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At such a small school, it is not surprising that many athletes participate in multiple sports. “When you participate in a sport so heavily, it takes that year-round training to excel and stay in the game,” Schmaedeke said.

The precarious numbers are those of winter sports athletes, whose season does not begin until mid-November, which means a greater amount of time in the off-season is spent training.

Rosters for the university athletics show that winter athletes are not as prone to competing in spring athletics.

This lower number than fall sports is likely due to the late start in season and shows some apathy among winter athletes regarding continued participation in university athletics.

Looking at the rosters and cross referencing on the Hamline Athletics website, the numbers of athletes who participate in men’s and women’s track and field show a large overlap of student-athletes from the men’s and women’s cross country team as well as the men’s and women’s soccer teams.

The trend appears to be that the larger the athletes team is, the greater likelihood of student athletes participating in other season sports as well.

Despite a national trend showing more women going to four-year universities than men, the number of men participating in athletics at the university is disproportionantely high at Hamline and national levels. Many more men participate in track and field than women do.

This is due in part to the size of the football and cross country programs, but does not fully account for the problem that since more women go to college, should there not be more women in the athletics programs in either fall, winter or spring?

Pure size of teams is the likely explanation.The football team draws a number of male athletes into a fall sports, a comparable women’s sports team does not exist.

The highest number of student-athletes who participate in both fall and spring sports comes from men’s and women’s cross country and football.