Athletes in Engineering: student-athletes find success on the field and in the classroom

Engineering at Illinois alumnus Ryan McDonald has a unique résumé. Now an engineer for Pratt and Whitney, McDonald’s previous employers include the San Diego Chargers. Except his job there had nothing to do with the aerospace engineering degree he received at Illinois — he was on the Chargers payroll to play center.

San Diego signed McDonald, a four-year starter at Illinois, as an undrafted free agent in 2009. He was active for four games in 2010 but wasn’t picked up by another team when the NFL lockout ended. After playing for one season in the Arena Football League with the Tampa Bay Storm, he turned his attention back to engineering.

McDonald is currently registered to finish the final six hours of his master’s degree in aerospace engineering online at Illinois while working for Pratt and Whitney in San Diego.

“I knew I wanted to be an engineer,” McDonald said. “I was very convinced and set on it.”

As a senior in high school, McDonald was accepted to Illinois in early December and received a scholarship offer from former head coach Ron Turner a few weeks later.

“It worked out just right,” he said.

McDonald graduated in 2009 with a 3.83 GPA, and finished his Illini football career tied with Tim Simpson atop the list for most starts with 48. While the engineering-football combination was difficult at times, McDonald said he would go back and do it all over again.

“I was passionate about engineering,” he said. “If I’m going to take the time and invest four years of my life to get a degree, I might as well get a degree that I’ll want to use in the future...That’s what I knew I wanted to do and what I wanted to learn about so it didn’t make sense to do anything else.”

McDonald may be one of the higher profile Illinois athletes to have studied in the College of Engineering, but he certainly isn’t the only one.

Currently, 35 NCAA Division I athletes are working towards engineering degrees at Illinois across 11 of the school’s 19 sports.

“We equate it to a student who’s working almost full time and trying to go to college at the same time,” said Kristin Kane, director of academic services for the Division of Intercollegiate Athletics (DIA). “We’re one of the top engineering schools in the country so you can expect that it’s going to be difficult.” 

Per NCAA rules, student athletes are limited to 20 hours devoted to their sport each week, but Kane said that doesn’t always mean those athletes aren’t putting in more than that on their own time.

“I think you could ask any athlete from any of our sports and they would tell you, to be good at what they’re doing, they do more,” she said. “It’s more conditioning, it’s more time with an athletic trainer doing rehab or therapy, it’s more film that they’re watching.”

Alex Lincoln, senior in electrical and computer  engineering and catcher on the baseball team, always had his heart set on engineering. He thought about accepting baseball scholarships at a few smaller schools, but ultimately decided on Illinois where he was able to walk on to the team.

“Baseball kind of gives me a sanctuary,” Lincoln said. “If I’m stuck on a problem or a homework or I’m getting flustered about on of my classes, I come here to take my mind off of it and I come back after baseball and get refreshed and plug and chug and everything kind of comes together a little bit.”

The students who choose a life of athletics and engineering aren’t alone. The University and the DIA has a support system in place to help all athletes with their unique academic needs.

“We understand that you’re coming in as a student athlete and you’re going to have unique demands that we’re going to help you deal with,” said Michael Hirschi, professor emeritus in agricultural and biological engineering and former assistant dean for the College.

The Irwin Academic Center, located in Champaign on 4^th and Armory, is among the services provided to help student-athletes succeed in the classroom. Irwin specifically caters to athletes and offers tutoring and a quiet study environment year-round. It’s also home to each team’s academic advisor, who assists student athletes with time management, study skills, and academic planning.  

While most coaches only require their players to log specified weekly hours at Irwin as freshman, Lizzi Sanscrainte, sophomore in chemical and biomolecular engineering and goalkeeper, is among the many athletes who still takes advantage of the building beyond what was required.  

“The study hours really did help freshman year to just give me a schedule for doing homework,” Sanscrainte said. “It’s a great resource.”

In addition to the support offered from both the academic and athletic sides, many students find a sense of community among their colleagues in engineering. McDonald said he was able to be successful partly because he found solace and a sense of community with his fellow classmates.

“You sit down together and you think through things together,” he said. “You each do your own work at the end of the day, but I had a good group of friends to work with. I just found the right group of people that were willing to stay up all night if needed.”

Pursuing an education in engineering while competing at an elite level in Big Ten athletics isn’t a cakewalk. It likely means many sleepless nights, less free time and a different college experience than the normal student. But if you ask any of the student athletes, it’s worth it.

“It just takes time and it takes being willing to say, you know, I’m not going to have as much free time as everyone else,” McDonald said. “But in the end, I’ll have a solid degree that will get me a job...and a good one.” 

Hirschi said the qualities required to be a successful athlete often overlap with the qualities required for success in the classroom and said most times, when you look at academic performance, you can’t differentiate an athlete from the average student, or in many cases, the above average student.

“They don’t wear signs or anything,” he said. “You really can’t tell.”
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Writer: Chad Thornburg, Engineering Communications Office

Photos: Courtesy of University of Illinois Athletics

If you have any questions about the College of Engineering, or other story ideas, contact Rick Kubetz, editor, Engineering Communications Office, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 217/244-7716.