Athletes and Scholars
Graduation is the key to the future for ESU hoops stars
By Joey Berlin
Friday, December 14, 2007
The ad runs plenty of times during televised college sporting events and literally dozens of times each March during the NCAA basketball tournament. Focusing on the high percentage of NCAA student-athletes who go on to become doctors, biologists, business leaders and such, the commercial notes that nearly all of them “will be going pro in something other than sports.”
Two former Emporia State basketball players graduating this weekend, though, don’t exactly plan on becoming part of that vast majority.
Certainly, Scott Elliott and Casey Henningsen know their days of competing on the court at a high level are over. But both are entering the “real world” hoping to go pro in sports-related fields and continue feeding their competitive appetites.
Elliott is headed to Chicago in January to begin an internship with Masterplan Group International, a firm of sports agents that represent 17 NFL athletes. He’ll have his sights set on eventually striking deals as an agent for NBA players.
Henningsen will begin a new job next month teaching math at Mission Valley High School. But her goal is to become a basketball coach, probably at the high school level.
Both are choosing fields where, naturally, they have strengths beyond just their experience in the game. Elliott sees negotiating as one of his.
“I believe I can get people to agree with my point of view,” he said, laughing. “I think that’s fun. I enjoy that. I enjoy talking with people and selling them on a point, selling them on a view of mine.”
Elliott knew at the end of his freshman year at Barton County Community College that he wanted to be an agent.
“When I came to college, it was kind of a toss-up between being an agent and being a personal trainer for athletes,” he said. “As I grew older, I realized that I wanted to be involved with sports, but on the business side.”
The stereotype of sports superagents — the ones who land their clients $20-million-per-year contracts, compel their draft choices not to sign contracts, and draw the disgust of fans across the country — is something Elliott thinks about.
“People have that stereotype on agents because that’s who they see in the news,” he said. “They see the Scott Borases in the news, so that’s their general perception. But they’re not all like that, because you have your hard-working agents that are built on developing trust and relationships with their clients and truly wanting the best for them.”
Henningsen started at ESU as an accounting major, then went into education her sophomore year.
“I enjoy the game enough, and I was kind of thinking what I could do where I could coach,” she said. “To me, teaching is a lot of the same things, so it’s something that I thought would always be fun to do, and I love working with kids and that kind of stuff. So it was always in the back of my mind, and once I got into college and started taking some of the courses, I decided that’s what I wanted to do.”
Helping ESU women’s coach Brandon Schneider at summer basketball camps served to point Henningsen toward coaching, too.
“I’ve always felt like I was active as kind of a teacher, or someone that people could come to (for) advice,” she said. “I’ve always enjoyed that role, just even amongst my friends, making sure they felt comfortable coming to me for advice and things like that.
“I think that helping Brandon work the camps in the summers really got me into teaching kids, and I like seeing that light bulb that comes on, whether it be in basketball or math.”
Elliot and Henningsen, who finished their student-athlete eligibility last year, both said finishing their time as students at ESU isn’t something that’s going to be particularly hard for them. Elliot said being done with college won’t be hard for him so much as it will be weird. He said he’s excited to see what he can do in the real world.
“Granted, I don’t want to be done being a college kid,” he said. “But I am excited to see what’s possible.”
For Henningsen, the finality of graduating doesn’t compare to the emotional wallop she felt when she came back for her first women’s game this season and was only able to watch.
“I think that the finality of basketball being over was where I had the emotion and the disbelief, that I can’t believe it’s over,” she said. “And so now I’ve had this semester to kind of cope with that, and now graduation’s just another deal.”
Both will enter their chosen fields not only with experience on the basketball court, but with the experience of handling the rigorous time and energy commitments of being a student-athlete — something that should help them as they explore their chosen new ways to compete.
“Being a student-athlete, I look at it as a career,” Elliott said. “Your career is being an athlete, but at the same time, you have to pass your classes, be eligible and prepare yourself for your future endeavors.
“So the time commitments were grueling at times, but I believe that it teaches someone self-discipline and time management. And I believe that’s invaluable for when you start your true career.”
beth (anonymous) says...
Great story about a pair of great STUDENT-ATHLETES.
I wish them the best of luck in their future endeavors.
December 14, 2007 at 7:46 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )