Family. Community. Team.
These three aspects were requirements for many of Idaho’s international student athletes when they began their hunt for college.
Many student-athletes found that sense of community in Idaho and chose to become Vandals.
Idaho women’s tennis coach Mariana Cobra uses the appeal of the Moscow community to her advantage during recruitment.
Cobra said she understands firsthand what it’s like to be thousands of miles from home – she came to the United States from São Paolo, Brazil to study and play tennis after high school.
Sophomore transfer student Ana Batiri spent last year in Richmond, Virginia, playing tennis for Virginia Commonwealth University. She said she did not enjoy her experience because the program lacked the team atmosphere she desired.
Batiri said she was impressed by Idaho’s recent success in tennis and reached out to Cobra.
“She said that the team was different, more like a family,” Batiri said. “I liked that.”
Batiri said she and Cobra were on the same page and shared a similar background.
Batiri was over 5,700 miles from her home of Bucharest, Romania, which meant the prospective recruit was searching for a second home like many of her international teammates.
“I think that’s why the girls talk about it being a team sport, being a family,” Cobra said. “The hardest aspect of playing overseas is you’re far away from your family.”
The Idaho women’s tennis team has seven international students on its roster of eight members.
Why do international students chose to play college sports in the United States if it’s so far from home?
In Romania, and many countries abroad, playing professionally and getting an education are not two activities to be completed at the same time.
“Generally in Europe, we don’t have programs where you can play sports and also study,” Batiri said. “You can play a sport while studying, but the school isn’t going to help you if you miss exams because you were playing tournaments.”
Cobra faced the same decision when she left high school. She said the idea of coming to the United States for academics and athletics is a great option.
“A lot of times international students will take that into going pro after college,” she said. “That’s a great possibility, so if for some reason you don’t turn pro, then at least you have an education.”
From 2005 to 2007, Idaho head swim coach Mark Sowa coached the Bahamian National team and a club team in the Bahamas.
He said his experience gave him an appreciation for working with people from across the globe. According to Sowa, it benefits American students just as much as the international students.
“It exposes a lot of our American athletes to different cultures,” he said. “One of the reasons you go to college is to meet different people of different origins and backgrounds and then to be able to call them teammates is an extraordinary opportunity. It takes the team to a different level.”
The Idaho women’s swim and dive team has four international students that come from British Columbia, France, Belgium and Malaysia.
Although she was born in the United States, freshman Andrea Condrie spent the past 13 years of her life living in Doha, Qatar.
Her high school, the American School of Doha, was a small, tight-knit community. A search for engineering schools on the west coast led her to Idaho.
“It was a smaller school in a nice college town,” Condrie said. “I wasn’t really ready to go back to a big city with the adjustment of coming back to America.”
Condrie said the hardest adjustment has been leaving her family in Qatar. Doha is eleven hours ahead of Moscow, an aspect Condrie has often struggled with.
“I’ll accidentally call them at like 3 a.m. their time,” she said. “And they’re like, ‘Hey, you need to hang up the phone. It’s 3 a.m.’”
Having a variety of athletes on any team can be challenging for coaches. Cultural differences and language barriers can make the situation even more difficult.
“It makes me have to adapt to each person differently,” Cobra said. “I have to take into account what is OK. Maybe she doesn’t understand what I’m saying in English. Maybe her culture is a little bit different where females are looked upon this way.”
Sowa has taken a softer approach to interactions with his athletes. The coach gave special instructions and re-explained concepts during his first years with the program.
“I’ll ask them, ‘Hey, you know what we’re doing right now?’” he said. “I won’t pull them aside but I’ll gently ask them. When I talk to them after a race, I may talk to them a little bit longer.”
Sowa said he has seen his team’s language skills blossom throughout the year.
“It’s night and day,” he said. “They’ve just integrated themselves so well onto this team.”
Sowa said there are some notable risks in recruiting international students.
“A lot of times when you recruit a foreign athlete, they could literally be the best kid in their country because the swimming federations in those countries are so much smaller,” he said.
In comparison, USA Swimming had over 300,000 members in 2015.
According to Sowa, the Bahamian swimming federation has approximately 500 members.
He said international student athletes are often used to one-on-one coaching because of the fewer athletes involved in the sport.
“They’re used to being treated on a very individual basis,” Sowa said. “So they really have to learn what it means to be on a team. In different countries, swimming is an individual sport. Collegiate swimming is a team sport.”
Dual meets are also a unique concept for international swimmers. Teams receive points for how well members swim, rather than based on individual times.
“It’s a much different type of competition than what they’re used to,” Sowa said. “The time doesn’t really mean as much as being competitive with the person next to you.”
Sowa said he has seen his international students mature and develop into great team members during the season. At the WAC Championship Meet Feb. 24, swimmer and French native Clothilde Peseux approached him after the meet.
“All she talked about was wanting to beat the girl from Bakersfield, because we were in a race with Bakersfield,” Sowa said. “That was a huge change for her. Back in November, all she cared about was how fast she went. Now her primary focus is beating kids from other teams because that benefits our team.”
Tess Fox can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @tesstakesphotos