Growing up in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, Lucky Mkosana '12 said that he was pushed by his father to focus solely on soccer, and by his mother to think only of school. Now a Dartmouth sophomore, Mkosana said that attending Dartmouth has allowed him to satisfy them both.
And, while Mkosana may seem an anomaly for trading the subtropical climate of sub-Saharan Africa for the freezing winters of New Hampshire, his path to Dartmouth is not as unusual as it might seem.
Dartmouth's Division I sports programs boast nearly 50 international athletes, from countries as far away as Mongolia (equestrian rider Baljir Baatartogtoh '12) and as close as Quebec, Canada. In conversations with The Dartmouth this week, many of these international athletes agreed on one thing: America is one of the few places where one can find the opportunity to continue an education without having to give up athletic dreams and aspirations.
"I wanted to get a good education, but at the same time compete at the highest level," basketball forward and Ukraine native Sasha Dosenko '12 said.
Born in Kiev, Ukraine, and a former member of the Ukrainian National Team up to the U-20 level, Dosenko left her country to attend high school in the United States in order to pursue an education. It was only then that she decided to continue playing basketball in college.
Although she had to leave her family behind in Europe, Dosenko said she is happy with her decision to attend college in the United States.
"Usually, my friends don't really go to college [in Ukraine], but instead finish high school and go play professionally," she said.
Dosenko said that one of Dartmouth's positive attributes is that women have the chance to get a degree before moving on to play abroad, noting past Big Green players who have graduated and now play in Denmark and Iceland.
Soccer rookie Stoian Nedelchev '13, who hails from Sofia, Bulgaria, said he also has many friends who have gone on to play professionally, but said that he had decided to turn down that immediate opportunity to pursue his education.
After playing for and captaining the Lyn Oslo Youth Club in Norway, the midfielder said he found Dartmouth to have the best combination of high-level sports and academics.
"To be honest, I really didn't know what to expect, considering that there are so many different schools, but considering how high [a level] Dartmouth soccer here is, I realized it wasn't that bad," Nedelchev said. "I finally found out that there is more to life than just kicking a ball around."
Dartmouth has seen the number of foreign student-athletes grow in recent years, to the delight of both players and coaches.
"Today seeing it as a coach, the environment is very special," men's hockey head coach Bob Gaudet said. "I graduated from Dartmouth in '81, and I have yet to see any international player who went to Dartmouth and didn't love the place."
Gaudet said that throughout his time as a coach and as a member of the hockey team, the squad has always been around 50 percent Canadian.
Canadian hockey players in junior leagues have great exposure to American college coaches, since so much recruiting is done all across North America, he said.
The men and women's hockey teams each include 10 Canadians this year, altogether comprising 40 percent of hockey players at Dartmouth.
"I was mostly generally interested in American colleges and then looking further into it it wasn't really me choosing Dartmouth, it was more like they choose you," hockey player Geneva Kliman '12 said. "Just recently, there have been a lot more opportunities to play higher level hockey [in Canada], but the whole point of playing at that level is to be looked at by colleges."
The men's hockey team, meanwhile, must has to deal with competition from the major junior leagues.
"We compete directly with that system, which tried to keep kids in Canada, but kids want to come to a school like Dartmouth to get a first-rate education and play Division I hockey," Gaudet said.
The focus on finding talent from abroad, once reserved for the College's hockey teams, now appears to be becoming more and more common across Dartmouth athletics.
"[International recruiting] is a big thing for soccer," Mkosana said. "[Head coach Jeff Cook] goes to Africa every year, he goes to Sweden and Scotland, too he does a lot of traveling."
Mkosana himself was first spotted by Cook at a tryout held in Zimbabwe, where, over a two-day period, the number of participants was slowly cut to two, leaving Mkosana as the sole player to apply to Dartmouth.
The rise in international student athletes at Dartmouth may be partly attributable to the players' increasing knowledge of the American education system.
"Growing up, my friends and I didn't really see American schools as an option unless you were an athlete," skier and Canadian native Michael Dea '12 said. "The level of competition is so much better athletically, but schools in America are way more expensive than in Canada, so if you're not going to compete, then it's not worth the money."
Another factor international athletes must weigh is whether the chance to play their sport and continue their studies is worth leaving their homes and families behind.
Virginia Peisch '11, said the decision to leave Rsselsheimer RK, one of the top field hockey clubs in Europe, was a tough one. She admitted that she waited a long time to tell her teammates the news.
But, years later, Peisch says leaving her hometown of Koenigstein, Germany, to play at Dartmouth was the right decision.
"I'm so lucky, because in Germany, sports and school are two separate things, and there is no communication between them," she said. "Here, it's in the same setting, and I can go to my professors and they understand that I'm playing for Dartmouth."
Peisch's family visits from Germany often and is able to see her play, but for others, that is not the case. Since coming here two years ago, Mkosana has not yet returned home to see his family, although he hopes to do so next summer.
And, while making the transition to life at Dartmouth can be tough for any student, international athletes must also make the transition to cultural changes not just inside the classroom and residence halls, but on their sports teams as well.
"In Canada, everyone eats, breathes and sleeps hockey, and obviously people still like hockey here, but some people are a little less exposed and don't really know the rules," goalie Jody O'Neill '12 said. "It makes you appreciate it a bit more."
Players like Nedelchev, Dosenko and Peisch also had to adjust to a change in playing style, as all three athletes said they found the American style of their respective sports to be more physically demanding.
"Field hockey is different here Americans are much more physical and well conditioned, while it is much more technical in Germany," Peisch said. "It was hard to adjust, coming here I remember my first preseason just being a huge shock, because of the amount of running we had to do."
Now, as college athletes, international players also must face the question of what they want to do when they graduate. Some will return home or continue moving forward with their sport, while others have discovered new paths at Dartmouth.
"I guess part of the transition for me while I was at Dartmouth was that I got into engineering, so now I want to pursue that," alpine skier and Quebec native Francis Fortin-Houle '10 said. "I do wonder what it could have been like, to continue skiing with friends who currently compete at an international level, but I've come to the realization that my sport is not everything, and that you need a plan afterwards."
Peisch said she has also changed her mind about returning home to play competitively, and said that after living in the United States for a few years, she has become more flexible about where she will live after graduation.
For other athletes like Mkosana, Dartmouth is a stepping stone to pursuing higher levels of competition.
"I haven't really thought about going home yet, and I might want to try to go pro and play for a team, like in the MLS or in Europe," he said.
But before he fulfills that dream, he will have made his mother proud of his Dartmouth degree.
