Former Badgers fulfilling degree dreams
May 11, 2017 | General News, Andy Baggot
UW Athletics initiative helping student-athletes complete education
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BY ANDY BAGGOT
UWBadgers.com Insider
Osswald came to Madison via small-town Wausau to play football for the Badgers from 1980 to '84. He started out at defensive tackle before switching to guard, seeing action mostly as a reserve.
Moore, meanwhile, came to town by way of big-city Minneapolis to play guard for the women's basketball team from 1998 to 2002. She was a two-time Most Valuable Player for the Badgers who ranks seventh on the school's all-time scoring list.
But while Osswald and Moore competed in different sports in different eras with different metrics at UW, they have a good deal in common.
Both left Wisconsin without undergraduate degrees to pursue opportunities at the professional level in their sports. Osswald, a free agent, signed NFL contracts with Washington and Indianapolis. Moore, a first-round draft pick, played in the WNBA with seven teams from 2002 to '07 before heading overseas.
Both had family reasons to want to return to UW and finish. Osswald became a father who didn't want that void on his resume to become a crutch for his two children. Moore, meanwhile, wanted to be the first in her family of two siblings to earn a degree from a four-year college.
But for all their incentives and good intentions, it took Osswald and Moore more than a decade before they graduated from Wisconsin.
Their journeys help explain why Alan Zussman, a semi-retired veteran of nearly 40 years in the UW academic services office, occupies an office at Kellner Hall.
His assignment is to reach out, locate and assist UW student-athletes who want to return to school and complete their degree work, regardless of how long they've been away.
Zussman reports to Doug Tiedt, the UW senior associate athletic director for student services, who said the school has gone from merely encouraging former student-athletes to get their degrees to proactively soliciting their return.
"Rather than have them come to us, we're reaching out to them," Tiedt said. "That's the significant difference."
What's the objective?
"When we commit to a student, we commit for life," Tiedt said. "When they come to school we don't want to say it's just for four years. We're committing to you getting a degree. That's our ultimate goal when they come to school in the first place. We want to help them achieve that."
Zussman has been working with Mike Cerniglia, the executive director of the National W Club, to collect home addresses, email addresses and phone numbers for former UW student-athletes. For now, the focus is on those who are within 20 credits of a diploma.
"Not being pushy or condescending, but getting the word out," is how Zussman described the initiative.
Zussman estimates he's assisted 50 student-athletes return to school and get their degrees since his stint with UW Athletics began in 1978. The difference now is that a more formal operation is in place.
"We can figure out what it is you need to do, the approximation of how long it might take and what's happened since you've been here that might make it easier," Zussman said.
"We're setting up what can be a pretty good structure for everybody."
Zussman outlined a plan that calls for returning student-athletes to have their tuition and fees paid for through UW Athletics.
It works like this: A returning student-athlete pays to enroll in a class. Upon completion, the person is reimbursed by department funds.
"It's a great incentive to want to do this," Zussman said.
Tutoring is available if needed. Zussman said online courses make the process more attractive than ever before.
"Ten years ago we offered 10 percent of what's being offered now," he said.
Tiedt said UW Athletics has access to a database that allows officials to get a detailed academic snapshot of any former UW student-athlete even though they may have transferred to multiple schools.
Tiedt said Zussman has been given a two-year appointment to coordinate the initiative.
"He's got a great connection to the community, to the alumni," Tiedt said. "He's a seasoned advisor."
Osswald was an all-state player at D.C. Everest High School who came to UW to play for the late Dave McClain, lettering in 1981, '83 and '84.
Osswald said he dropped some classes as a senior in order to participate in NFL training camps as a free agent. He wound up with Washington and, later, Indianapolis. He said he left Madison "nine or 10" credits short of a degree.
When his flirtation with the NFL ended in 1987, Osswald said he worked in the car business, got married and started a family.
Now 54, Osswald said he really got serious about acquiring his degree in 1999 when he started his own business and "my kids were getting at that age where college was on their minds."
Osswald said his pride kicked into gear.
"How was dad going to promote that they need to do well in school and further their education when dad didn't finish his?" he asked rhetorically. "I have to walk the walk if I'm going to preach it to my kids."
Osswald admits he wasn't the best student, but credited Zussman and former academic adviser Diane Johnson for guiding "one of their nightmares" down the right path.
Osswald said he commuted from his home in Weston to finish off two semesters of Spanish. He graduated in 2004.
"I can't tell you how much it meant to me to get that piece of paper," Osswald said. "It's on my Badger wall in my office, right in the center and surrounded by everything else because that's a pretty proud thing for me."
Osswald said he paid for the last classes that secured his degree in communication arts.
"To be able to say I graduated from there, that I got my degree, is a personal pride thing," he said.
Moore, meanwhile, was the Big Ten Conference Defensive Player of the Year for the Badgers in 2001 and a first-team all-league pick in '01 and '02. She was chosen by the Miami Sol in the opening round of the WNBA draft in 2002.
"It kind of was a situation where it was uncharted water," Moore said.
Instead of finishing off her last semester, Moore said she put her final 15 credits on hold because she had to take part in the Sol's training camp that spring.
Moore played her first WNBA season before taking a methodical approach to finishing her degree in Afro-American History. She took classes in the spring of 2003, '05, '08 and 2013 before graduating in '14.
Moore said she was encouraged by former UW women's basketball coach Jane Albright to return to school in 2013. Moore noted that she received a scholarship from the NCAA that paid for one semester. She said she was reimbursed by UW for the final semester.
Now 37, Moore works as a teacher's assistant in Minneapolis while waiting for a break that will get her into college coaching.
"There were two driving forces for me," she said. "One was my mother, who was someone I always wanted to finish my degree for."
The other, Moore said, was that major colleges require that their coaches have undergraduate degrees.
"That's always been my passion," Moore said of coaching. "That's always something I wanted to do."
Zussman said first-year men's hockey coach Tony Granato has spurred an interest in the back-to-school movement.
Granato left UW in 1987 to play in the Olympics and embark on a career in the NHL. He returned to coach the Badgers under the stipulation that he secure his final 16 credits toward a degree in human development and family studies within a year.
Zussman said a host of former UW men's hockey players — inspired by Granato, who will graduate this week — have inquired about returning to school.
"When I told him what I was doing, he said, 'Give me the guys who are within three courses and I'll call them personally,'" Zussman said of Granato.
More and more UW student-athletes are getting opportunities to play in the pros as underclassmen. For example, two football players, Ryan Ramczyk and T.J. Watt, were taken in the first round of the NFL draft last month. Meanwhile, one of Granato's best players, captain Luke Kunin, signed an NHL contract after his sophomore season ended in March.
Zussman said it's understandable why student-athletes would leave UW early for the pros, "but we've hopefully instilled that education itself, without any benefits you can point to, has value," he said.
"At the end of the day, I'm happy that I was able to be a Badger" Proud of our Badgers becoming UWGrad this week.
— Wisconsin Badgers (@UWBadgers) May 10, 2017
Osswald may have put it best.
"Finish what you start," he said. "Don't quit on yourself."
Moore set all sorts of records for the Badgers and played at the highest level in the U.S. and overseas.
But asked where her degree would be displayed on her resume, Moore didn't hesitate.
"For me, it sits at the top," she said.
