Sports
Time Management Key To Hrynewich’s Balancing Act
By: Clay Benjamin
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It is 6:30 a.m., and the alarm on Hailey Hrynewich’s iPhone rings to cue the start of another day.
Still groggy from the night’s sleep, Hrynewich gets dressed and makes her way to Peden Stadium for her golf team workouts. It’s another day of cardio and core work to get ready for the spring season.
Once she returns to her room from the workout, she is sore and tired, but knows her day is just beginning. Hrynewich opens her Lily Pulitzer planner, which has the day’s schedule she made the night before. She scratches out “golf workouts” while she looks at the day ahead.
Being a member of the Ohio women’s golf team is only a little part of who Hrynewich is. Add in Greek life, a job, community service and involvement with on-campus media, and you’ll notice she about does it all.
She doesn’t consider herself Superwoman, though she likes the way it sounds.
“It is really hard to balance it all,” says Hrynewich, a sophomore journalism major from Muskegon, Michigan. “Time management is key. At least three times a day, I have to write down a revised schedule for everything I have to get done.
“Every five minutes count, I’m always on the go doing things. I honestly don’t even know what I would do without my schedule.”
Hrynewich came to Ohio before the 2013 fall season, winning two of the three tournaments she played that summer before teeing off for the Bobcats. In her freshman year, she averaged a team-best 78.26 strokes per 18 holes, capping the season with a team-high 10th place finish at the MAC Championship.
Midway through her sophomore year, Hrynewich has three Top-10 finishes, two of which have come during the 2014 fall season.
Despite all that she is involved in, she says her main focus is golf.
“Coach [Kelly Ovington] has us doing so many things every day, that it is almost hard not to be focused on golf,” she says. “I decided to go pro in golf this summer, so golf is my number one focus. I want to be the best, so golf has been my main priority.”
Thanks to her father Tim and her twin brother Reed, Hrynewich stepped up to the first tee for the first time when she was just 9-years-old.
“I played in a little junior tournament at the Muskegon Country Club, and my dad asked if I wanted to try golf. I said ‘sure,’ ” she says. “My brother and my dad are both really good golfers. I started to win junior tournaments and I just started to love golf.”
Reed, who is a golfer at the University of Michigan, has always been there for her, whether it be out on the course or getting her through a tough day.
“On a golf standpoint, I study the swing a lot, and she calls me her coach,” Reed said. “We both go to each other for a lot of personal things going on in our lives. We understand each other well and always do our best to help out.”
She calls Reed her “best friend.”
“I am super close with him, and I can always go to him for anything,” Hrynewich says. “He means a lot to me and I don’t know what I would do without him.”
It is the advice Hrynewich receives from her twin that helps her through her struggles. She mentioned that her brother always knows what to say to make her feel better.
“The most important advice I have given is to never settle for anything less than your best,” Reed said. “I’m an attitude junkie, so I have a lot of quotes I have given her that deal with having a positive approach on life. Golf is just a sport, so it is important to step back and realize everything that is going on around you and separate golf from life.”
After her morning classes, Hailey Hrynewich opens her planner and works on making her second schedule of the day. When it is completed, she hops in her white Pontiac Vibe and begins to make her way to the Athens Country Club for afternoon practice.
After she is finished with the three-hour golf practice, Hrynewich grabs a quick dinner before heading to 16 S. College St. for a Mary Kay makeup party she is hosting at her sorority house.
As a member of the Alpha Xi Delta sorority, better known as “Fuzzies,” Hrynewich has a schedule that is even more packed. She first got involved with Greek life because of a fellow teammate.
“Lauren [McKinzie] was a Fuzzie, and she told me to rush Greek life,” Hrynewich says. “She couldn’t tell me to join her sorority, but I ended up going to recruitment and really enjoyed Fuzzie.”
All that Hrynewich is involved in surprises sorority sister Heidi Foster.
“I honestly don’t know how she does it all,” Foster said. “She tells us all that she has to do and I get stressed just thinking about it.”
Though she loves her sorority and her sorority sisters, Hrynewich says joining the sorority has made everything more difficult to handle. She says her sorority sisters are impressed by her, but believes that they truly don’t understand just how difficult it is.
“The most challenging part is being in the sorority,” Hrynewich says. “Golf and school always come first. The other girls have time for sorority stuff and sometimes I feel like I am letting my friends down because of golf and school, so it is hard not being involved as I want to be in my sorority.
“I’m a type of person who likes to put 100 percent into everything I do, and for me to not be able to go to everything is really hard. I want to be there all the time, but I just can’t.”
Now that some of her sorority sisters have walked into the dining room, it is time for the Mary Kay makeup party to begin. After preparing and setting up the makeup trays, Hrynewich gets the party underway.
Hrynewich has been an independent makeup consultant for Mary Kay for six months. She was first approached over Facebook when a woman with the company approached her and told her about the job opportunity.
"Mary Kay is the perfect job for me because I can work on my own time,” Hrynewich says. “As an independent makeup consultant, I make phone calls and set up facial appointments with women and let them try our products and they purchase what they like. I make money off of this as a sales consultant."
When she isn’t going to a chapter meeting or a social, or hosting a makeup party, Hrynewich says her involvement in Alpha Xi Delta is through community service.
As a Fuzzie, she is required to take part in two philanthropy events every semester, she says. Last Christmas, Hrynewich says a group of sororities, including Fuzzie, got together and organized an event to buy, wrap and deliver presents to the underprivileged families of Athens County.
“I loved taking the gifts, I loved doing it,” Hrynewich says. “Doing stuff like that makes me so happy. With Athens being a poorer county, it felt really good to give back to the local community and help those in need.”
When it is not golf season, Hrynewich switches her priority to her major: Journalism. As a journalism major, she says she can’t get as involved during golf season, but when the season is over, she makes journalism her top priority.
“I chose journalism because I love to talk and I’m really outgoing,” Hrynewich says. “I’m also interested in news and sports so I figured that and my personality, it would work out really well.”
Hrynewich is a contributor to WOUB Sports and AVW Hockey, two off-campus media outlets that give students a chance to prepare for their careers.
With golf, Greek life, a job, community service and involvement with on-campus media, Hrynewich knows getting an education is important. For all of her commitments outside of the classroom, Hrynewich is no slouch when it comes to hitting the books.
“I don’t sleep,” Hrynewich jokes, “so during the week I spend about four hours every day doing homework, and at least 20 hours for the whole week.”
Hrynewich was named to the 2013-2014 Athletic Academic Honor Roll with a 3.6 GPA.
Hrynewich says she averages about six hours of sleep every night, but there are times where it can be less. No matter how hard she tries, she says there are some things she can’t control, such as missing class because of tournaments.
“I miss a lot of class, and it’s hard because you can never get that back,” Hrynewich says. “Missing notes and what the teacher says in class, so I have to go off what is on Blackboard, and it is a challenge sometimes.”
Long-time Los Angeles Laker guard Kobe Bryant uses his love of soccer to escape his hectic life. When she isn’t on tour, singer/songwriter Taylor Swift makes snow globes to relax. For Hailey Hrynewich, she always finds her way back to the course.
“Golf is my way of escaping from everything that goes on in my life,” Hrynewich said. “I love going out on the course and playing by myself. It’s my way of clearing my mind of everything in my life and going out there and doing what I love. It reminds me of how fun it was to play when I was younger.”
At the end of the day, her father and brother couldn’t be happier.
“I’m extremely proud of Hailey,” Tim Hrynewich said. “I’m proud of the person she has become. She is so friendly, positive and upbeat. She is happy 99.99 percent of the time, and she always has a smile on her face.”
Reed, her twin brother and best friend, can’t find the words, he said, to tell people how he feels about his sister.
“I think I am blessed to have a sister like her,” he said. “She is so friendly to everyone, will always be there for you, and she sets an amazing example for younger people who want to be successful. We are definitely close, and we will always be close.”