On College Basketball
Alan Siegel
Williams College athletes aren't coddled. Andover's Laura Renfro is well aware of that fact.
But four midterms in four days? Isn't that too much?
"It's so easy to think, 'If I didn't have a sport I could easily get my work done,' " she said.
As difficult as her academic schedule may be, the freshman guard has no complaints.
"The balancing (act) I was used to," she said. "I've adjusted to a lot of work all the time."
Division 3 basketball isn't for everyone. Athletic scholarships don't exist. Last year, Williams, one of the top schools in the country, accepted only 1,276 of 7,548 applicants.
Still, Renfro is undaunted. After all, 40 percent of the school's students participate in athletics. "I'm surrounded by people in the same situation," she said.
The 5-foot-7 guard has played in four of five games for the 1-4 Ephs, averaging 3.5 points and 10.3 minutes per game. Renfro, an All-Scholastic for the state finalist Golden Warriors last year, said she has improved the release on her jump shot. So far she's hit on 4 of 7 attempts from beyond the arc.
The level of play, she said, is a step up, but it's nothing she can't handle. She's also learning when to be vocal — and when not to be.
"On my high school team, I was always chirping to my coach, saying what I thought," she said.
At this point, basketball is — thankfully — only one of her concerns.
"That's the most crucial part," said Renfro, who graduated in the top five percent of her class at Andover High and totalled 1,500 on the math and verbal portion of her SATs. "I love my team, but I couldn't hang out with them at all times. I'm not always thinking about basketball. Basketball isn't my whole life."
She tries to get out whenever she can. Williamstown, Mass., population 8,000, isn't a bustling metropolis, but the Berkshires are beautiful.
Admittedly though, she said the rural campus did take a bit of time to get used to.
"You have no idea what's going on," she joked. "I had to find out from my dad what was going on with the stock market. I had no time to watch TV."
Four midterms in four days wasn't the end of the world.
"I guess I was up really late," she said.
Renfro's classes aren't writing intensive, so she doesn't have a lot of daily assignments to turn in. That doesn't mean it's easy. In art history, she takes biweekly slide quizzes in which she has to identify a painting and the time period it came from.
Her days are predictably crammed. Classes start at 8:30 a.m. She finishes at about 4 p.m. "With a break in there somewhere," she said.
Then she has practice for 2-3 hours, maybe a film session then dinner with her teammates. Somehow she also fits in four hours worth of school work each day. No sweat, right? If any athlete in the region can thrive in that atmosphere, it's Renfro.
Warrior update
Renfro still talks to her friend and high school teammate Meghan Thomann, who's off to a good start at Bentley College. The 5-8 freshman guard has played in all nine games for the 4-5 Falcons. Coming off the bench, she's averaging 7.4 points per game. She's also hit 18 3-pointers.
Another Ex-Golden Warrior, Casey Cosgrove, is adjusting well to his new home. The junior transfer from Quinnipiac is averaging 12.8 points per game for Adelphi University. The Panthers, who are coached by Cosgrove's father James Cosgrove, are 3-2.
Cosgrove's sister, Maggie, is averaging 4.8 points and 2.0 assists as the starting point guard for Sacred Heart.
Alan Siegel is a sportswriter at The Eagle-Tribune. E-mail him at ASiegel@eagletribune.com.
