O'Bryan makes transition from Red Cloud to USD: Hard work, good support system helps students succeed
by Tom Crash of "Lakota Country Times"
posted September 24, 2007

“You know, I was really terrified to have people read my essays, I always wondered how my work measured up to other students and I worried that I wasn't academically prepared,” said Marissa O'Bryan, the valedictorian of her senior class at Red Cloud high school last year and now preparing for her second year at the University of South Dakota in Vermillion, “and on the athletic side, I was really nervous, USD had a strong track team and I knew the competition would be tough, I knew there would be really hard workouts and I felt like I was going into a dark tunnel, I didn't know anyone who had run in college, there were just so many unknowns, it was really scary.”

“The first year is really tough,” said Matt Rama, Red Cloud's head cross country, boy's basketball and track coach, “it is a difficult transition for any kid to go from high school to college, in high school you are the best in your school and when you go to college you are with a lot of other students who were the best in their school; Marissa is making the transition, she'll be successful because of her strong work ethic.”

O'Bryan credits hard work as an important part of the transition, at Red Cloud her overall GPA was between 4.0 and 4.1 but USD was a whole new ballgame. The first semester taking 13 hours, Marissa earned a 2.7 and the second semester with 12 hours she earned a 3.5 and participating in a sport at the collegiate level requires a whole lot more work according to O'Bryan who said strongly, I was trying my hardest, you can only do so much.

“Time management is a big factor,” said O'Bryan, “we took an NCAA class where we had to fill out time sheets about what you were going to do every hour of the day; all of it took practice as you basically learned how to study, how to turn off the computer and we had help, the athletic program had tutors and they helped us by correcting our papers, helped us with math and critiqued our speeches and we had study halls in the library, six hours a week – if it wasn't for that I may have never made it to the library and slowly the tests got better and better and you figured it out.”

In high school, O'Bryan played volleyball, basketball and ran track. In her senior year, head track coach, Matt Rama encouraged Marissa to focus on the sprints, the 100 and 200 and even the 400, a new race for O'Bryan who had run hurdles her first three years in track and a relay. With the new focus on the sprints and spending time on technique and form, O'Bryan was able to reach a personal best almost every week. Qualifying for state for the fourth year in a row, O'Bryan was last in the 100 at the State track meet as a junior and third as a senior and added a fourth in the 200.

“There's no other feeling in the world like crossing that finish line,” said O'Bryan, “I love track, the competing, the butterflies when you get into the box, you drive all those miles to a meet and you go up against tough competition. If it wasn't for Matt, he volunteered to work with me, it was the little things though, workouts in the morning, work on abs, motivation to win state and more importantly he helped me with my confidence, making it a reality that I could compete at the highest level.”

In her first year at USD, Marissa ran the 60, 100, 200 and 4 X 400 relay during the indoor season and the 100, 200, 4 X 100, 4 X 200, 4 X 400 and the 200 in the medley relay. The women's team at USD was the North Central Conference outdoor conference champs this year. The university has decided to move up to NCAA Division I and after one more year in the NCC, USD track teams will have the opportunity to be the first athletic teams from USD to compete at the Division I level.

“When USD's coach, Lucky Huber, said he would be very happy to have me as part of the track program, I was so excited,” said O'Bryan, “he was very enthusiastic and made the workouts not so bad; if you are a hard worker, there's always the next person who'll push you farther, you can never work hard enough, your body will go as far as you push it. It was a fun experience and it is great to have teammates around you who are supportive and positive, cheering you on for the last 200 meters. Track is very individual but they make it a team deal and I wouldn't have been able to do it without my teammates being so encouraging – the workouts are really hard, to push your body past your fatigue, to pump your arms as hard as you can, get light headed, feel like you are going to fall down but when you are done, you feel good, you feel pride that you did it, it is a really good feeling.”

This coming school year, coach Huber at USD says Marissa will run the 400, both the 4 X 400 relay and the open 400 and in the indoor season some 500s to get prepared for the outdoor season. When told that the 400 hadn't been O'Bryan's favorite race, Huber commented that all of us have had to run a mile when we were in grade school or junior high, we weren't ready for it and it was painful but given a chance to train for the 400, Marissa will find it a fun race.

“When Rama first encouraged me to run the 400 in addition to the 100 and 200 during my senior year, I really wasn't comfortable with it and when I ended up being ranked in the top ten in Class A in the 400 I would go around hiding the newspaper from Matt, he didn't need that kind of encouragement,” said O'Bryan, “but now after a year at USD, my coach will do his best to prepare me, I just have to be dedicated and put in the hard work and on top of that, I have some great role models on my team, some awesome runners.”

Looking back on her first year in college track, O'Bryan said it was the mental toughness that was the most important element of what she learned; its all mental in what you do. Yes Coach Huber will give us workouts so we know when the hard workouts are coming and we know to eat a good meal and get enough sleep but I can be the fastest runner but if I don't have the mental toughness, I won't get there.

Next year when USD starts competing at the NCAA Division I level, O'Bryan will represent the second student athlete from Red Cloud in the last five years to be competing at the DI level. Mackenzie Casey, a 2004 Red Cloud graduate is entering his senior year at South Dakota State University and has played basketball for the Jackrabbits all four years. Student athletes from Red Cloud participating at other levels include Johnny Crow who went to McCook Community College in Nebraska on a basketball scholarship last year, Raymond Ghost Bear who played golf at Si Tanka University and Dakota Wesleyan University and Chris Red Bear who is planning to go to Central Community College in Columbus, Nebraska this fall.

O'Bryan and Casey in particular but also all of the student athletes who go on and do a sport in college represent potential role models for the many young athletes on Pine Ridge and throughout Indian Country.

“That's the goal for athletes to be able to compete at the next level,” said Rama, “it's just good to see kids from the res, get off the reservation and be successful, Marissa and Mackenzie both have a really good work ethic and that's been a key to their success.”

O'Bryan is majoring in nursing, she plans to be a neo-natal nurse practitioner; I don't want to be a doctor, I want to care not cure, she says with a strong emphasis. As far as advice for those younger students thinking about college, O'Bryan tells younger students to follow their dreams, don't wait for your junior or senior year, you have to take care of your academics, your grade point average starts when you are a freshman but if you have determination you can do it she emphasizes.

“Don't wait until the last minute, colleges are not waiting until the spring of your senior year; call and get in touch with college coaches, send them tapes, go for it, follow your dreams,” said O'Bryan, “put your mind to it, be dedicated and focused, there are many people out there who will help you reach your goals.

“USD was her choice and it has turned out to be a good choice for my daughter,” said Todd O'Bryan, Marissa's father and a long time rancher outside of Sharps and a long time member of the Shannon County School board, “I'm glad she's in school in a small town like Vermillion rather than a large city and Marissa going out for sports made her first year harder but by participating in track she is part of a family, all of the sprinters are there for her and help her.”

“The University was a perfect fit, my teammates are awesome, the campus and classrooms are not too big and I'm far enough away from home to be independent,” said Marissa, “the year wasn't without challenges though, you sometimes end up stressed and really tired, during the conference meet, we had finals, it was really hard to balance them both – there were times you would come back late from a track meet, you're tired and certainly don't feel like studying for a test the next day and you have to learn to adapt, some teachers may not teach the way you learn and you just have to figure it out.”

Marissa continues to think of ways to let younger students know how best to prepare for college, you could look at all the campuses and see the best facilities or a really nice student center but it comes down to the people and definitely to the people you surround yourself with. She tells students looking at a college education to take a trip to the college during the school year, stay overnight with a student and really check it out.

O'Bryan knows that she could not do this by herself and admits that it was really hard for her to ask for help that sometimes you just have to go in and ask for help from a tutor, you are not the only one who needs help and she says it is really hard to ask a professor for help, it was easier to find one of her teammates who had taken the class before.

“Marissa works really hard, that helps and students who have a good foundation in math and English seem to do well,” said Huber, “her work in high school helped earn O'Bryan the Gates scholarship and a USD Native American scholarship, both meant she did not have to work during the school year and she could focus on her classes and running track.”

She also knows that a lot of people have helped her along the way including Wendell Gehman, her science teacher at Red Cloud who helped to make science fun and interesting, her parents who raised her with enough discipline that today she is responsible enough to handle many things herself, her old coach, Matt Rama who believed in her and pushed her to succeed and have the confidence to meet the many challenges ahead of her and her new coach who helped push her to new limits and new levels.

“This year was a great experience and I loved it,” said O'Bryan, “I met a lot of different people, learned a lot, enjoyed having a roommate, became part of a great team and I liked living independently and I'm really looking forward to my sophomore year, to the challenges, to the work and to the new experiences.”

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