U. pairs profs with players

From working out in Dillon Gym to attending nearly every women's volleyball team home game, the Princeton faculty clearly share more than just an academic bond with the student-athletes they encounter in the classroom.

With this in mind, Director of Athletics Gary Walters '67 created the Academic-Athletic Fellows program in the mid-1990s, pairing faculty members with specific teams to encourage the expansion of student-teacher relationships outside the classroom.

"I created it to break down barriers between faculty and student-athletes," Walters said, "to facilitate communication between student-athletes and faculty and to complement the advising system already here at Princeton."

Drawing inspiration from his own experiences as a member of the men's basketball team and his personal academic mentors, Walters created a program in which students could talk to faculty members about academic and personal issues in a confidential way. Walters identified the model for the fellows program as emeritus social sciences professor Marvin Bressler, who developed a special relationship with the basketball team while Walters was a student, still serves as an academic-athletic fellow for today's crop of Tigers.

"He had a dramatic and effective transforming impact in the lives of many of the basketball players here at Princeton," Walters said.

The program continues to expand as the fellows embrace more extensive relationships with student-athletes, and constant improvements are being made to allow interested faculty to join. Today, every varsity athletic team has fellows so that members can turn to them for advice and support in both schoolwork and sports.

Some academic-athletic fellows have been avid spectators their entire lives, while others have developed a fervor for athletics only after joining the University.

For economics senior lecturer Elizabeth Bogan, the fellows program was an opportunity to integrate a long-suppressed childhood passion into her current academic career. Though she was able to captain nearly every women's sports team duringjunior high school, female participation in athletics was never encouraged during Bogan's time in high school.

"I began to get continual vibes that women weren't supposed to [play sports]," Bogan said. "There was no positive attitude towards it, so I stopped."

When offered a chance to become chair of the faculty athletic advisory committee at the time of program's inception, Bogan jumped at the chance. Today, Bogan is an academic-athletic fellow for women's crew, exercises daily and loves female athletics at the University even more because of her experience.

"My role is not overwhelming or terribly important," Bogan said. "But reminding faculty of the positive aspects of athletics is good for the general interaction of academics and athletics."

Though they have only recently joined the fellows program, Electrical engineering professor Sanjeev Kulkarni and molecular biology senior lecturer Karen Malatesta have long been involved with individual Tiger teams.

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Up until this season, Kulkarni interacted with the football team on an informal basis only, participating in various recruiting activities and team events. Not only did Kulkarni grow up playing sports, but as a Butler College master, he views athletics as a way to see students outside of the usual classroom setting.

Having become friends with some of the teams' coaches and a mentor to a number of Tigers, Kulkarni saw the official transition to faculty fellow this year as the next logical step.

Malatesta's involvement with Princeton athletics began more than a decade ago, when she received a call from one of the track and field coaches. Some of the team's recruits were interested in molecular biology and wanted to talk to a member of the department. As the departmental representative at the time, Malatesta was contacted by default, but she ultimately became the faculty fellow for the team after demonstrating a strong commitment to the athletes.

"I've always enjoyed looking at sports," Malatesta said. "But without being a faculty fellow, not having been an athlete myself, I would never have realized how much you have to put in."

Emeritus history professor Robert Tignor has been with the fellows program from the beginning, serving as the only fellow for the football team for several years in the 1990s. Due to the team's size, Tignor could not get to know a majority of the team personally, but as the program continued to expand, he was able to travel with the team to some away games and build stronger relationships with certain players.

The football team also created another way to further bridge the gap between academics and athletics. The Tigers were given the opportunity to select one of their favorite professors, fellows or otherwise, to watch a game on the sidelines.

In some cases, the inspiration works the other way. Associate mechanical and aerospace engineering professor Luigi Martinelli was a competitive swimmer throughout his childhood in Italy, and continued to compete at the national level in this club sport. But while swimming is a very individual pursuit, Martinelli said his tenure as a faculty fellow for the men's ice hockey team has taught him what it means to compete in such a team-oriented sport.

"You learn something from every single experience you have in life and this one as well," Martinelli said.

Since his involvement began about a decade ago, Martinelli has learned to ice skate. As an added benefit, his daughter Micol — a senior forward for the women's ice hockey team — learned to play hockey, making him a hockey dad as well as a Tiger fan.

Even professors who have been athletes their entire lives, like associate English professor William Gleason, have developed a greater appreciation for student-athletes' dedication Princeton students have to both academics and athletics. Gleason, who participated in junior varsity soccer for four years at Amherst, is a faculty fellow for the men's basketball team.

"I think it's given me a better understanding of what it takes to be a top-level student and athlete at the same time," Gleason said of the fellows program. "I'm continually amazed by the students who can excel at both."

And faculty involvement in athletics does not stop with an understanding of the delicate balance between academic and athletic time management. Faculty fellows also appreciate the opportunity they have to watch their student-athletes in action. Daniel Oppenheimer, an assistant professor of psychology and public affairs, takes his role as a faculty fellow for the men's and women's volleyball teams to a whole new level.

"I attend every home volleyball game if I'm in town," Oppenheimer said. "I think it's worth noting that the women's volleyball team has never lost a game that I've attended. I'd go anyway, but it's nice when the team rewards attendance by winning all the time."

And the program has revealed that student-athletes and professors share at least one thing in common — competitiveness.

"What's really exciting is the fact that there's a common thread — trying to be the best that we can at everything we are passionate about," Martinelli said.