A student athlete's daily life

The University of Oklahoma is notorious for athletics according to US News: Education Colleges, and is heavily populated with student athletes. Most of the athletes at OU are on a full ride scholarship, but in order to maintain these scholarships, they must devote their lives to their sport.

A social problems student, Chelsea Luster, explained how the athletes at OU are often handed things and how they are pretty much being paid to play whichever sport they were recruited to play and receive way too many free things. In a class discussion about student athletes, much of the non-athletes seemed angry because the athletes in the class spent the majority of the discussion talking about how "hard" their lives are.

Kayla Nowak is a gymnast at OU and I spoke with her to see what a day in the life of an athlete is really like and how she felt about the stereotypes of student athletes.

Her day starts at 5:45 am with morning workouts and then she goes to class. After class, she heads to practice for about 3 hours and then has a little bit of a break. She then has tutoring from 7 pm to 8 pm. This leaves her with about 2 hours to study and do homework if she wants a sufficient amount of sleep before her day starts all over again. In a sense, the academic life of a student athlete is just as difficult as that of a regular student. Regular students get to spend their entire nights studying or get to go home and take naps during the day. Athletes are constantly going and don't get to have their nap times or pull all nighters for a test.

In regards to the stereotypes of student athletes Kayla says "I wouldn't say we just get handed free stuff... yeah we all complain about how tired we are... but it's a lot of hard work and it's very time consuming. It does get overwhelming sometimes." She says there's  no way she would have time for a job because essentially, gymnastics is her job.

Nowak loves what she does and she says she wouldn't trade in her student athlete life even when times get to be stressful. She explained how she and the rest of the gymnastics team still have their summer breaks even though they're still training, they get to hang out like normal students.

She's excited for the season to come and says how this is probably the hardest part and it only gets easier from here on out in regards to the upcoming season.

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TV News: the controversy behind the scenes

Cherokee Ballard, an Oklahoma native and University of Oklahoma graduate came back to her Alma Mater this past week to speak to the future journalists in the Gaylord College.

Cherokee Ballard is a former reporter in Oklahoma City and also worked as a spokesperson for the medical examiner’s office. Britten Follet is another former Oklahoma City reporter who spoke at OU along with Ballard.

She was heavily involved in the Kelsey Smith Briggs homicide and was responsible for a lot of media swirl around it. No one was ever convicted of the murder of 2 year old Kelsey Smith Briggs, however, Ballard believes she knows who was responsible for her death and used every resource to let the public know without actually disclosing names.

Britten Follet was also involved in uncovering the truth behind Kelsey’s murder. Ballard and Follet worked together knocking on doors and interviewing everyone they could to get answers. Both reporters stirred up a lot of controversy because of their persistence in the case. Much of the information they obtained, they were not allowed to speak about publicly so they decided to write a book.

Another controversy Ballard was involved in was the bribery case in the ME’s office this past month. She announced she was leaving to pursue another job offered to her in the midst of the case and was called to testify. When asked if the case had anything to do with her leaving, she said no. She said it was a stressful job and she was ready to leave long before the scandal had surfaced.

Ballard said “I always tell the truth.” This is something that has helped and hurt her throughout her years as a reporter and her short time as a spokesperson at the ME’s office. She said she was sued while working at the ME’s office for simply being a person. The truth can bring out the worst in people and Follet said “That’s why we’re no longer in TV news.”

Cherokee Ballard and Britten Follet Taken By Siobhan Weathers

Cherokee Ballard Taken By Siobhan Weathers

Women's gymnastics on the rise

Gymnastics season doesn’t start until January but when you take out the holiday breaks, it’s not too far off and the gymnasts have high hopes that they will win a national championship this year.

Kayla Nowak is a third year gymnast at the University of Oklahoma. She says that the fan base for women’s gymnastics is great. She says her first year, they broke a record for over 3,000 fans in attendance and for most meets, they get up to 2,500 fans. At home, they perform at Lloyd Noble and close half of the arena so the fans take up about a third of the seats. She says even though they have a lot of very supportive fans, they lack student fans which is something they are trying to change by my marketing more around campus. “We lack actual students and are focusing on that aspect of it.”

OU student Britney Atkins says in all of her 4 years at the university she has never been to a gymnastics meet. “I never know when they have them, I didn’t even know they were at Lloyd Noble. I’ve heard they are good though.”

Nowak says that many SEC schools are big on gymnastics and get up to 15,000 people at their competitions, especially at the University of Utah where they have won national titles. Other gymnastics powerhouses include The University of Georgia and Alabama. Nowak also explained how women’s gymnastics is more popular than men’s gymnastics because women’s is easier to understand and they also compete in the field house. It also helps that the women are a part of the Big 12 conference. She says that women’s gymnastics is very popular but of all the women’s sports at OU, basketball is probably the most popular.

Their first meet will take place on January 1, 2012 in Lexington, Kentucky. Nowak says she really thinks they will win a national title this year. 

LLoyd Noble Center, Taken By: Siobhan Weathers

Sam Viersen Gymnastics Center, Taken By: Siobhan Weathers