Collegiate athlete: They are super stars to the rest of the world, but to students, they really are just STUDENT-athletes. Many people may not know that incoming freshman at Notre Dame have no voice in what dormitory they live in or who their roommate will be. An e-mail is sent out a few weeks prior to move in week with your dorm and your roommate(s) name, then the Facebook stalking scramble starts.
Imagine getting that email and the name being Malik Zaire, Tarean Folston, or Jerry Tillery – or even coming move in weekend and seeing a Heisman potential (not saying any current players are) lugging boxes up through the hallways in the same non-air conditioned dorm that you will be residing in for the next year.
This is many students first encounter with the famed Notre Dame football players. We have the fortunate ability to see and get to know them in an environment where everyone is on the same level, minus the fact that they can probably bench 10x my max and are frequently on prime time television (minor details).
The University of Notre Dame does its best job to blur the line that usually exists between people who attend the university just for academics and those who are both students and athletes. Don’t get me wrong: The athletes have many perks that us N.A.R.Ps (non-athletic regular person) will never get to experience. But, overall, the consensus on campus is that the athletes are not unattainable celebrities. They are people I have become great friends with and have experience with grueling group projects and classes with. We have all struggled together and succeeded together.
There is no special major just for football players or classes designed for only football player to take. At Notre Dame, half the football team could be sitting in your calculus class if you have it at a time that works with their practice schedule. The athletes doze off on occasion during theology just like everyone else and sit in the front of all the classes where we all know you’ll get a better grade for being a teacher’s pet. Some of my football player friends come to my macroeconomics study group every Wednesday and have built relationships they otherwise would not have had regular students and athletes been separated in class.
The aspect of college life that is most beneficial in building the N.A.R.P and athlete relationship is how how dorm life at Notre Dame works. We don’t have Greek life, so our dorms become something similar to a Greek community. You get a random roommate and usually stay in the same dorm up until senior year.
I have seen random roommate situations where students have been able to reap the benefits of having a football player as a roommate. There is no question that saying, “Will Fuller is my roommate” will get you a few free things around campus. I have seen some very nerdy, for lack of a better word, kids being the big men on campus because the housing gods were on their side when they assigned them to live with a star football player such as DeShone Kizer.
For example, my freshman year roommate was very shy, quiet, and skipped football games to study in the library (absurd, right?), but she became friends with Malik Zaire because she was friends with his random freshman roommate. I have also witnessed roommates who are so detached from sports that they had no clue their roommate was our star running back Tarean Folston. He just thought his roommate was another freshman who was on the football team but didn’t play. The best perk to having an athlete as your roommate is most definitely the fact that the athletes can take a to-go cup of FRUIT for you, something college students who have to eat in the dining hall rarely see.
There can be a downside though. I’ve witnessed people just using the roommate of someone like Malik Zaire to get to Malik. The topic of who your roommate is can run most of the conversations you have freshman year which can get annoying.
I’ve visited other schools that have an athlete “campus” where only athletes live along with special classes that are athletes only. I am thankful for the random roommates and having football players in my classes, even though some group projects involving football players have made me want to bang my head against the wall and even though I’ve watched random roommate situations backfire. I appreciate the fact that I can see the players as people and the teenagers they are and not these celebrities that others, who are far removed from the players lives see them as. Yes, it’s sometimes hard not to stare when you pass a player, especially after a big win on Saturday, but no one is acting like paparazzi, asking the players to take pictures in class or when walking around campus. I have seen others schools where the athletes are constantly followed by fan girls and student paparazzi. The players get enough of that when they travel other places, they don’t need or want that in a place that is supposed to be considered their “home under the dome.”
The players are seen as friends first then athletes or as a student in your class then an athlete. Seeing the players as friends first makes watching the football games that much more meaningful because I get sad or happy for certain people because I know them on a personal and friendly level. In class the starting QB just becomes another person to help with a homework question or be a member of your group project. In the dorms, they are just a regular person trying to figure out how two people are going to share a closet or someone who you can go into their room and have a FIFA tournament instead of writing that research paper for theology. Props to you, Notre Dame, for the attempts to break the athlete “cult” status quo, and being relatively successful at doing so.
- The Shirt 2016: A ND Student’s Perspective - April 21, 2016
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- The Stages of Watching a Notre Dame Basketball Game - March 25, 2016
