Wildcats Across The Border

Wednesday, 26 January 2011 18:06

The University of Arizona brings many students from around the world to study abroad as undergraduates, graduates and some as athletes.

The UA has 15 of its 18 athletics programs with international athletes competing on their team in the NCAA. Along with striving to earn a four-year degree, these athletes are coming together as one team, vying for a championship and a title in the competitive Pac-10 conference.

Leading the way in international athletes are the men's and women's track and field teams which have 11 total student-athletes hailing from seven different countries. Men's and women's track and field and cross country teams are just four of the 11 Wildcat sports that have international athletes, leaving just the baseball, softball and gymnastics programs without.

On the men's track and field team, seven athletes come to Tucson from different countries: Somalia, British Columbia, Mexico, Kenya and Serbia. Three also run cross country, including top junior distance runner Stephen Sambu, who finished second at the NCAA Championships this past November.

"That's a whole different feel for them," said Fred Harvey, director of men's and women's track and field. "Track and field, for the most part, is considered around the world an individual sport and then let's say you get dropped into this university setting, you have competition where it's about scoring, so getting them to understand that in the end it's a team effort. A lot of them take to it well and they're excited about it."

Along with the men's team, the women's track and field team has four international student athletes, one from Austria, Kenya and two from Canada. James Li, the cross country head coach and the distance head coach for track and field, comes to Arizona from China.

Deanna Sullivan, a redshirt senior on the women's track and field team, is a native of Alberta, Canada. However, leaving her home country to come to the United States wasn't a hard decision for her to make five years ago since she had previously been to the U.S. to train and compete in meets, she said.

"The interest in athletics is much greater here than in Canada," Sullivan said. "The stereotype about Canadians and loving hockey is very true. Living in a country with snow on the ground for more than half the year makes track and field tough. Arizona's heat is ideal for training and allows us to utilize the track at all times. Negative 10 degree winters encouraged me to come as far south as I possibly could, to the desert."

Currently the men's tennis team has seven of their 11 players on the roster listed from outside of the U.S., including four freshmen. Head coach, Tad Berkowitz has recruited players from New Zealand, Spain, Taiwan, Chile, Italy, Australia and Brazil for this season's team.

He said it is important to get the best tennis players from around the world to compete in the challenging Pac-10 conference.

"We have the ability of bringing in international players basically through contacts from all around the world," Berkowitz said. "We have been lucky enough for some of these friends and contacts to help us out and to give us some great players from around the world."

Frank Chen, a sophomore on the tennis team hails from Houli, Taichung County, Taiwan where he lived for 14 years before he moved to Australia. He said tennis was not the only influence in his decision to come to the U.S., but the academics at the UA played a bigger role.

"Coming to America for college tennis gives me the opportunity to pursue a degree from one of the top universities in the U.S. as well as playing tennis at a competitive level," Chen said. "This is not possible for university athletes in Taiwan and other Asian countries like South Korea or China. In Taiwan, athletes often major in non-academic majors like physical education 'sports competitions' in order to play at a high level. I will turn out having life skills other than tennis."

The other top UA sport with the most international athletes is men's and women's swimming and diving with 10, five on each of the teams.

Compared to Pima Community College in Tucson, the UA outnumbers Pima's international student-athletes 55-8.

"I think having international athletes enriches all of us," said Dr. Donna Swaim, a UA faculty fellow in the athletic department. "What I have found is that the international athletes are brave enough to come to a different country and compete. They have enough confidence to get to know people and they have enough confidence to make contributions off the field."

"They are not used to having people cheering for them, getting them all fired up about competition and people getting excited about going to a competition," Harvey said. "I see with a lot of our international athletes, their actual competitive level really rises because of that."

"Being a student athlete at the University of Arizona has given me countless experiences and opportunities I wouldn't have in Canada," Sullivan said. "The facilities and coaches we have are the best of the best. I am proud to wear an Arizona uniform because it shows the unity our team has, all the way from Canada, to Kenya, to Serbia, to Mexico and back."

Click here for a list of all student-athletes at the university.

Written by Amber Sleek You are reading Wildcats Across The Border articles