Sports Medicine<\/a>, a service for QC student-athletes that offers medical assistance including physicians and medical aid for injuries such as ice bags and crutches. From approximately 3:30pm to 6:30pm, she\u2019s in Fitzgerald Gym for softball practice. \u201cI end up getting home around 7:45pm every day.\u201d<\/p>\n\u201cBeing a student athlete at QC is truly a blessing,\u201d said Muniz. \u201cThis year, I get the privilege of being a dual-sport athlete. Balancing both practice schedules and classes was definitely a little difficult to manage at first but I love and thrive off the support, encouragement and environment of both my teammates and coaches.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBeing an athlete at QC is a lot of work,\u201d said Lindsey Osterhoudt, a senior on the Women\u2019s Volleyball team. \u201cBetween lifts, meetings, practices, games and treatment, I am constantly moving. Yet, it still pays off by just having a community I can rely on when things get hard.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was very easy to be motivated to succeed when you\u2019re putting in so much work. We would have conditioning or longer practices occasionally and I knew that if I was obligated to do it then I would give it my very best effort. Also, the girls around me were always cheering me on,\u201d says Osterhoudt.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Injuries, big or small, are some of the scariest moments for student athletes. For Santa-Cruz, it was spraining her ankle. For Osterhoudt, chronic knee issues.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the fall of last year, I was on a bike and got hit by a car,\u201d said Muniz. \u201cI fractured my hip, had a slight tear in the labrum of my hip and had a slip disk in my back. I missed the beginning half of the dance\/basketball season and it was really hard to get back into the flow of things. I missed out on a lot of team bonding and learning all the new routines for the season. I felt like I was running a race I was meant to lose.\u201d<\/p>\n
When asked about the hardest part of being a student-athlete, several answers came to mind: balance, sacrifice, exhaustion. \u201cNo matter how motivating people are around you, no one stops to wait for you if you fall behind \u2013 physically and mentally,\u201d said Osterhoudt.<\/p>\n
Like all students at QC, athletes face their own set of unique challenges that they must face in order to succeed. However, the hard work eventually pays off.<\/p>\n
\u201cI really love playing this sport,\u201d said Santa-Cruz. \u201cAlthough it has been a long and tough journey, knowing how much I have improved over the past couple of years continually shows me how much I am capable of. With people like my coaches, my closest friends, and my family supporting me through the way has really helped me push through as well.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For Allycia Santa-Cruz, a junior on Queens College\u2019s Women\u2019s Tennis team, her commute is the first challenge as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":198036,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":{"0":"post-198035","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-queens","8":"tag-new-york","9":"tag-new-york-city","10":"tag-nyc","11":"tag-queens","12":"tag-queens-headlines","13":"tag-queens-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=198035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198035\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/198036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=198035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=198035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=198035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}