The Choice: Deciding Together as Teammates

The desire to play collegiate basketball is often first imagined by an athlete at an early age. Certainly, by high school that dream motivates drills, practices, conditioning. The dreamer coaxes more and more time from their lives to improve their skills and they begin to define themselves as competitors. Depending on coaching, they might also learn about leadership, teamwork and dedication. If they possess the right aptitude and ample talent and athleticism, they can realize their ambition.

There is no junior league for nurses, no training happening in elementary or middle school to show how satisfying caring for the sick or hurting can be. By the time an athlete gets the urge to become a nurse they may have five years or more invested in basketball.

Some choices are singularly significant, with consequences that might last a lifetime. Decisions can simultaneously be about adding something to our lives and subtracting something from them.

Monica Arens and Claudia Kunzer faced such a decision. Each had been a visible and valuable part of the University of South Dakota’s women’s basketball team for four years, and each cherished not only the game of basketball but also their teammates and coach in a close-knit sisterhood. Both had another year of eligibility remaining in what had already been college careers brightened by participating on some of the winningest teams in the university’s basketball history. The upcoming season – the 2021-2022 season – held great promise, with a sizable group of accomplished players returning from a championship squad. It would likely be a rewarding and exhilarating basketball season.

The two young women also pondered a final year in the university’s rigorous nursing program. They’d struggled to balance the enthusiasm they felt for both basketball and nursing during the previous year. And each knew what they’d endure if they tried again to balance both. Could they halve their passions for each? Should they relinquish their spots on the basketball roster or delay graduating with a nursing degree?

"Monica and Claudia are tremendous young ladies who have focused on their academics and competing as Division I athletes." – Dawn Plitzuweit, Head Coach, USD Women’s Basketball

That this was a difficult choice was an understatement.

“When I came to USD the plan was to play basketball and become a nurse,” explained Monica Arens. “I knew it would be a demanding schedule for me.”

“I also came to USD to play basketball and pursue a nursing career,” reported Claudia Kunzer. “When I was being recruited by different basketball programs, I found out that some discourage its athletes from taking on the challenges of nursing.”

Claudia Kunzer, a point guard, brought contagious enthusiasm to Coyote women’s basketball.

USD, they discovered, was willing to help them engage those two distinct ambitions. “The basketball coaches and the team’s academic advisor and my nursing advisors made it possible for me to do both last year,” said Kunzer. “They helped me accomplish my schoolwork, satisfy class attendance and apply myself on the basketball team.” The advisors, Kunzer and Arens agreed, were lifesavers, helping them navigate scheduling conflicts week by week.

But the relentlessness of long, arduous days sometimes starting at 4:30 a.m. that were dominated by labs, classrooms and clinics, followed by rushing to afternoon basketball workouts and practices with more study afterward took its toll. Out-of-town games posed special obstacles to keeping up with nursing’s requirements. Kunzer indicated that during the 2020-2021 basketball season she and her nursing and basketball advisors made about 40 changes to her academic schedule to accommodate her basketball obligations. Arens and Kunzer knew their final year in nursing’s undergraduate program would be especially difficult. Some clinical sessions and classes presented insurmountable conflicts.

Helene Hegge serves as site director of nursing at USD’s Vermillion campus. She also provides advice and mentorship to nursing students. Hegge’s daughter played basketball for the Coyotes so she understands first-hand the commitment necessary for a scholarship athlete. “USD nursing appreciates the investment that students and their families have made to become a Division I athlete,” explained Hegge. “We believe that the Division I athlete should be able to major in their career selection while on an athletic scholarship. The Division I nursing student athlete applies astronomical work and commitment to their sport and to the practice of nursing. Being a nursing major aloneis very difficult and adding a sport onto it is a huge undertaking. Claudia and Monica have been successful at both.”

At USD, Monica Arens contributed defensive intensity and big-moment offense to a series of championship teams.

Arens and Kunzer entered USD in the same recruiting class, in 2017, and they have been close friends from the beginning. When it came time to decide if they should discontinue playing basketball in favor of focusing on nursing, they leaned on each other for guidance and support.

“Claudia and I are joined at the hip,” said Arens. “We’re good at calming each other down,” Kunzer explained.

“We talked about our options,” Arens said, “and we knew there would be sacrifices either way we went. But we decided once we made the decision that we had to be completely comfortable and not look back with regret.”

“Making the choice was easier,” Kunzer said, “because Monica and I were able to work through it together.”

And so Arens, a farm kid from Crofton, Nebraska, and Kunzer, who attended a private high school in a Chicago suburb, decided that nursing was the best choice for their final year as undergraduates.

Nursing won out not because basketball lacked anything, but because nursing offered an equally appealing opportunity amplified by its direct applications to each woman’s aspirations.

"Claudia and Monica are great, strong women and they will be an asset to the nursing profession." – Helene Hegge, Site Director, Vermillion campus USD Nursing

“When I was in high school my grandmother got very sick and spent lots of time in the local hospital,” Arens recalled. “I witnessed the life-saving care she received from her nurses and that’s when I decided that that’s what I wanted to do with my life.”

Arens, the third of three sisters to play basketball at USD, resolved her struggle about juggling basketball and nursing studies when she realized, “I am ready to dedicate myself to health care and to helping people. I am setting myself up now for the rest of my life.”

Intense and focused, Arens (#11) and Kunzer (towel draped around neck) in a team huddle with head coach Dawn Plitzuweit                     

Kunzer’s mother was a nurse, and she supplied inspiration to her daughter. “My mom told me how rewarding nursing is, and it felt like good advice because my mom and I are very close and very similar.”

Basketball coach Dawn Plitzuweit is proud of the academic pursuits of her players, and she is mindful how academic scheduling conflicts impact her team. “In our sport,” coach Plitzuweit explained, “we rely a great deal on teamwork and that includes understanding who will be where during action on the court. For us to be our best, we must have our entire team present at practices. If a student athlete’s classes or labs meet after 2 p.m. this presents especially difficult challenges for us.”

Though they won’t be attending practices or traveling across the country for games during the 2021-2022 season, basketball will continue to be a special part of Arens’ and Kunzer’s lives. They share a house in Vermillion with two Coyote players, Liv Korngable and Chloe Lamb. As incoming freshman, the four were placed together as dormitory roommates and they have lived together during their entire time at USD, bonding as teammates and friends.

Kunzer (left) and Arens with USD Nursing Vermillion campus site director, Helene Hegge.

Coach Plitzuweit was sad to see Arens and Kunzer depart the program but understood why they chose as they did. “We would have loved to see Monica and Claudia finish their full careers on the basketball court, but unfortunately with the demands of their final year in the nursing program, they are not able to do both. They are tremendous young ladies, and we will miss their energy, their leadership and their toughness, but they have left their legacy in our program and their teammates will need to carry the torch.”

Helene Hegge is already looking toward the future. “Claudia and Monica are great, strong women,” she said, “and they will be an asset to the nursing profession.”

Impressive Data, Inside and Outside the Basketball Arena

During the 2019-2020 school year, Monica Arens and Claudia Kunzer were members of a USD basketball squad that earned a team GPA (grade point average) of 3.79 to top all other NCAA Division I basketball programs.

That marked the fifth consecutive year the Yote women ranked in the top 25 for GPA, and the fourth year in that span that the team ranked in the top five. The 2019-2020 team finished with a sparkling 30-2 record and was the only basketball program in the country to be named to the academic list and earn a top-25 ranking for on-court success.

Every member of the team was named to that year’s Summit League academic honors roll.

This article originally appeared in the 2021 issue of South Dakotan Health, the magazine of the University of South Dakota School of Health Sciences