{"id":110233,"date":"2016-03-11T09:13:38","date_gmt":"2016-03-11T14:13:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=110233"},"modified":"2016-03-11T10:18:12","modified_gmt":"2016-03-11T15:18:12","slug":"student-athlete-strong-greg-baliko","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2016\/03\/student-athlete-strong-greg-baliko\/","title":{"rendered":"Student-Athlete Strong: Greg Baliko"},"content":{"rendered":"

UConn\u2019s student-athletes are often lauded for their on-field or on-court achievements, but there\u2019s an equally important \u2013 often unseen \u2013 dimension to the student-athlete. UConn Today is publishing a series of profiles to highlight the academic prowess of these student-athletes. Follow along as we profile two athletes each month<\/a>, and provide an inside look at the academic pursuits of these high-achieving student-athletes.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Student-athlete<\/a>
Swimmer Greg Baliko says being a Husky is about academic and athletic pride put together. (Sean Flynn\/UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Greg Baliko<\/a> \u201916 (CAHNR)
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hometown:<\/strong> Fanwood, N.J.<\/p>\n

Sport:<\/strong> Men\u2019s Swimming & Diving<\/p>\n

Major:<\/strong> Allied Health<\/p>\n

Anticipated graduation:<\/strong> May 2016<\/p>\n

What\u2019s your specialty on the team? <\/strong>I do the 100m and 200m breaststroke, as well as the 200m individual medley and butterfly on our relays.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s your favorite class and why? <\/strong>I\u2019m going to go with Human Genetics, Molecular and Cell Biology 2400; the teacher, Colleen Spurling [assistant professor-in-residence], was fantastic. I thought she had a really unique way of teaching genetics, which isn\u2019t the easiest topic. She connected it back to how it works in your own body and in humans overall; it related to real-world application, which was really nice.<\/p>\n

How do you balance the demands of your sport as well as a full class load? <\/strong>I think it really starts freshman year; you have to make a decision whether you\u2019re going to succeed in school, athletics, both, or not succeed at all. It takes a special type of time management. We have very early practices, so I get my work done as soon as I can in the morning, and focus on my time management. If you have free time, there is so much more you can do in that time than you think. If there\u2019s an hour in between class, it\u2019s possible to get work done, and it\u2019s important not to just put it off.<\/p>\n

What does your schedule look like on a typical day during the season? <\/strong>I have morning practice at 6 a.m. until 7:30, and then after that I\u2019ll eat breakfast and that will bring me to about 8:30. Then I have a 9 a.m. class, and then I\u2019ll have a break. In that break, I\u2019ll try to do as much work as I can, then I\u2019ll eat lunch at noon, have another class or two which brings me close to practice at 3:30. Practice ends at 5:30, and then I\u2019ll get out of the water, change, shower, run to get a protein shake, and get dinner. Then I finish up remaining work and studying, and get in bed at a decent hour before 11 p.m.<\/p>\n

What are some of your academic accomplishments? <\/strong>I was on the Dean\u2019s List last semester; I got a 20 on my Dental Admission Test (DAT) last summer for dental school [the mean academic average score for admissions is commonly 19, according to Wikipedia]; I was an Academic All-American for the past three years with the swim team; and I\u2019ve participated in 3.0 Night every year since I was a freshman.<\/p>\n

What is the biggest challenge you face as a student-athlete? <\/strong>The largest challenge probably would be when we\u2019re traveling for competitions. Missing a week of school is hard to come back to. As soon as we get back, we\u2019re a whole week behind, and making up for that time is really hard. It\u2019s like trying to play catch-up, but it\u2019s not a game because it\u2019s so important. There\u2019s lots and lots of work to make up that we missed while we were away, and that\u2019s always hard. The week after missing a week for travel is very difficult; that\u2019s definitely the hardest part.<\/p>\n

Describe someone you\u2019ve met here who has already impacted your future. <\/strong>I have to say Coach Goldberg; it\u2019s easy to see how he\u2019s impacted my future already. He taught me a lot of techniques to succeed in and out of the classroom, and in and out of the pool. He teaches us that we have to put our full effort into everything. He\u2019s also big on punctuality and commitment, both in and out of the water. He teaches me to always commit myself when I\u2019m in class; it\u2019s easy to see people on Facebook during lectures, but it\u2019s important to be committed in class as well as in your sport.<\/p>\n

What does it mean to you to be a Husky? <\/strong>It\u2019s about academic and athletic pride put together; UConn is such a great university and it\u2019s nice to see we have such a high academic standing. Both sides of the coin really correlate well for such a great university, and I\u2019m proud to be a part of it.<\/p>\n

Where are you headed after graduation? <\/strong>I\u2019m going to take a year to maybe redo a couple of classes, and then I\u2019m going to apply to dental school.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Academic All-American swimmer says learning to balance the demands of a varsity sport with a full class load has to start during freshman year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":58,"featured_media":110283,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1712,2225,2234],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[117],"class_list":["post-110233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-athletics","category-uconn-storrs","category-university-life","series-student-athlete-strong"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-12 11:52:46","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/58"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=110233"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110233\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":110290,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110233\/revisions\/110290"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/110283"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=110233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=110233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=110233"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=110233"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=110233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}