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Gopher Tennis - Day in the Life
12/29/2021 10:45:00 AM | Tennis
Maria Rizzolo guides a day in the life of a Minnesota Tennis student athlete
Minneapolis - Maria Rizzolo takes Gopher Sports through what a typical day looks like for a Minnesota Tennis student athlete. The timeline below shares a bit about her day and her endeavors in both school and sport.
Wake Up - 6:45 AM
Morning
I normally get up at 6:45 and get ready to go down to breakfast. Once I have breakfast at the dining hall, I come back up to get all of my stuff for the day and take my vitamins.
Breakfast - 7:15 AM
At 7:15 I go downstairs and eat. This is usually quick as I like to have a light breakfast before getting my day started. Normally I am done around 7:35 which gives me enough time to get all my stuff ready before heading to class.
Classes
My first class of the day is Public Speaking at 8:15. In this class, students rotate presentation days, where each member of the class orates a speech. As today was not my day to speak, I instead listened to others share their work and wrote my peer reviews. This allowed me to share feedback as well as constructive criticism on anything they could potentially improve upon. After finishing Public Speaking, I head to my next class which starts at 9:45. This class is American Indians in Minnesota, which is a lecture based class. I take notes throughout the period to follow along with the covered material.
Late Morning
I finish class at 10:45, so I come back to my dorm and study until 11:45. At this time, I head to Bierman to have my weekly academic advisor meeting. In this session, we cover how everything is going with my schoolwork.
Lunch - 12:15 PM
I go to lunch straight from my academic advisor meeting, conveniently eating at Bierman. Normally I finish around 12:45, at which point I walk over to Baseline to get ready for practice.
Afternoon - Practice
After eating lunch, I head straight to practice, which is from 1:30 to 3:30. In practice, we often do a lot of drills with conditioning mixed in accordingly. We utilize pattern drills with a certain amount of rallies you have to achieve, interchanged with conditioning. After these drills, we get to play points against everyone, which is my favorite part of practice, because it drives each players' competitiveness. After finishing practice, we all go to strength training at 3:45 at Bierman. On this particular day for lift, we do front squats, which is our main lift of the day. Following this focus, we finish with upper body exercises and core.
Dinner - 6:00 PM
I usually get back from Bierman around 5:15 after stretching. I then take a shower and head downstairs to the dining hall around 6:00 to eat.
Evening
After I finish eating, around 6:30, I come back to my room and study. On this particular day, I have a Psychology lecture to watch and a subsequent quiz to take. All together, the lecture and quiz usually takes me around two hours, which means I finish around 8:30. I end the night by watching television and relaxing.
Sleep - 10:00 PM
I like to go to bed at 10:00, making sure I get eight solid hours of sleep. I wake up at 6:45 each morning for classes.