Every student-athlete wants a championship. Graduate students want another milestone: A master’s

Being a student-athlete comes with moments of glory.

But it also comes with great sacrifice — spending hours on the field or in the gym.

Earning a college degree is stressful on any student. Now imagine games, practices, lifting and team meetings on top of that. 

Balancing your sport and academics is a big task for student-athletes across the country, but there are few who love their sports so greatly and want to continue to further their academic careers that they choose to do it for one more year.

After the COVID-19 pandemic shut down multiple collegiate seasons, the National College Athletic Association elected to grant student-athletes from the 2019-20 Spring, 2020-21 Fall, 2020-21 Winter and 2020-21 Spring seasons an extra year of eligibility, according to Next College Student Athlete (NCSA) College Recruiting. This led to an increase in graduate student-athletes nationally.

Maryland has 63 graduate student-athletes doing it all, while still earning their master’s degrees.

Maryland women’s soccer midfielder/attacker Sofi Vinas, who played her first three years at the University of Oregon, graduated early and decided to transfer to the University of Maryland to continue her soccer career and earn her master’s degree in business analytics. 

“I wanted to come here where the academics and athletics were top notch,” Vinas said.

Maryland women’s basketball guard/forward Brinae Alexander attended Vanderbilt University for her undergraduate, and after suffering a season-ending injury, she knew she wanted to use her COVID year and redshirt years to continue playing basketball at a top-ranked program.

“Maryland does a really really good job at keeping us locked in on academics,” Alexander said.

Maryland football punter Colton Spangler completed his undergraduate at the University of Maryland and knew that when the time came for his master’s degree, he wanted to stay right where he was.

“Well I love Maryland,” Spangler said. “I grew up here. This is where I want to play football, and they have one of the best architecture schools, so this is where I wanted to be.”

Maryland women’s soccer defender Caroline Koutsos decided after playing four years at UMBC to transfer to the University of Maryland for her master’s degree in journalism. 

“I think everyone really values you as a human over an athlete,” Koutsos said.

Doing both can still be overwhelming.

“Obviously at moments, especially when we’re in season traveling, it’s very very difficult to organize taking midterms [and] taking exams,” Vinas said.

But the drive to pursue both still remains, and their accomplishment does not go unnoticed.

Two years ago, Maryland’s Barry and Mary Gossett Center for Academic and Personal Excellence decided to honor that desire by having all the graduate student-athletes wear a patch that reads “graduate” on their chest every time they play.

The idea came from when Brady Rourke, the Associate Athletic Director and Academics Director of the Gossett Student-Athlete Center, spent time at Arizona State, where its athletics department had an idea known as “Scholar Baller.” Any student-athlete who earned a certain grade point average received a patch on their jersey.

“When we have a young man who’s shooting free throws in Xfinity this season on the basketball team, and you see that patch, it’s a peak over the fence for fans to see that wow, there’s a lot more to this student than just playing basketball,” Rourke said.

And for the student-athletes, it’s a true resemblance of their accomplishment.

“[I’m a] first generation graduate student in my family, so that means a lot to me,” Alexander said. “Especially from a prestigious university like Vanderbilt, and even just being able to graduate from [Maryland] and get my master’s, I wear it with a lot of pride.” 

“It’s been a blessing to see that graduate patch to know that I accomplished something that me and my family definitely wanted,” Spangler said.