Beyond the game: how parents and families can support Wheaton athletics
Gavin Viano
Associate Vice President for Athletics & Strategic Programs
The demands on a student-athlete are numerous, how can parents support their student-athlete in academic and athletic success?
As a parent of very young children, I wouldn’t feel right telling someone how to support their college-aged child. But, sports are supposed to be about finding joy in the process of trying to be the best version of yourself. If we make sports only about external success (lots of playing time or winning championships), we’re missing out on the most important part of the journey.
How can parents and families support Wheaton Athletics?
In addition to attending games or making a gift to their favorite team(s) via the Lyons Athletic Club, I think two important areas are helping to spread the word about Wheaton among their own personal and professional networks. That way more potential athletic recruits have Wheaton among the schools they’re interested in visiting. Parents’ involvement in Wheaton’s Life Career Design Institute (LCDI) would also be helpful. Athletic recruits want to know how a college can prepare them for a career. If more parents partner with LCDI by hosting internships, externships, job shadowing, career networking events, etc., the Wheaton brand will become more well known to future applicants.
Wheaton has added five new sports in recent years – men’s and women’s water polo, men’s and women’s fencing and men’s volleyball – how did Wheaton decide to pursue these sports?
The ratio of high school students playing these five sports relative to the number of college opportunities is much smaller than in the majority of the sports we offer at Wheaton. Additionally, Wheaton is looking to boost applications, awareness and enrollment from several key geographic regions of the United States outside of our traditional northeast base. Each of these sports have huge concentrations of high school athletes who are great students in those key geographic regions that Wheaton is already interested in. Lastly, each sport practices and plays in facilities that Wheaton already has, so there was no need for construction or renovation to expand our program with these offerings.
If you could change the Wheaton mascot for a day, what would Wheaton’s mascot be?
The college’s seal has a tree on it and I recently learned that it’s an apple tree. Having the mascot/nickname tied to the apple tree and/or to just apples in general could be fun. However, the “Wheaton Blue Apples” nickname would probably get as many questions as the “y” in Lyons does. I’m also a fan of alliteration, so Wheaton Wolverines sounds pretty cool, too.
What is the future of Wheaton Athletics?
We aim to continue fostering a sense of school pride and community, and to help prepare people for successful and meaningful lives after graduation. We want to have the type of comprehensive success in athletic competition that is synonymous with the incredible academic success Wheaton College is famous for. We want to help spread Wheaton’s reputation in a positive way to the best of our abilities.