As Hannah Cochran ’25 travels across campus, she carries a Bryant backpack that tells her story: one covered with America East conference emblems and the Bulldog patches awarded to student-athletes for strong academic performance.
On the softball diamond, Cochran’s teammates could always count on her. In 2024, the utility fielder tallied the second-most single-season Runs Batted In in program history. In 2025, she hit a three-run home run in the America East Championship game.
She’s an academic standout as well. Through her internship with Bryant’s Office of Student-Athlete Academic Services, the Actuarial Mathematics major — a regular on the Dean’s List who tutors through Bryant’s Academic Center for Excellence (ACE) — helps with office logistics, supports staff, and meets one-on-one with student-athletes to plan their academic paths.
Softball has been part of Cochran’s life since she was nine years old. Playing sports has helped her make lifelong friends and unforgettable memories, and she credits the skills she's learned as a student-athlete — like drive, coachability, and the ability to manage hard work — with helping her in securing the fulltime underwriting job at OdysseyRe, which she started in December after graduating a semester early.
But being a student-athlete hasn’t always been easy. Keeping up grades, maintaining friendships, preparing for post-grad life, and giving their all in competition can be exhausting.
It’s not always the work itself that gets to you, she says; sometimes it’s the stress.
“There was an adjustment period my first year, and I definitely had some breakdowns,” Cochran admits. “I was like, ‘Oh my God, I'm not going to be good at softball, and I'm not going to be good at school, either.’”
But she found support from ACE’s tutors, her teammates, and Lauren Chapman, Bryant’s director of student-athlete academic services, who has been a confidante ever since Cochran first visited the university.
They aided her with subject matter, yes, but also leant a supportive ear — and helped her to realize that she could rise to the challenge.
Cochran isn’t alone in her experience, or her achievements. Bryant recently enjoyed its best academic semester for student-athletes on record. Four hundred and five Bulldogs were named to the America East Academic Honor Roll, and nearly 60 percent of students made the Commissioner’s Honor Roll. The
overall student-athlete term GPA was a record 3.43 — even higher than that of non-student-athletes.
The university’s graduation success rate of 96 percent is six points higher than the national average; its academic progress rate is among the best in the country.
At Bryant, says Vice President of Athletics and Recreation Bill Smith, J.D., success isn’t measured by championships; it’s scored on changed lives. To make that kind of difference requires dozens of professionals working across fields from academic support to sport psychology — and a community committed to each
other.
“That’s one of the most important things an athletics program can give to students: it can inspire them to grow.”
Smith has ushered in an era of growth and success for Bryant Athletics. The university currently fields 25 Division I teams and recently captured its first America East Commissioner's Cup, awarded annually to the most successful school in conference competition.
Achieving those results took a massive expansion of facilities and personnel. But Smith is proudest of how close-knit the community has remained. “Our goal is to be ahead of the competition every way we can — in athletics, in academics, and in wellbeing,” he says. “I think that’s one of the things that makes us different; we treat our student-athletes as whole people.”
Playing sports teaches teamwork, perseverance, grit, and integrity, Smith states, but it also opens students up to a world of possibilities. If they can push themselves to new heights in competition, he says, they can also discover what they’re capable of as scholars, as citizens, and as people.
“That’s one of the most important things an athletics program can give to students: it can inspire them to grow,” he says.
When Britt King describes herself as a former student-athlete, she’s being modest. The star forward for the Providence College women’s basketball team left the program with numerous Big East honors and was a KODAK District I All-American.
Now, as Bryant’s Assistant Athletic Director for Student-Athlete Development and Engagement, King plans events and workshops for student-athletes, covering everything from personal finance to good sleeping habits, and serves on numerous committees dedicated to supporting the young people on Bryant’s teams.
Mostly, though, she builds relationships. Sometimes with teams and coaches, during practices and team meetings. But the most important are one-on-one with Bryant students.
Often, these sessions are about resources and opportunities or encouraging student-athletes to think beyond their sport and discover the passion that will guide their lives. Other times, it’s as simple as helping students from other parts of the country and world find a restaurant that reminds them of home.
King also shares her experience with students to help them navigate the mental health challenges that can accompany the demands of being a Division I student-athlete. “When I played and went to school, having anxiety was not something that was discussed. Your teammates and your coach told you to get over it and move on.”
It’s the culture that needs to change and adjust to the current student-athlete experience, she states firmly.
That’s why, one evening in Bryant’s Heidi and Walter Stepan Grand Hall, King introduces nearly 200 Bulldogs to Ivy Watts, a former All-American track and field athlete, to discuss the mental health challenges that student-athletes face.
Watts opens the session with a simple game of four corners and asks students to move to different spots in the hall based on how they answer the following question: How often have you felt stress as a student-athlete?
Most students gather in the “Sometimes” station, with a smaller but still significant number at “Often.” No one stands in the “Never” area.
That’s normal, Watts assures them. Student-athletes today juggle intensive training, academics, new friendships, NCAA issues like the transfer portal and name, image, likeness (NIL), and the pressures of being front and center in the age of social media — all while competing at the highest levels.
Over an hour, Watts helps the group uncover the roots of their stress and develop constructive coping strategies. One of the most important, Watts says, is relying on your community.
“You are not alone,” she reminds them.
That message, Bryant’s Bulldogs come to realize, is true in more ways than they could imagine. There’s always someone they can turn to, including their peers, coaches, and professional counselors committed to their well-being.
It’s more important than ever that student-athletes find a sense of balance, says Bryant Sport Psychology Counselor David Lockwood, M.Ed, MSW, LICSW. A recent NCAA study found that student-athlete mental health concerns post-COVID-19 pandemic are 1.5 to two times higher than before.
Student-athletes face the same issues as other students, Lockwood says, plus a host of additional stressors. And because of their busy schedules, they are always “on,” he adds, which can lead to burnout and other issues, even injuries.
“We are whole people,” he declares. “And that means respecting all the different parts of who we are.”
From one-on-one counseling to mindfulness sessions and team workshops, Lockwood and fellow Bryant Sport Psychology Counselor Kaitlyn Hall, MA, LMHC, who played lacrosse and field hockey in college, respectively, teach techniques like visualization and stress management, assist with injury recovery, and work with individual athletes and whole teams to improve focus, motivation, and team dynamics. They also help students find ways to honor who they are beyond athletics.
By working closely with groups throughout all of Bryant’s athletics programs, including coaches, trainers, and strength staff, they ensure that student-athletes’ mental health is treated as seriously as their physical readiness, and that Bryant Athletics has a healthy and sustainable culture, not just a focus on winning games.
Things work best, both Hall and Lockwood agree, when everyone is part of the team.
Bryant’s coaches, trainers, and mental health professionals are joined on this team by academic support staff whose sole role is to help student-athletes achieve their highest potential in the classroom.
Lauren Chapman’s office in the Academic Center for Excellence is busy all day. Chapman and her team in the student athlete advising office aid students in planning their academic futures — but appointments often include stories from home, campus updates, and even tours through a student’s favorite Instagram posts.
For Chapman, who played golf at the Division I level, building trust is essential. “My first semester of college was awful academically,” she says. “But I got help. My coaches and advisor never gave up on me. They wanted me to succeed, and they made sure I had the tools to do it.”
Bryant’s student-athletes are smart, driven, and supportive of each other, she notes. They form study groups quickly and often presentations — even if they’re not classmates. Her job is to help them chart, and sometimes clear, a path to success, whether by directing them to tutoring or working with faculty to reschedule tests that conflict with away games. Academic staff even travel with teams at times.
Her work is also about helping student-athletes adjust to a whole new ball game. Chapman’s teams go beyond the catalog and the lesson plan by teaching things like study skills and time management as well.
“We’re committed to helping them achieve everything they’re capable of,” she says.
No one has taken that ethos to heart more than Bryant’s student-athletes, themselves. Some of the strongest support they receive is from their peers.
As co-chairs of the Bryant Student-Athlete Advisory Council, made up of representatives from all of Bryant’s athletics teams, volleyball player London Hunt ’26 and swimmer Aidan Trenery ’26 provide a voice for the student-athlete community. Together, they lead important discussions about school and NCAA policy, gather feedback, and share information that other members of the council bring back to their respective squads.
“It’s about Bulldogs helping Bulldogs. It just comes naturally here.”
In short, they look out for their teammates because they know their teammates would do the same. From the on-the-spot tutoring he’s received from an older teammate while on the road to when a fellow swimmer reaches out with a sympathetic ear at a low moment, Trenery says he’s never felt alone.
There's always tough moments in sports, Hunt admits, even on a team like hers that enjoys regular success. “We've had rough stretches of games. We've had teammates who've left the team, but there’s always someone there to help us work through it.
“It makes you want to play better, but you also just feel better knowing that you’re part of something bigger than yourself,” she reflects.
When Trenery and Hunt, both seniors, look back on their time as student-athletes, their favorite stories are filled with moments when their friends came out to support them. But other Bryant figures find their way into these tales too, from Lockwood’s advice that helped the swim team stay on target to Hunt’s visits with Chapman to the conversations they both now have with Bill Smith about the future of Bryant Athletics.
For Hunt, one moment stands above the rest: “The first time I came to visit Bryant from Texas, Britt King told my mom, ‘Don’t worry; we’ll take care of her,’” she says with a smile. That simple reassurance, Hunt says, made a world of difference for an incoming student who was preparing to travel across the country to live and learn in a new place.
But that’s just what happens at Bryant, the pair reflect. “It’s about Bulldogs helping Bulldogs,” observes Trenery. “It just comes naturally here.”