Life After Football: Krapfl, Padilla preparing to become pharmacists

This feature story was written for the September 25 season-opening football program.

The life of a Division III student-athlete requires balance. Trying to balance academics with sports, along with family and friends and trying to have some sort of a social life can be difficult. Aaron Krapfl and Austin Padilla are doing their best this fall and looking to succeed on the field for one last season, while trying to achieve great things in the classroom as they start their graduate Pharmacy program.

On the football field, Padilla (running back) and Krapfl (defensive backs) are seniors. They are team leaders, captains of the 2015 team, and players who have gone through highs and lows during the last three-plus seasons.

In the classroom, Padilla (Oshkosh, Wis.) and Krapfl (Anamosa, Iowa) are freshmen, although not your typical freshmen. They, on the exact same day training camp began for Football for their senior year, began graduate courses for the four-year Pharmacy program, a rigorous program that has seen past athletes stop playing the sport they love just to focus on academics.

"We have classes from 10-3, or on some days 10-2 and then go straight to practice from there," said Padilla, a 5-7 running back who tallied 105 yards and a score last season. "From there we have meetings, followed by a night of studying until about 12:30 or 1 am."

Certainly a busier day than a typical college student, although both Padilla and Krapfl were both looking forward to when camp ended as they would endure a more "normal" schedule.

"It has been pretty difficult during camp to balance both Pharmacy and Football," said Krapfl, one of the leaders of the secondary and an All-NACC Honorable Mention selection a season ago. "Now that camp is over it should be a little easier of a balance."

Still, the balance will be one that requires great time management and the ability to lean on one another when things get difficult, which in such a challenging field, can be on a daily basis. Both players said having one another to share ideas with and lean on has become one of the most important aspects of balancing the workload.

"It's everything," said Padilla when asked about what it meant to have Krapfl, who is also his roommate, on his side. "I don't know what we'd do if we were in this alone, but to have that guy to bounce ideas off of really saves us."

Krapfl agreed, stating: "That's huge, having someone there who is going through something really difficult. It is really nice to be able to turn to someone when things get hard."

Another key aspect is having a coach who understands what his athletes are going through. Head coach Greg Etter, according to both players, has been more than supportive in the two, understanding the difficulties they are facing in the balance of Pharmacy and Football.

Being accepted into the Pharmacy program at CUW is a challenging task, and one that when it happens has forced past student-athletes to hang up their cleats, skates, sneakers, or whatever it is they wear when competing. For Padilla and Krapfl that wasn't an option. Foregoing their final season was something they weren't willing to do.

"We love this game and we are going through this because we want to play our senior year," Padilla said. "It would kill us if we had to stop, we didn't want to do that."

We hear the term all the time as fans of college athletics: Student-Athlete. Both Austin Padilla and Aaron Krapfl represent what it means to be a student-athlete to its purest form. They are chasing their dream of being a pharmacist, while enjoying one last season on the gridiron, playing the game they love.