During a fall season without competition, the UICFlames.com editorial staff contacted over a dozen former student-athletes to discuss their memories of UIC, where life has taken them, and their advice for the next generation.  Every Monday, a new interview will debut.  Today, we catch up with Stephanie Hoskins from the women's swimming team.

UICFlames.com: What years were you at UIC and what events did you swim?
 
Hoskins: I came to UIC in 2000 and I graduated in 2005.  I redshirted a year for shoulder injuries to have surgery. I swam mostly the 50 free and 100 fly 
 
Where were you from originally, and how did you get to Chicago for college? 
 
I'm from Winter Haven, Florida The only way that I was going to be able to attend school was through a scholarship because my family could not afford to send me to school. So I worked really hard to swim and I sent in recruiting letters to probably a hundred and fifty schools, and UIC was one of the ones that responded as interested.  The coach that recruited me was John Christie and over the summer after he signed me, he passed away from stomach cancer and so I came in as a freshman not even knowing who my coach was. 
 
I just wanted out of Winter Haven - you know, typical teenager, just wanted away from home, and so I went as far as I possibly could!
 
What are some of your favorite memories from UIC?
 

One of the things that really sticks out in my mind is the friendships I made on the swim team. A lot of my closest friends are from my university, so that's really been a gift. Many of us would gather probably a few times throughout the year, and whoever was hosting would share a traditional dish from their home with the team and so we'd have fellowship over a meal and it really bonded us. Even though like we had a great time swimming, we made lasting friendships  to this day. I lost my mother in February to brain cancer and they were there for me, they reached out. So you go to school to learn, but you make these incredible friendships that just last forever and I'm just grateful to UIC for actually allowing me to do that.
 
What was your major and did you have a favorite class?
 
I wasn't much of a student! I was a liberal arts major and I studied English, so my writing and literature classes were my favorite part of school.
 
What have you done professionally since leaving UIC?
 
I got a job working at a new home builder as a marketing coordinator, which my English degree came in handy for that because in order to speak to the customer you have to know how to communicate. That was in 2005, and then we had the recession in 2006-2007 so the new home building bubble burst and I was out of a job. I started working for Publix Supermarkets, which is a large supermarket chain down here in the Southeast, and I did real estate for them. I ended up being promoted to the IT department, but marketing and being a part of that culture was always really important to me so right now I own my own business.  I own a digital marketing company and we work with nonprofits.
 
What inspired you and motivated you to work with nonprofits?
 
I knew that in the advertising world, in marketing, that nonprofits are typically underserved because they do not have the resources or the professionals within the organization or even volunteers to be able to get their mission and message out to more people.  It has a very localized reach and so my job and the reason I came to building this company is to expand a non-profit's reach through the power of the internet. 
 
How do you work with your clients to help them achieve their goals?
 
I would say we help them become more visible online to the targeted customer or volunteer or giver. One of my most favorite clients is actually a very small nonprofit but we were able to do a lot of really fun things behind the scenes, technical SEO [search engine optimization] for her and she went from having maybe 60 users viewing her website in a day to now she has close to a 600% increase in organic traffic.
 
We actually leverage the Google ads grant for our nonprofits, which is a free grant that Google provides nonprofits allowing them to have in-kind advertising. They get to spend up to $10,000 a month for search ads and so we're really good at optimizing a website in SEO so that those ads are effective. For a typical nonprofit, we've been able to increase their newsletter sign-ups 10% in a year, and that's a big number for nonprofits that are used to just kind of eking by. 
 
That's the fun part to me, once you have someone opt into an email. One of the things that I love to do right now is to build ad campaigns or that newsletter, and once you have them in there saying yes I want to receive your information, it just opens up your whole organization into people donating, people seeing your message, your event, it's just incredible the power that comes behind really targeted campaigns.
 
Tell us about your family.
 
I'll be celebrating my 8th year wedding anniversary November 2nd! I am married to a wonderful human being, Robert, and we have three children - his, mine and ours. He had a stepson from a previous marriage and I have a 10 year old son, and together we have a six-year-old daughter. We are just enjoying life and this COVID quarantine stay-at-home business has been so interesting with kids that range in such different stages and milestones of life. It's been really hard but we're getting through.Two of them went back to traditional school at the end of August and one of them is doing virtual school right now so that's fun. I actually coach a high school swim team, Santa Fe here in Lakeland Florida, and I love that. I don't think I would have even volunteered or accepted the position had I not had that UIC experience of Coach Paul Moniak so it's been really really interesting. 
 

 
Have you had to adjust your team's routine due to the pandemic?
 
We are in-person training.  We do have procedures and protocols in place. They wear a mask until they get into the water and we keep the mask nearby so that they're always hopefully staying protected. I haven't had anybody get sick, thank God, so they are doing wonderfully. Actually we're winding down our season; next week is our regionals and then the following week if any of them qualify we'll have state.
 
Is there anything that you think your experience as a student-athlete helped prepare you for more so than if you had just been a regular college student?
 
I think that any student-athlete has to have a tremendous amount of discipline and being able to balance everything that gets thrown at you. In life we are just constantly having to embrace the chaos, so I think as a student-athlete because you're juggling school and sports as well as - I actually worked while I was a student-athlete. I was a part of the UIC athletic facilities department, so I think I worked sometimes 20-30 hours a week on top of the 20 hours of training on top of the 12 or 14 hours of school so it was a lot. You have to have mental fortitude as well as physical strength and for student-athletes that's kind of the game, that's how you become successful is just embracing that chaos. 
 
With all the chaos that we're living in, what advice would you give to our current student athletes who are balancing practice, classes, and everything that goes along with it?
 
I would encourage having some down time to be able to process emotions. Make sure you set aside time for yourself or to reach out to a friend and don't hesitate to ask for help. So often I see that many of us try to present this perfect life through social media and it's not always perfect. We're not always picture perfect so don't be afraid to ask for help or to check in on your friend when you notice something's up. Sometimes embracing chaos is a good thing but you also have to know your limit and it's okay to say 'I've had enough.'
 
 

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