Student athletes: study, practice and ‘play ball!’
When many people think of LSU baseball, they think of Skip Bertman, five national championships and future major leaguers.
And while these things are synonymous with Tiger baseball, the players also have a very strenuous schedule of being a student and an athlete.
Baseball is a seven-day-a-week job that the players don’t get paid for, and while the regular season is in the spring, training and practicing are year round.
The players also have school to keep up with and a family they don’t get to see very often.
But all the hard work and the early mornings are done for one reason.
“Every single person’s desire on this team is to get to Omaha,” said the Tigers junior third baseman Wally Pontiff. “It’s the only thing.”
Pontiff talked about his life as a baseball player and balancing it with school and family.
During the fall, the entire baseball team woke up four days a week to lift weights at 6 a.m. And during the season, the team lifts weights on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 6:30 a.m., and most players have early classes so they can be available for practice in the afternoon.
“It’s pretty tough to wake up so early every morning,” Pontiff said. “It limits your social life a little bit. You can’t really go out and stay up late because you know you have to perform the next day.”
Then there is class. The baseball players get priority when scheduling classes, but that is so they can schedule around practice.
“A lot of people get upset over us having priority,” Pontiff said. However, Pontiff said the priority scheduling is necessary so the players can schedule around practice. “We go to class and come out here and work and don’t get any money. So the priority scheduling really helps.”
Pontiff, who is majoring in biological sciences, personally takes on a heavier load of classes in the fall because he isn’t on the road every other weekend. He took 16 hours in the fall and is taking 13 hours right now.
And with class comes homework. Pontiff said the last thing he wants to do when he gets home from practice is open up the books.
“It’s real taxing,” he said. “You come home and your real tired from being out here at the ballpark all day. And then you come home and you feel like laying down and passing out like every other normal person.”
The baseball team practices every day and goes to the football indoor practice facility if the weather forces it to do so.
“Seven days a week,” Pontiff said. “We don’t get Sunday’s off or anything. It’s just a grind.”
When the regular season comes around, the team usually plays a three-game series every weekend and a mid-week game on Tuesday. And when Southeastern Conference play comes around, the team makes road trips every other weekend.
“We usually leave about noon on Thursdays,” Pontiff said about road trips. “So we end up missing most of our classes on Thursday in the afternoon and all of them Friday. And then we come home around midnight on Sunday.”
Pontiff said he usually just get notes from someone in the class when he has to miss it, and he has to talk to his professor when he has to miss a test.
“One of my classes that I’m in right now, psychology, every single test that I have is on a Friday, and I’m out our town all four tests,” Pontiff said. “It’s a strange relationship with a student athlete and a teacher. They either love you or they hate you. You really have to be careful and make sure you schedule the teachers with the reputation of being understanding and realize what we go through.”
And, of course, the players have to try to make some time for their family.
“I’m from New Orleans, which is 60 miles away,” Pontiff said. “And I maybe get to go home three times a year for Christmas, Thanksgiving, and a little bit over the summer.”
Luckily for Pontiff, his family comes up to most of the home games played at Alex Box Stadium. The out-of-state players don’t have that luxury.
While playing baseball for LSU does have its perks and memories, it isn’t as glorious as the common fan may think.
“Some people think it’s all peaches and cream when you’re an athlete,” Pontiff said. “You get to schedule first, you get scholarships and you get to play in front of all of the fans. But a lot more goes into it.”
Dave Theard