning to the end of practice late in the evening a little over a month ago.
7:50 a.m. MOST IMPORTANT CLASS OF THE DAY
The temperature is about 3 degrees with a wind chill of minus-15 as Carpenter emerges to start his day, which begins with an 8 a.m. class known as Care of the Adult II on the third floor of Sylvia Trottier Hall.
Its fairly quiet on campus, with a few students making their way around. One reason might be that its Presidents Day, a holiday for many, but not at Rivier. Classes are scheduled.
Carpenter is a nursing major with a career goal to be an anesthesiologist, certainly a lucrative job in the medical field. The class has a few males, but as one might expect, its predominantly female. Carpenter grabs a yogurt and a Powerade at a small snack cart in the building, but hell need more than that to get him through a 2-hour lecture that will have a break after 90 minutes a Full Throttle Energy Drink. That helps, Carpenter says.
Indeed it does, because in this class the last lecture was missed due to a snow day, so there isnt much give-and-take between instructor and students. The lecture is fairly technical, with phrases like herodynamic monitoring cup and vein of choice in treatment of patients and installing catheters, etc. Not for the faint of heart, but its here where the essential nurse training begins.
Normally theres a lot more questions and a lot more talk about things that have actually gone on in the hospital, he says. And well kind of go off on tangents and stuff and that makes the time go by quicker. But today, we need to get through those notes.
How important is this course? You have to maintain an 80 cumulative average in the class, based on a project and four exams and the completion of a practice board exam. After all, it is a life or death/human care profession.
If you dont have an 80 or 79.5, you get booted from the program, Carpenter said. If you dont get an 80 one time, you can retake (the exam) again, but if you dont get that 80, youre gone. I got an 88 in the first one, so I have an eight point cushion to work with . . .
You throw away three years of tuition. Im trying to avoid that at all costs.
Carpenter takes pretty thorough notes. Some students prefer to use tape recorders, but he doesnt.
I just dont think Id be able to sit down and learn from a tape, he said. Im lucky, I have a pretty good memory and stuff. I can just read it . . . I do notes differently than kids in class. They just print them out offline. I hand write them, I study them, and then I hand write them again, and that usually helps me remember it. But if I didnt have a good memory, Id be in serious trouble. The tests are 60 questions, multiple choice. Very specific. Medication specific, symptom specific, you have to know what do for each symptom, each med. Its a lot of stuff to retain.
Carpenter is fortunate. This is a Monday, and a Sunday game for the Raiders is a rarity. But there are nights, for example, the team could be on the road on a Tuesday playing at someplace like Norwich, Vt., or Albertus Magnus in New Haven, Conn., and get home well after midnight, and he has this class on a Wednesday at 8 a.m. Rise and shine, or at least take good notes. The same applies to Thursdays, but much tougher.
During the season he has the clinical portion of his course, which is actual nursing experience at a local hospital. That starts somewhere between 5 and 6 a.m.
But sometimes its good to be a Monday.
10:45 a.m.-2:30 p.m. BREAK TIME
The first class of the day and the longest is over. Carpenter then goes to get his car and swings by another building to pick up his girlfriend, Cori Skandier, a Methuen, Mass., native who lives on campus. She and a friend take off with Carpenter down to Dunkin Donuts on Main Street, as its always been said caffeine is a college students best friend.
Its a quick trip, so its back to the dorm for a quick drop of the books and then off to the student cafeteria in a nearby building for lunch.
Not bad. College-type cuisine, lot of variety pizza, salad, soup, sandwiches, a hot meal, and so on.
Whatevers good, you go with, Carpenter says. If not, theres Pizza Hut, Subway, etc. But they always have the salad bar and they always have sandwiches. Carpenter watches what he eats on game day. Unlike perhaps some Division I and II schools, theres not special pre-game meal for the athletes. Its whatever the caf has to offer, and he usually goes for the pasta.
Theres no special treatment for us, Carpenter said. Were just D-III.
But, for road trips, there are sandwiches made. Last year was buffalo chicken wraps. But this year, Carpenter said, Coach got lazy and filled out peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
After a somewhat early (11:30) lunch, Carpenter doesnt nap. Instead, he and teammate Mike Crawford, a 6-foot senior role player from Yarmouth, Maine, head over to the Muldoon Center for a noon to 12:30 shootaround. One shoots, the other rebounds for a quick feed. Crawford is a captain, but sees limited time, yet he shoots just about every day.
We go through these things, Crawford says. 120 shots, two foul shots at each end.
Morissette is in his office, and certainly nods his head in approval, as the GNAC tourney starts that next night. Hes trying to get that nights practice time set as the Raiders women have the gym as well. He wants it at 9, so players who have late class can make it.
We have seven or eight kids that do (a mid-day shootaround) during the course of the week, he says. This week, he says, I think adrenalin will get everybody through this week . . . Were not going to go more than an hour and 15 minutes tonight in practice. This isnt going to be an Oct. 15 practice. If we dont know what were doing during this point in the season, were in trouble.
Morissette played at Plymouth State. He knows what his players have to go through. I know exactly what theyre thinking, he says.
Carpenter, though, is a little different breed. Being a nursing major, his work load is obviously a bit more.
I dont know how he does it, Crawford said. Fridays, usually none of us have classes. He gets up at 7, goes to clinical . . . Thursdays we have games, so he gets up, goes to clinical (right now its at Southern New Hampshire Medical Center) and then right to the games.
Carpenters roommate, Drew Colby, (another senior, this one from Bath, Maine), was at class that morning, but is back at the dorm room when Carpenter returns to shower and e-mail himself some homework for his last class of the day, a junior year seminar course called Ethics in Technology. Hell print that out at the campus computer center well beforehand.
Its tough juggling your school work with your practice schedule, Colby said. In Division I theyre a little bit more lenient, as far as classes go . . . In Division III, theyre not quite as lenient. The professors will help you if you really need help, but youve got to really go that extra mile to get them to respect you and want to help you. Its kind of a little tough.
But Jeff, he comes back (from practice) after standing on his feet for eight hours, and just passes out. Its rough. So we kind of try to respect each other and give each other time to rest. Carpenters cell phone alarm on clinical days goes off at 5 a.m.
But no nap during this break, which will go until the next class at 2:30. Instead, after a shower, he answers two assignment questions for his ethics class and then spends a little time sending instant messages to friends. The dorm room is small, bunk beds, both walls adorned with, well, the female model type posters youd expect a male college student to display. The music? Actually, classic rock, kept at a low tone. Classic rock and rap, Carpenter says. Thats where its at.
Where were at by 2:15 is off to Trotter Hall again, first to the computer center, where he prints out the homework for the later class, and then to the second class of the day: Trends and Issues in Nursing, somewhere close to 75 minutes.
2:30-5:15 p.m. CLASS DOUBLEHEADER
You might call this the meat of Carpenters day. The next two classes are normally more interactive than the first, but the 2:30 trends class, which has about 23-25 students in it, seems to be dragging. The instructor notices it and finally says, Was it a rough day today?
Its Presidents Day, one student offers, intimating that its a holiday for many.
Well, the instructor responds, smiling, Im not letting you go early.
The storm the previous week gives Carpenter a break in this one. A presentation scheduled this week is pushed back. I was pretty anxious, because I hate talking in front of people, he said. It also makes the (accompanying) paper due on Monday, now, so I can kind of chill for the rest of the week to get that done.
Some of the discussion picks up during the class, including talk of nursing cutbacks in coverage, etc. Carpenter is fairly quiet in this one, perhaps saving his energy for the final class of the day.
That class was pretty dry, he admits. The last class was pretty good, there was a lot of debate on a bunch of different proposed plans, so people were arguing and stuff like that. But todays class, like she said, its a Monday, we all wanted to have class cancelled because its Presidents Day, you have a 2-hour lecture in the morning. It was an off-day. It happens.
Carpenter, remember, is a male in a female-dominated major. I love being around girls all day long, he said. I think its awesome . . . The way Im looking at it right now, Im in a four-year program right now where Im going to come out of school guaranteed a job, guaranteed a good wage, and when I pursue my Masters, things are going to get better and better for me.
Things got better as he made the trip across the street over to Memorial Hall for Ethics in Technology, taught by Dr. Herman Tavani. First, word comes via cell message that practice will indeed be at 9, and not 10, as Carpenter had feared.
That settled, theres full concentration on the final class, although while students wait outside theres talk who will record that nights episode of the hit FOX series 24.
Tavani is one of Carpenters favorite professors, and the respect appears to be mutual. Carpenter interacts in this class, basically a philosophy course, but Tavani does a good job on calling on students for answers. Phrases like contract-based and Deontology are used.
He brings sports into the discussion, and its not every class you would hear the name of Stan Papi brought up. Papi, some may recall, was the player the Red Sox acquired in the late 1970s for one Bill Lee.
I knew what I was talking about and I feel more comfortable, Carpenter said. The other courses its a lot of stuff we havent learned yet, which is why its tough to put in input.
Carpenter receives word on the course paper project presentation and mid term the mid term taking place in two days. Hes not worried. In two weeks it will be spring break, although theres no Florida trip for the former Inter-Lakes star. Its back to Meredith to work at plowing and landscaping.
Im a broke college kid, he said. Im going back to work. I need to get some cash to finish off the semester.
5:30-8:30 p.m. DINNER AND DOWNER
Its now time for some down time. First, as Carpenter weaves his way through a couple of buildings on his way back to Trinity Hall, he asks a couple of students if theyre going to be at the Raiders first-round tourney game, the first one theyve hosted in a few years. Its do or die, he tells one, who nods that hell be there. Are you going to be dressed in blue for the game?
Off to the cafeteria, where hes joined by some of his teammates and his friends. Talk ranges from how the weekend was to the big game the next night, how some students can make it and how others cant because they have to work. Former Nashua standout Justin Parker, a freshman who saw decent time with the Raiders this year, has everyone in stitches at the table with some impressions during a fairly non-descript pasta dinner. Theres always the salad bar, too.
I like this time, he says. Im done with classes, done with all my work for the day. Once basketball season is over, Ill be able to go to the gym, relax, watch a movie, mellow, there wont be any stress. During basketball, I see my teammates here, we know practice is coming up in a few hours. Ill go back, watch a movie or take a nap, its a pretty much stress free time of the day. The day is over. Practice is fun, its not like going to class. This is a good time of the day . . . A lot better than 2:30 to 5:15, thats for sure.
This is going to be a fun practice. Were getting prepped for our first home playoff game. I dont even know when the last time Riv had a home playoff game. In mid-January, practices can get a little dull; we just want to go and play and win.
Thus its back to the dorm, where Carpenter will nap.
I can always take a nap at some point during the day, he says. Just to chill. Youve got to have that, because you cant function on five hours of sleep every day . . . Basketball is such a long season. We basically have just three months (on campus) when were not in basketball, because we start up in October and its over by March.
Its something the Raiders coaching staff wants the players to make the most of their pre-practice time.
Yes, Morissette said, a lot of times this semester, we talked about this a bit, especially with Jeff because hes on his feet all day. We tend to limit him in practice a little bit, because we have to save his legs. Were not going to spend all his bullets Thursday and Fridays in practice. Thursday games, we worry a lot . . . Hes in a different major than some other kids where its demanding mentally and physically.
8:45-10:15 p.m.
PRACTICE, PRACTICE . . . AND A DAYS END.
After what amounts to a two-hour-plus nap, Carpenter chats on the phone with a friend for about 15 minutes and then he and Colby decide to walk over to the Muldoon. Morissette is all ready, and has the players warming up at stations before finally calling them all together at center court to discuss the strategy vs. Johnson & Wales.
Then the half-court set practices begin, both for defense and offense. Later, individual drills and free throw shooting. Miss a free throw, run a full-court lap on the side. Yes, Carpenter is running a few.
But its a relatively easy practice, although Morissette has them a little later than planned. The half court sets were intense, and thats the intensity the head coach wants to instill for the next nights tourney game. He had us run more than I thought, Carpenter said.
Finally, around 10:05, the whistle blows, and the players head to the locker room to shower and change. Some will head back to the dorms, others will head over to the caf for what is called Late Night when there are extensive evening classes or athletic practices, the caf stays open for some basic snack food until sometime between 11 and midnight.
Ill grab a little something, like chicken nuggets, or if not, just a banana and a Powerade and head back to the room, he says. Sometimes well sit there until 11:30 or quarter-to-12, but tonight Im tired, Ill be in and out of there as quick as I can.
Sleep. The end of a college day in Division III.
No special treatment for us, Carpenter says as he leaves the gym. I think they just see us wearing the basketball gear on campus and think were here just to play basketball and teachers let us slide or whatever.
Thats not the case at all. We have to work probably harder than the regular student, because we dont have as much time as they do to focus on our studies. We have to miss classes because of games, professors dont like that. I think we have to work harder than the regular student.
And off he goes, about 15 hours after the day started. The next morning he has no classes, it will be time for the Division III athlete to rest before the big game.