(photo obtained Skidmore Athletics Website)
Starting hockey when he was four years old, Austin Rook ‘22 always considered the sport a big part of his life. Though no one in his immediate family played, his uncle and cousins did, so Rook would skate whenever he visited them. After learning how to skate at a local, public skating rink and eventually picking up a stick, Rook started getting more comfortable with the sport. Now a junior on the Skidmore Men’s Hockey team, Rook reflects on his time playing hockey and his role on the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC).
Similar to most hockey players, Rook took a couple years off between high school and college to join a Juniors team. “I guess the main purpose of Juniors is to get bigger, faster, stronger for college, especially when everyone else is doing it. It's just kind of the norm. It's definitely one of the biggest paths to college hockey. It's unlike any other sport. That's why you walk around campus and guys are 22, 23, 24 years old.”
This path proved to be useful as he finished second on the team in scoring with 19 points, seven goals, and 12 assists during his first year on the team. He also was fourth amongst NCAA rookie defensemen. He earned New England Hockey Conference (NEHC) Honor Roll, NEHC Rookie of the Week, NEHC All-Academic Team, NEHC All-Rookie Team, All-NEHC Second Team, and American Hockey Coaches Association (AHCA) All-American Scholar. His sophomore year, he also got a NEHC Honor Roll mention.
This year, Rook earned another title: captain. When asked what being captain means to him, Rook replied, “I think it's a privilege and an honor just to be put in that role. I think this year definitely came with its challenges. But I think just being around the guys this year has made a big difference, like being in that team setting, was a huge win for a lot of us.”
This season, the team was scheduled to play ten games but because of a delayed start and changes in Alert Levels on campus (as a result of COVID), the team was only able to play in two. “It seemed like every week something bad was coming out, you know, we can't do this, we can't do that. So I think just being around the guys and having one another to support each other and get through it together, made it a lot better.”
As for next season, Rook hopes the team is able to get a home playoff game, something that hasn’t happened in a long time. He notes that he wants to just focus on and enjoy his senior year, and try not to think about what is going to happen in the future and after he graduates. “I think we are going to have a really good team and I'm excited to see where it goes. I also just want to enjoy my senior year, the final year. It's kind of crazy how fast it goes by.”
He also is hopeful that things on campus can go back to somewhat normal: “I hope we can all be together and play, not only for just hockey, but everyone. I think the community and the campus needs it at this point.”
During Fall 2019, Rook came up with the idea of having “Stable Games” where different teams would go to at least one game of a different sport. After talking to some coaches and the administration about his idea, he was told the best way to get his idea into fruition was to join the Student Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC) which works closely with the Athletics Department to voice student-athlete voices and concerns. “I was thinking about ways that we can bring the community together. It seems like there's not only barriers between student groups on campus, but there's, you know, barriers between teams also within the athletic community.”
Rook further describes that he wanted the athletic community to come together and start communicating because as he mentions, “it seems like we all get caught up within our own sports. And that's all we think about, but outside your sport there's a huge community of all of us that go through the same thing. And we all understand that. So I thought of the Stable Games idea where each team has their own stable game and all the other athletes will go and support them.”
Because he joined SAAC his sophomore fall semester, Rook was able to implement the idea (i.e., Stable games) and thinks it was successful: “I think students started to enjoy it, obviously it was a little bit different and trying to get everyone there was a little bit of a challenge, but I think it was beneficial.”
Rook is now co-presidents of SAAC with his teammate Brian Kowalski ‘21 and explains that he really enjoys learning about student-athletes' experiences on what Skidmore means to them. “It was honestly great working with Brian. We'd been pretty close, but I think being co-presidents with each other, brought us even closer. And I thought we worked really well together. Just bouncing ideas off each other all year long. I really enjoyed it.”
Another part of his role as co-president is communicating between the students and the Athletic Director and Assistant Athletic Director. “I really enjoyed talking with different students that I haven't met before and, and getting ideas and getting their experiences on what Skidmore means to them and their athletic experiences. I think that it was really rewarding.”
Over winter break, Rook and Kowalski got the idea to start a SAAC podcast that would feature different organizations and leaders on and off campus. “I think it's very evident on this campus that there's barriers between student groups and especially with what happened in the fall. I was thinking, what can we do to kind of start bringing down those barriers and creating more relationships and learning about each other?”
There are currently four episodes of the podcast out and can be found in the bio of the Skidmore SAAC instagram (@skidmoresaac). So far on the podcast, they’ve hosted someone who works in the Planned Parenthood Chapter on campus, the Equity task force, a 1993 Skidmore Alum who is a Sex Health Educator, and another Skidmore Alum who used to work in the NFL in Player development, but now works in Finance at Goldman Sachs as a performance coach.
Rook stresses that this podcast is not just meant for athletes. “I think some people might have a misconception that it's just for athletes but it's meant for everyone on campus. I hope more people will start to listen to it because it's aimed at everyone. We want to educate ourselves on everything that people do here at Skidmore. We wanna meet new people and hear their stories and also think about ways to improve our community.”
Rook speaks about the third episode of the podcast and how the Sex Health Educator, Shafia Zaloom, focused on how to improve the sexual culture on Skidmore’s campus. They also talked about sexual assault awareness month. They talked about sex culture in America and consent. The fourth episode features another Skidmore Alum, Chris Henry, who worked in the NFL as a player development. He helped players transition from playing in the NFL to the real world and helped them get a job, and other services when they retire or just end their career.
“I think it was really cool because with alumni, they've had a career for 20 plus years and they can reflect back on their Skidmore experience. Yeah, it's probably changed a little bit since they were here, but they can reflect back and they can use their professional experiences to say, ‘Hey, you could probably do a little bit more work here. You can probably improve here.’ I thought it was really cool.”