The Chattanooga Mocs just finished spring practice week 3 of 5 in preparation for the 2022 campaign. At the conclusion of each week, GoMocs.com will share a "Friday Focus" feature looking at key areas, stories or whatever the author decides is fun to share.
 
Week 1: O-Line Is in Good Hands
Week 2: Bookend Emerges
 
It's time for a deeper dive into one of the core values in the program. Weather postponed one of the special moments in the final semester of graduating student-athlete's lives. The Student-Athlete Academic Enhancement Center holds a Sashing Ceremony further celebrating the major accomplishment and highlighting a life-changing moment.
 
Life changing? Isn't that just hyperbole? Not at all if you ask Coach Rusty Wright. It's the whole point of being here...as coaches and student-athletes.
 
"That's why we do it," Coach Wright summed it up. "That's the point of the whole thing. The ball stops for all of us at some point in playing the game. Making sure they get degrees...that's why we're still in it, and why we do it.
 
"It's the ultimate goal. Everything I've gotten in my life is because I graduated from here. I think it's important for these men to know that's the ultimate goal and thing we have to achieve."
 
So what exactly is a Sashing Ceremony and why do it?
 
"The Sashing Ceremony is a time for us to come together as a Chattanooga Mocs athletics family and celebrate our graduating student-athletes," Assistant Vice Chancellor Dr. Emily Blackman explained. "Our coaches take this opportunity to share a few words about that class of students.
 
"It's an intimate gathering of just the graduating student-athletes, their coaches and some support staff as a way for us to internally celebrate their accomplishment as well as actually sash them with their student-athlete sash they'll wear during commencement."
 
Celebrate achieving the ultimate goal.
 
Virtually every one of our student-athletes dreams, plans, works on a professional career. That's the dream. In our house, those dreams are augmented with a strong work ethic on and off the field.
 
Graduating running back Gino Appleberry has it all in front of him. Two years of eligibility remains for him as he finishes his undergrad in Psychology. He looked back and ahead when sharing pride in the present along with plans for the future.
 
"(The sashing ceremony) means that I'm a step closer to the big day," he began before sharing a personal feeling. "I'm one of the first in my family to graduate college...to even go to school. This is a big not just for me, but my entire family.
 
"But this is another stepping stone. It's about to get real," he smiled. "The real world is about to come. I'm looking to get my MPA (Master's in Public Adm.) or maybe Industrial Organization."
 
He gets it. He's one of 16 this semester who does from football rosters past and present. Appleberry is joined by Riley Bodine, Gabe Boring, Bryce Coulson (Master's), Rashun Freeman (Master's), Jay Gibson, Kohl Henke, D.J. Jackson, Andrew Manning, Tavi McLean, Cody Olszewski, Jahmar Quandt, Giovanni Reviere, Aaron Sears, Colin Truett & Cameron West.
 
Playing while working on a Master's degree like Coulson and Freeman did seems like an oddity. But with the COVID exception adding a year of eligibility along with the Mocs focus on the true prize, there are more out there. A number of the men in the list above are like Appleberry with eligibility remaining, They can join the likes of wide receiver Tyron Arnett and offensive lineman McClendon Curtis who are getting Master's while playing along with others like Cole Strange and Jerrell Lawson who just exhausted their eligibility.
 
"I mean, it's huge because that means they've made a commitment to being here, and they stayed here and they've stayed the course," Wright added. "They figured out that there's some things in life that they can go do, and they may want to pursue, but it just goes to show the kind of people we have.
 
"To me, that's the biggest thing. We have guys in here that know there are important things in life, including football, but academics is huge. They've stayed the course and finished."