Saints have smarts that match their skills

If you page through the St. Charles East media guide and spend a few minutes going over the player profiles, it's impossible to miss the team's grade point averages.

On a 5.0 scale, the numbers just roll: 5.7, 5.3, 5.5, 5.4 -- these are students taking advanced classes and excelling in them. It's a team that clearly works to its academic as well as athletic maximum level.

"I tell the kids that, from the time you play, the higher the level that you play, the more that your intelligence comes into it and the more that you have to use your head on the field," St. Charles East coach Pat Feulner said.

Ellen Bartindale is one of the smart Saints. She heads to Notre Dame this fall, and is about to graduate near the very top of her class.

"I think I'm fifth now -- I got a couple of Bs," Bartindale said.

Bartindale's academic exploits take up most of her media guide biography. She is the "5.7" in the above listing of sterling GPAs. She is on the Student Council Executive Board, a National Honor Society member, President of the Latin Club and has chosen a school where you won't get in if your grades are anything but outstanding.

"I don't think Notre Dame would have looked at me if I didn't have the grades I do," Bartindale said. "If they had to fight to get me in, I don't think I would be going there right now. Obviously it's my dream school, and the soccer helps, but I needed to have the grades."

The importance of doing well academically begins early in a Fighting Saints player's career. The fact that the varsity team has glistening GPAs is the result of hard work through all their years in school. And if the grades slip, they have to endure a different kind of pain than running after practice.

"I was in (Athletic Director Jerry Krieg's) office last week with three of my little freshmen," Feulner said. "I almost had them in tears. They came up on the eligibility list, and I follow the eligibility list. If they're on it, we talk about it."

Part of Feulner's insistence on academics is because he knows the reality of how many scholarships there are, how many openings there are to play on college teams and the overall need to have a quality education.

"You know as well as I do that if you want a scholarship, put a book in your hands," Feulner said. "When you start looking at academic scholarships, you close a lot of doors if you don't have grades."

Doors open thanks to academic prowess as well. Senior Ashley Miller is another of the smart Saints. She has a 5.5 GPA, is in the National Honor Society, the Math Honor Society and is an honorable mention to the IHSA's All-Academic team.

Miller has not been certain about playing college soccer, with the idea of becoming a full-time student weighing heavily in her thoughts. But she received a call about an opening on the Miami of Ohio roster, and missed Tuesday's game with Streamwood to go to Oxford to talk about playing for the Redhawks.

"She got into Miami, and it turns out that one of their starting defenders leaves school in mid-semester," Feulner said. "We made a couple of calls and she's off there having a visit."

Bartindale said she's learned how to juggle her various commitments as well so she can continue to be a good soccer player and a solid student.

"I've learned it's better to be involved in a couple of things a lot rather than many little things," Bartindale said. "I do Student Council and Downtown Partnership volunteering. Those are things I like a lot."

There is a downside to having a desire to use one's brains on and off a soccer field. There comes a time when things have to happen instinctively, and that doesn't always mesh with the desire to think things through.

"I know sometimes I think too much," Bartindale said. "The coaches have yelled at us a lot to just stop thinking. I think we need to learn how to do that. It's hard to not think."

The American combination of school and sports is different than in some areas of the world. Stories of foreign players whose "brains are in his feet" are legion.

But the Saints turn that upside down, and with good reason. There is still no professional women's league in the U.S. So for most players, getting a college scholarship is the pinnacle achievement. Then once college ends, playing days at the highest level also come to a close.

"It's more than just the game," Feulner said. "The game is a great tool to get them exposed to other things that will pay off in life."

Colleges like smart athletes. Athletic scholarships are limited in sports like women's soccer, so coaches take those full-rides and break them into two or three pieces. The player who has her entire college paid for through a college scholarship is rare.

"They're carrying 25 players and they have maybe 11 to 14 scholarships to hand out," Feulner said. "You do the math. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that unless you're a player who they think will be the difference in a program, you're looking at a partial ride."

Academics can help here as well. Feulner said his daughter Patrice earned a full ride to Arizona State after her 2000 graduation from St. Charles. But because she qualified for academic scholarships, the Sun Devils were able to take back some of that athletic scholarship -- which allowed St. Charles grad Anne Poulin to join Feulner in Tempe.

"It's just another way to get in the door sometimes," Pat Feulner said.

Smart athletes are not the sole domain of St. Charles East of the school's girls soccer program. At St. Charles North, for example, the girls soccer team has instituted a college-like study table this spring.

"We have a group of girls on the team, including Lauren Ostarello, Caitlin Winkelman, Laura Klopmeyer and a few others who are very smart," Anne Poulin, now the North Stars assistant coach, said. "We had a couple of girls, just two or three, who might have wound up in academic trouble. With these girls on our team who are so smart, it works if you give them a chance to work together."

The study table has had an additional benefit in the time the players spend together during the week.

"They really liked that they had some extra time to be part of the team and to really bond," Poulin said. "A lot of it is learning time management. And instead of going home right after practice, they get to be part of the team a little longer. It's good for them."