Athletics and Academics

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Student athletes at UNC Asheville work overtime to excel when they compete in their sports and the classroom. They're as dedicated to giving back to the Asheville community and to their teammates as they are to put in the time to secure academic awards and accolades.

We spoke with four Bulldogs who exemplify what it means to be a true student athlete. All four student athletes featured here agreed: UNC Asheville coaches and professors were dedicated to ensuring their all-around success. It's not always easy to manage the many moving parts required of people in their position, but these athletes were always dedicated to bringing their A game.

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Twin tennis players Bruno and Rafa Serra have a lot more in common than the way they look. These seniors have the same GPA and are majoring in biology and minoring in neuroscience and Spanish.

Soccer is king in Sao Paulo, Brazil, where they were raised. The Serra brothers broke convention by playing, and excelling at, tennis. Bruno enjoyed the camaraderie he received playing tennis with their dad and older cousins. Rafa cherished the relationships he built while traveling to tournaments. They also had the advantage of getting better by practicing with each other.

"I was lucky to always have my brother around," Bruno says.

Their family moved to Kansas when they were 15. After high school, they played one year with Wichita State University. When their parents moved to North Carolina, they transferred to UNC Asheville. Bruno says a major role in deciding to become a Bulldog was trust in their former coach Tom Hand and the other coaching staff.

"We are both very happy with our decision," Rafa assures. Their first year, the tennis team won the2020-21 Big South Conference - a first for the school. Both brothers received the 2023 Intercollegiate Tennis Association Scholar-Athlete and 2023 College Sports Communicators Academic All-District honors. Rafa also won 2023 Second Team All-Conference Doubles. And with their first-ever victory in the 2024 Big South Conference Tournament, they will advance to the NCAA Division I Men's Tennis Championship for the first time in program history.

And it wasn't just the coaches that helped help the twins succeed as student athletes.

"Every team member is really close to each other," Bruno says. "That has been such a positive thing in my experience, developing those friendships. And the athletic department supports us in every way we ask for."

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He appreciates the intimate size of the academic departments, too, because it's enabled him and his professors to get to know each other well. "They've been able to write more meaningful letters of recommendation because they know me better. I've enjoyed this close knit community," he says. Their professors were also supportive and flexible in terms of working around their tennis schedules.

"The values that I learned from being a tennis player, I carried on as a student," Rafa says. They've also formed strong connections with many of their teammates who are also from overseas. "It's like a little family here…. It's built a sense of community."

Both will be attending medical school after graduation. Dealing with tennis injuries and the help he received from physicians has motivated Bruno to potentially focus on sports medicine. For Rafa, he wants to pursue medicine because their mom, who has a chronic health condition, struggled to communicate with doctors when they moved stateside. That's why they're also minoring in Spanish. Speaking three languages will better allow them to help their patients.

The Serras interned at Mountain Area Health Education Center (MAHEC), a clinic that serves the surrounding community. Bruno is working with Professor of Biology Chris Nicolay to research grip and arm strength in tennis players, nonathletes, and other sports players. Rafa is also working with Nicolay to research the family caregiver burden and the involuntary muscle contraction known as floating limbs phenomenon. They plan to present their data at the 2024 Spring Undergraduate Research Symposium.

Bruno points out that time management is key for student athletes to do well at school, maintain friendships, and excel in their sport.

"It's about finding the balance in everything… but also succeeding in all these fields, which is challenging. But at the same time can help improve your character and how well we succeed through adversity," he says. "Being an athlete means I'm taking care of academics first so I have a clear mind on the court…

I want to make sure I'm doing 100% academically and athletically," his brother Rafa says. "On the court, I try to be 100% focused on improving and helping my teammates. When I step off the court, I make sure I'm doing everything I can to make sure I'm successful in my classes and reaching my goals."

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When Jamon "Doc" Battle was six, his father thought he was playing too many video games. To redirect him, he got him into sports.

"My whole life changed. It was a good thing," says Battle, a fifth-year senior majoring in business. He found he liked playing basketball while in high school. His skill on the court was exemplary. He started receiving scholarship offers when he was only in tenth grade.

Raised in Richmond, VA, he fell for Asheville on his first visit. He liked the downtown, the restaurants, and the school's coaches. He liked the way they talked about athletics.

"It was player based. They focused more on life rather than basketball," he says. "They care more about you as a person than just being a basketball player."

Recently, at a tournament in Montreal, Battle saw just how dedicated the staff was to his well-being. He worked in study hall on the road to meet academic deadlines. While on the trip, he learned his grandfather passed away and he was injured during the game. It was a tough time and he had to spend the night at a Canadian emergency room where he had one of the school's trainers by his side throughout. His teammates and coaches made sure they were there for him.

He says he had to maintain his strength and focus because right after returning from his trip, he went right back to class. "You just focus on what you can control," Battle says. "It builds you mentally and physically."

The team has had success with his support. They won the 2022 Big South Leadership Conference and made it to the NCAA Tournament.

He's had other opportunities to strengthen his leadership and other life skills off the court. He's been a representative of the Student Athletic Administration Council (SAC) since he was a freshman. Now, he's the SAC Diversity and Equity Officer. He loves, he says, "trying to get the student athlete's voice heard more."

Through the organization, he also enjoys working with area kids at summer basketball camps. Some advice he offers younger players:

"You have to study like a regular student and perform off the court like you do on the court."

It's important to have patience, he says. "Everything is not going to be perfect, but you can't just sit there and blow up and quit. There's times when you're not going to learn things as fast as you want to learn them or you're not going to perform as well in games. You can't please everybody. You have to work at your own pace."

Battle is set to earn a 4.0 GPA this year, and when he graduates in May, he plans to work in athletic administration with guidance from his coach and the athletic director.

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When swimmer Abby Parks joined a swim team at six-years-old, there was another, faster Abby on the team. The coaches called the other swimmer "Abby one" and Parks "Abby two." Parks did not love that less than ideal designation and decided to work her hardest to become number one.

Now 22, Parks, a senior double majoring in accounting and economics, felt swimming was a very individual sport before she started high school but realized how much swimming is a group effort at UNC Asheville.

"I genuinely don't think that I would be in the place I am without having my team. It's made up of 32 wonderful women who are really driven, really want to be there, and are supportive in and out of the pool," she says.

Her team, along with the administration, faculty, and staff, she says, made her feel like she had a home. Many other students didn't have as supportive an entrance starting college during the height of the pandemic. "They're there to really support us no matter what, and it really shows," she observes.

"Coach does a really wonderful job recruiting people rather than swimmers," Parks says of Coach Elizabeth Lykins. "She always says swimming comes third. You're a person, you're a student, and then you're an athlete. I find that to be really helpful, especially during crunch time."

Parks also admires and appreciates professors from both her majors. "They put their absolute all into teaching and to making sure that as students, we're doing well, and understanding, not just passing the tests."

Abby Parks and teammate Caitlin Hefner are the first-ever UNC Asheville student-athletes to receive All-Academic selections from the Athletic Sun Conference.

Parks feels most productive when she's busy and has structure, so she also has four jobs in addition to her work in athletics and academics.

Lecturer of Accounting Carol Hughes helps to run VITA, a free tax program for lower income earners offered as a service class to give students hands-on experience. Parks participated in the program and is now certified as a basic VITA tax preparer. She's also worked as an intern at Retail Sports Marketing in Charlotte, and as an internal audit intern at home financing company Freddie Mac in McClean, VA.

"Being a UNC Asheville athlete, that comes with a lot of pride," Parks says. Next year, she'll move on to swim for University of Nevada, Reno and is applying to pursue her master's in economics there.

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