BALANCING
athletics & engineering
P
hillip Springsteen, ’20, always knew he wanted to be an engineer. “As a child, I was always tearing stuff apart and trying to make new things out of it,” he shared. “It didn’t always work out the best, as far as my parents said. A lot of times, things would end up kind of broken. But eventually I started creating some pretty interesting stuff.”
engineering program. Springsteen was also planning to wrestle in college, as the sport had always been a large part of his life. “I wanted to make sure that I found a school where there was an engineering program and I could wrestle. I knew that if I went to a school with one or the other, I wouldn’t be quite as happy,” he said.
So when it was time for him to go to college, no one was surprised he was looking for a school with an
The University of Mary turned out to be the perfect fit. Head wrestling coach Adam Aho had seen Springsteen at a
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Momentum
wrestling tournament and was impressed, so when Springsteen applied to Mary at the encouragement of his high school coach, Aho invited him to join the team. “I really liked Coach Aho’s mentality,” Springsteen said. “And after speaking with Dr. Pilling (dean of the Hamm School of Engineering) about his plans for the engineering program, the University of Mary as a whole felt like a really good fit for me. And now, six years later, it really worked out.”
