Jancik of all trades: Tiger becomes waterboy

Ah, high school. The time when you could be president of your class, editor-in-chief of your school newspaper, volunteer of the year, a research assistant and captain of two varsity sports while maintaining an amazing GPA ...

Now, contrast that vision of success and glory with your Princeton experience: long nights working on a paper, knowing you're doomed to get a B, mediocre play in a club sport you excelled at in high school, the large time commitment many organizations require. It is safe to say extracurricular participation at Princeton is much more demanding than it was in high school.

Yet junior Martin Jancik of the football team seems to pull high school-like feats with ease at Princeton — and he's about to run a small business, too.

A junior concentrating in politics, Jancik has a college resume that reads more like that of a promising Princeton applicant. He is an offensive lineman for the Ivy League Champion Tigers, and as any varsity athlete will tell you, collegiate athletics are a year-round commitment.

Even now in the spring, which is misleadingly called the "off-season" of the football year, players have early morning practices.

He is also a building supervisor at Frist Campus Center, a research assistant for a professor in the Wilson School and a participant in Athletes in Action.

Along with his football duties, his research and his academic work, Jancik has another major responsibility: He will be student manager of the student-run Water Agency as of April 2.

According to its website, the Water Agency "provides water jugs, cases of bottled water and a variety of flavored Gatorade sports drinks. Deliveries are made on a monthly basis, usually during the first weekend of each month. Each product is delivered to the customer's residence for the easiest convenience."

As leader of this organization, Jancik's responsibilities will include hiring and training student staff, distributing water coolers and water bottles to other customers, maintaining warehouse space, overseeing customer service, preparing a detailed yearlong budget and designing and implementing procedures to further increase the benefits the agency provides for the university community.

With all his other obligations and responsibilities, how can this man fit any other job in his schedule, let alone the mammoth responsibility of running a for-profit agency?

"Although running this agency will require quite a good time commitment, it's not something I haven't had to deal with before." Jancik said. "Before becoming the manager of the Water Agency, I have often committed my time to three or more various working positions around campus in addition to daily football commitments. Becoming the manager will not change that much for me ... I would say it's about prioritizing your schedule and time management of the various activities. In addition, I enjoy the things I do, so it's never really a hassle."

Jancik, though, is not complacent with just fulfilling the duties of a student manager. He plans to improve upon last year's agency.

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"Improving customer satisfaction is definitely one of my goals." Jancik said. "[An] additional [task] that will take up some time will be advertising. The agency has not advertised much in years past, but we'd like to change that and spread the word about our services. After all, we are here to serve the campus community."

Jancik's work ethic and determination have not gone unnoticed by his coworkers.

"Martin is great to work with," Daryl Marcoux, a senior defenseman for the men's hockey team, said. "He is always in a good mood, and we can joke around with each other. That being said, he also works diligently to get his work done efficiently."

All this is made even more remarkable by the fact that Jancik's native language is Czech, and he only started speaking English at age 13.

"I think if you ask anyone who's had to learn a second language in a foreign country, they will tell you that the transition was fairly difficult," Jancik said. "I wouldn't say it was a language 'disadvantage,' but rather motivation and an opportunity to do better and get better. I think it's very natural for people to not want to be behind or last, and that was just the situation I was in."

With his achievements and responsibilities, it seems safe to say that Jancik has caught up.