Hobbies outside of sports important to student-athletes

While the strength and agility of student-athletes are regularly seen by fans during games and competitions, their other skills are often not as well known.

The Volante talked with three student-athletes to learn more about their hobbies behind the scenes.

Sculpting

Makenzie Burmeister, a junior midfielder on the soccer team, spends most of her free time sculpting.

Burmeister, an art education major, said she got into sculpting because her dad was a sculpter and her mom was a photographer.

Sculpting is something that helps her release stress, she said.

“It really allows me to have another way besides soccer to physically exert myself,” Burmeister said.

Burmeister said sculpting helps her on the soccer field and in pursuing her career.

“It helps me balance being both a student and an athlete, but it also helps me move into my career at the same time,” she said. “I would like to be able to move into teaching, being an art education major, so I think it’s definitely a big part of my career.”

Farming

When Callie Henrich, a freshman thrower on the track & field team, isn’t practicing or studying, she’s usually on her grandparents’ farm.

Henrich, a medical biology major, goes home almost every weekend, even during the season, to help with farm work.

“I am originally from Rapid City, but then we moved to Akron (Iowa), which is where my grandparents live, so I’ve been farming for a little bit now,” she said. “I got asked to help out sometimes however I could, and I realized I really liked it,” she said.

Through helping on the farm, Henrich said she’s seen improvement in her physical strength.

“It definitely helps a lot, especially with strength, because you are carrying feed buckets and doing all this stuff, so that helps, especially since I am a thrower,” she said. “But also, it’s a lot of work just between random stuff like scooping out feed, so it gives you something to care about instead of just sitting in front of the TV.”

Henrich said her ultimate goal is to turn her hobby into a profession, as she wants to become a veterinarian.

“It takes so much money and equipment, you kind of have to have a background in (farming),” she said. “But if I had all that, I would love it. I would not even come to college.”

Cooking

Shamar Jackson, a junior wide receiver on the football team, took up cooking because he believed it was a good skill to learn after arriving on campus.

“I got to college and knew I had to either learn to cook or be hungry,” he said.

Jackson said he thinks even though it may not necessarily help him diet, it does help him eat better.

“It’s just better for me,” he said. “It’s better to be able to eat whenever I want than have to go to the MUC (Muenster University Center) and get Qdoba or something like that.”

Though Jackson doesn’t anticipate that he’ll turn cooking into a career, he still appreciates having the skill.

“I don’t think I would really want to do it as a profession, but I’ll always love it as a hobby because I’m always happy to cook for my friends,” Jackson said.