Marshall University Athletics
Swimmer Kramer Makes the Most of Marshall Life
11/8/2014 12:00:00 AM | Women's Swimming and Diving
By STEVE COTTON
HUNTINGTON, W.Va. – Katie Kramer’s journey to Marshall began with a list -- compiled by her mother -- of colleges that had both swimming and football teams.
"And not too far north, because I don’t like the cold," laughed the Naples, Fla., product. "West Virginia was about my northern limit."
The list led Kramer to Huntington and far beyond, an odyssey that includes a swim across the Strait of Gibraltar, studies in Germany and Oxford – the one in England – and even a field trip to the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum.
Among those travels, Kramer managed to graduate, in three years, with a degree in economics and is on pace to complete her MBA in May – a full four years at Marshall even if one weren’t a member of a college swim team.
So, why was Marshall football critical to Kramer’s college choice?
Her father is the head coach at Naples High School, where he’s won state championships and coach of the year honors. Bill and Susan Kramer’s oldest daughter loves football.
"It was really important to me that the school I chose would have a big-time football program that was a huge deal to the community," Kramer said. "I really wanted that."
As Kramer began clicking her way through the websites of the schools on her mom’s list she became intrigued by Marshall, which until then she knew of only because of the movie.
"I filled out the online swimming questionnaire, and then checked out the academic programs," she said. "I came across the Yeager program information and got excited about it. I sent the link to my dad and said, ‘This looks too good to be true.’ He said, ‘Go for it.’
"So, I actually came to Marshall first to visit as a swimming recruit, and then later when I was invited back to the Yeager finalists weekend."
The Society of Yeager Scholars provides a small number of the brightest and most promising students with a full scholarship and additional academic opportunities and challenges compared to most MU undergraduates. The requirements include classes outside of what a "regular" student’s major would necessitate.
"For instance, I had to take 15 hours of Spanish and some math and science classes that others in my degree program didn’t," Kramer said.
Yeager Scholars also take intensive interdisciplinary seminars in each of their first four semesters at Marshall. One of Kramer’s, for instance, combined math and art – with multiple professors for six students. Another combined political science and communications.
"Pretty much all Yeager Scholars will tell you that’s the most challenging part of the program, but those seminars were very beneficial," Kramer said. "My friends at Ivy League schools haven’t even had classes that small for that kind of focus from the professors.
"Then I have friends at bigger schools, like the University of Florida, who have degrees similar to mine, but they’ve never had to write papers like I have.
"Those classes are very difficult while you’re in them, but what we gained from them is invaluable."
The summer following her sophomore year, Kramer and the rest of her class undertook another Yeager challenge – study at Oxford University’s Exeter College, which was founded 700 years ago, in the year 1314.
"I can’t even put into words how much I want to go back there, even if it’s just to visit," Kramer said. "It’s cliche, but it was magical. Everything from the architecture and atmosphere is inspiring. We basically lived in a castle with a big cathedral out the window and you eat in a dining room that looks like it’s straight from Harry Potter.
"The professors and all the international students we were there with are the smartest people I’ve ever met. It was so challenging, and every day you were forced to expand your intellectual boundaries.
"When I go back and read the papers that I wrote then, I wonder if I could do that well now. That’s what the unique atmosphere there provides, where you receive challenges and inspiration from people of all ages from all over the world."
Study at Oxford might be hard to top as a summer vacation, but Kramer made a good run at doing so this year, when she became the youngest American – and just the 18th American woman – to swim the Strait of Gibraltar, then spent two weeks of intensive economics study at the Otto Beisheim School of Management in Vallendar, Germany.
That’s just part of the world that the Yeager program has opened for Kramer.
"Other schools have full academic scholarships, but what we have is different," she said. "I went on a ‘field trip’ to Mount Rushmore and worked with an artist in South Dakota. I went to Weston (W.Va.) to study the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum and learn how, throughout history, architecture has affected health.
"We participate in so many things you never would have thought of doing."
All of those "extras" make it even more noteworthy that Kramer became the first Yeager Scholar to graduate in three years, an accomplishment magnified even more that she did so as a member of the Herd swim team.
Believe it or not, Kramer says the swimming part is now easier that she’s working on her MBA, since she now has night classes.
"This is the first semester that I’ve been able to make it to every afternoon practice," she said. "In the past I’ve had to make up time in the pool with extra morning work or after classes and after the team has left the pool.
"Last fall, Monday through Thursday, I was literally in the pool by myself. It’s so hard to practice the way you need to without your teammates there, so I’m loving my schedule right now."
Kramer’s accomplishments made her a natural as Marshall’s 2014-15 nominee for the celebrated Rhodes Scholarship, which is billed as "the oldest and most celebrated international fellowship awards in the world."
She has also taken the U.S. State Department’s Foreign Service Officer Test, which would potentially lead her to work in a U.S. Embassy anywhere in the world. "It’s another cliche, but I want to serve my country," Kramer said.
But first things first for Katie Kramer, who is still enjoying her final season of competition for the Marshall swim team … and, of course, rooting on her nationally ranked and unbeaten Thundering Herd football team.
Veteran play-by-play broadcaster Steve Cotton – a nine-time West Virginia Sportscaster of the Year -- is in his 22nd season on the Thundering Herd/IMG Sports Network. This story also appears in this week’s edition of Herd Insider.
