Greg Baxa Finds Balance as a Student Athlete

UWM sophomore Greg Baxa is one of thousands of Division I student athletes across the country to find a balance between athletics and academics while attending college.

A native of Houston, Texas, Baxa came to UW-Milwaukee in the fall of 2017 on scholarship to play goalie for the Panther soccer team.

Although he grew up 1,100 miles away from UWM’s campus, Baxa is familiar with the Milwaukee area. His mother’s side of the family is originally from Wisconsin, and he said that the scholarship, along with getting to live in the city of Milwaukee, was too enticing to pass up on.

“When they came calling with the offer, I had to go for it,” Baxa said.

Baxa, along with many other Division 1 student-athletes, has much more than a full-time course load to think about while at school. College athletics are extremely time consuming, and they require more dedication than it may seem. Baxa said that his schedule is hectic during the season.

“A general day for me is waking up at 8 a.m., hitting the weight room around 9 a.m., and being on the field by 10 a.m.,” he said. “I’ll start school around noon and generally will be in class until about 4:00 or 5:00,” he said. “And that’s fine with me, but when you start adding in homework, extra-curricular activities and clubs, things I’m trying to do to help build myself a resume, it can be a lot.”

Baxa’s teammate, redshirt freshman midfielder Connor Provan, agreed that the balance between soccer and school was the toughest thing about being a student-athlete. “It’s difficult, but you just kind of find a way to do it,” he said.

Time management is essential to maintaining success on the field and in the classroom, Baxa says. For example, if Greg has an exam on Wednesday, he can’t afford to stay up extra late on Tuesday night and study for it.

“Finding that balance is hard,” he said. “I still have to get proper sleep, eat properly, and set my self up to train well. It gets tough at times, but it is what it is.”

Managing a 15-credit workload along with a busy soccer season is obviously a handful. It would seem as though that finding the time to keep up with schoolwork while playing a sport could be too much to take on- nearly seeming like an unreasonable task to ask of college student. However, Baxa and Provan stated that UWM does a great job of providing student-athletes with athletic advisors who help them manage their coursework.

“Our professors are usually pretty lenient during the season if we need an exam time changed or a deadline moved back a bit,” Provan said. “Our coaches also are understanding to the fact that we’re busy with homework.”

The soccer season, which began in August and wraps up in early November, takes up the majority of the first semester. All of the players, however, meet with an athletic advisor once every two weeks, and their grades are monitored during the season. Baxa, Provan and the rest of the team are provided with tutors and extra study hall hours if they have below a B in any of their classes.

“There is definitely a big priority for us to get good grades,” Baxa said. “It’s not just about soccer. If we get assigned to a tutor for one of our classes and we don’t go meet with them, our coaches are going to find out and punish us. We don’t have an option about that.

“But the coaches know what we’re going through, and they’re understanding about how busy we are, so they help make sure we have the resources we need to succeed,” Baxa said. “They’re reasonable. In terms of helping us as we try to find the balance, the UWM athletic department has definitely got that all set up.”

Baxa says that sacrificing free time and going out on the weekends is just part of the job, especially in the first semester during the season.

“Weekends I generally have more time, so that’s when I’ll get the majority of my homework done. If we have a game on Saturday night and nothing during the day, I’ll spend a good amount of time during the day doing homework,” he said. “Again, it is what it is.”

Milwaukee will play their two remaining home games of the season on Oct. 23 and 27, each at Engelmann Stadium against Eastern Illinois and Detroit Mercy.

The team is currently looking to make another appearance in the Horizon League conference tournament after their regular season officially wraps up with a road game against Wright State on Nov. 2.