Thousands of miles from home; thrust into a new culture; surrounded by complete strangers; faced with a foreign training mentality.
With these obstacles, how has Bowling Green’s athletic department managed to successfully recruit talent from all around the world?
Marie-Eve Boisvert is the third-in-line of Norwegian gymnasts to be recruited to compete at BG. She found out about the University through former teammates who informed the coach, Dan Connelly, about her interest.
“He just called me up one day, no e-mail or anything,” Boisvert said. “But he talked to me and asked how my gymnastics was and how my grades were and after a couple of phone calls, I was a member of the BGSU gymnastics team.”
In Connelly’s nine-season career as gymnastics coach at BG, he’s had four international athletes, three Norwegian gymnasts and one Canadian, and those athletes have been crucial to the team’s success. In April 1999, Marny Oestreng, a native of Trogstad, Norway, was not only the first BG gymnast to qualify for the national meet, but she captured the NCAA title on the floor exercise.
“I just think that coaches can find really good athletes that want a scholarship if they look in other countries,” Boisvert said. “They probably haven’t been seen by a lot of other schools either.”
The international presence on BG athletics does not stop with gymnastics. Of the 27 players on the hockey team, 10 of them are from Canada. The University’s swim team carries two athletes from Canada, and the cross country team has four members from Kenya and one from Canada.
International Athletic Recruiting Services is an independent recruiting organization that helps athletes from other countries get recognized by American universities and American coaches find the most suitable athletes to complement their existing programs.
IARS provides “coaches with comprehensive introductions to suitable players in the form of academic and athletic profiles and references. IARS will provide a continually updated directory of prospective student-athletes registered with the service.”
Another Norwegian student-athlete, Betsey-Marie Eskeland, explained that she simply could not pass up the “once in a lifetime” opportunity to study at a university for free. She was a member of the BG swim team during the 2002-2003 season; if she had remained in Norway after high school, she would have been unable to pursue her swimming career.
“My desire to strengthen my talents in art, combined with a full athletic scholarship, secured my decision to study in the States,” Eskeland said.
Similar to Boisvert, Eskeland came to BG from Norway and had only spoken to her future coaches over the phone. An obstacle for both Eskeland and Boisvert was adjusting to the different training styles in their respected sport.
“I just thought everything would be a lot easier than it was” Eskeland recalled. She decided the training in the States was not suited for her swimming style and returned home to Norway after only one year.
Boisvert had a Romanian coach while in Norway who taught her to “love the sport and not fear it,” she said. According to Boisvert, in the U.S. coaches tend to push the athletes at a young age, which can cause girls to quit or “resent” gymnastics by the time they make it to college.
“When I came here I had a difficult time with the training principles, lifting and other outside exercises that we didn’t do at home,” she said. “I actually tore my ACL in my knee my freshman year.”
The influence of international student-athletes into American intercollegiate sports seems to be a growing trend and is not limited to BG. The men’s cross country and track teams at Michigan both have four international members, and the Ohio State University women’s swim team accounts for six international student-athletes.
Still, Boisvert feels “extremely fortunate” for the opportunity BG has given to her.
“There is no way I would have been able to keep working out and competing while going to school if I stayed in Norway,” she said. “I love it there and I miss my friends and family, but I have no regrets about my decision.”
Collegiate coaches are willing to go to great lengths to seek out talent from across the globe. As said in the world of sports, “winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.”