As week two of classes got underway, so did the ever-so-favorite Study Tables! Or as our Academic Coordinator Coach Kline calls it - Academic Night Life. Study table is a place where we can get homework done, study for exams, work with tutors, etc. It takes place from 6:30-9:00 pm, three nights a week and runs the entire school year. Sometimes our practice schedule overlaps with study tables so we have to grab dinner on the run after practice. Sometimes if we're lucky we can even sneak a shower in before we head over! Study Table takes place in the Environmental Sciences building in a big lecture hall. Freshmen student-athletes are required to attend the allotted amount of hours their coach assigns. For our team, freshmen go six hours a week. If we are traveling and miss study tables, we make them up in the hotel or on the bus.

Study tables aren't just during the season. We continue to attend during the spring semester as well because homework doesn't take a break during the off-season!

This year, our team requirement for study tables is a bit different. Freshmen still have to attend three nights a week but this year our entire team is attending one night a week together. We believe that since we are a team, we do everything as a team, including study tables. Our academic standard is high and we each other accountable to that standard as stated in Our Way.

Coach Kline (the Academic Coordinator as well as Head Men and Women's Cross Country Coach), is the man behind Study Tables. He sits in the front of the lecture hall and oversees everyone, as well as logs every student-athlete's hours from the time they walk in to the time they walk out. As freshmen last year, we got on pretty good terms with Coach Kline and he even came up with a silly nickname for me: Helga. Ever since then, I've been known as Helga to him and it's an ongoing joke between the sophomore class and Coach Kline. He has some pretty strict rules when it comes to Study Table behavior. RULE 1: No talking! (You would be surprised how loud a whisper can be in a silent lecture hall). RULE 2: No cell phones or IPods. Occasionally a cell phone will go off with some weird ring tone and he'll shrug it off the first time but you better be sure it doesn't happen again! At the beginning of the school year, Coach Kline made a deal with all the student-athletes - if we promise not to text or twitter, he will give it up as well - thing is, Coach Kline doesn't own a cell phone so I don't think it will be to hard for him to live up to his end of the bargain! And lastly RULE 3: there must be a chair between you and the person next to you -- no exceptions.

But the reason Coach Kline has these rules is because of how much he cares about us as student-athletes and his desire for us to succeed. We have earned 21 straight semesters of a 3.0 GPA or higher as an athletic department - he is very proud of that and would take it personally if we fell short of that goal. Thank you Coach Kline for you commitment to all of us. Yes, Study Table takes up a lot of our free-time, but in the end it all pays off and helps us to achieve our goals not only individually but also as a team!