{"id":393974,"date":"2010-03-06T17:24:34","date_gmt":"2010-03-06T22:24:34","guid":{"rendered":"tag:www.eng.wayne.edu:\/\/ec83e75a86246323d9a25ae366e74631"},"modified":"2010-03-06T17:24:34","modified_gmt":"2010-03-06T22:24:34","slug":"philip-swanson-student-athlete","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/393974","title":{"rendered":"Philip Swanson, Student-Athlete"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
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by Derrick Bean
\n COE Public Affairs Writer<\/p>\n

Philip Swanson, a third-year civil engineering major, defines what it means to be a student-athlete. He had the highest GPA (3.58) of all athletes studying engineering last year. And Swanson proudly wears “Warriors” on his chest and “19” on his back when he plays first base and outfielder for Wayne State University’s baseball team.<\/p>\n

It’s spring. The snow is melting and the sun shining a little more. “It’s baseball season,” he says. “It’s the good time.”<\/p>\n

Swanson wants nothing but the best from himself, and from his team. “I think our chances are good,” he says. “We’ve got a lot of great players. We expect a championship. We don’t want to settle for anything less than that.”<\/p>\n

Ryan Kelley, head baseball coach, says Swanson is the “ultimate teammate” and student. “He has tremendous leadership, discipline, and professional qualities,” says Kelley. “Phil leads by example on the field, in practice, within the classroom, and with our community outreach efforts.”<\/p>\n

As a redshirt freshman in 2008, Swanson was one of 13 baseball players to win GLIAC All-Academic Team honors. He also won the Gary Chapp Spirit Award for his dedication and hard work while putting the team’s needs above his own.<\/p>\n

Performing well in the classroom and in the outfield is no walk in the ballpark. “It is difficult, says Swanson. “It seems that there’s a direct correlation to your success on and off the field. It seems that when you’re doing well in class, you usually play well on the field. And likewise the other way around when you’re not doing well.”<\/p>\n

Kelley constantly preaches the connection between good grades and good games. “A major goal of our baseball program is to graduate and win,” he says. “In order to receive excellent grades, students have to prepare diligently. In order to win on the baseball field, athletes must prepare with a similar mentality.”<\/p>\n

Swanson majors in civil engineering, influenced by his father’s profession. His dad has spent his whole life in the natural gas industry. “I’ll probably end up working in that same field,” says Swanson. “I’ve had the chance to work in pipeline and processing. It interests me, and there’s good money in it. That’s something I will probably pursue if I can.”<\/p>\n

Team practices are held everyday during the season. Swanson says practice hours have improved over last year’s when a late sessions didn’t end until 1:30 or 2:00 a.m. Evening practice now ends around 12:30 or so, which works out better with his late-night study habits.<\/p>\n

Swanson enjoys going to movies and watching TV in the very little free time that he has. He says it would be good if he could make it up to church on Sundays, but “it’s hard during the season because we’re gone every weekend.”<\/p>\n

Swanson says most teachers are considerate of the hectic schedule for student-athletes, but some players have had instances where teachers weren’t too supportive. “Some are very lenient and cooperative,” he says. “They’re not cutting us slack, but willing to work around our schedule and make it possible to do both baseball and school.”<\/p>\n

Time-management is the key to Swanson’s success when it comes to balancing studies and daily practices, classes and games and everything in between. “You have to sacrifice some stuff, and kind of weigh the importance of what you’re doing at the time,” he says. “A lot of players like to go out Thursday nights…but, we have practice Friday morning so that pretty much never happens. Sometimes, I put off studying for a family birthday because I don’t see my family very often.”<\/p>\n

Swanson was the 2009 Most Improved Player. He hit .344, a very high batting average in his role as designated hitter, his first season in the starting lineup. Then he spent the off-season improving his game in order to help out more this year.“ Teams are made up of individuals,” he says. “But if one guy on your team hits 1.000 and everyone else hits .100, you’re only as good as your weakest player.”<\/p>\n

Swanson knows how to step up to the plate when the time is right. As designated hitter, he led the team with a .475 average with runners on base, and .476 with runners in scoring position. “I was D.H. most of the time last year,” says Swanson. “That gave me the opportunity to play when I probably wouldn’t have had that opportunity in the outfield. I was very fortunate to be put in some clutch situations last year, and ended up coming through for my team.”<\/p>\n

By early March, the Warriors had gotten off to a slow start (5-3) since the season began Feb. 20. Swanson says something has to change now in order for the team to be successful later. The team has traveled to Carrollton, Ga. and Springfield, Mo. to play various teams. Michigan weather rarely allows WSU’s baseball team to play here during the spring.<\/p>\n

As a Wayne State baseball athlete, every  player must volunteer with Big Brothers and Big Sisters of Metropolitan Detroit or the Local Intervention Network for Kids in order to give back to the community. Once a week, he helps kids with homework or plays games with them. And so, in this way, life works to balance things out.<\/p>\n

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    by Derrick Bean COE Public Affairs Writer Philip Swanson, a third-year civil engineering major, defines what it means to be a student-athlete. He had the highest GPA (3.58) of all athletes studying engineering last year. And Swanson proudly wears “Warriors” on his chest and “19” on his back when he plays first base […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3325,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-393974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393974","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3325"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=393974"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393974\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=393974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=393974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=393974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}