INDIANAPOLIS (BRAIN) — Marian University's cycling team is offering a student mechanic scholarship program intended to give college students experience as a cycling race mechanic.
The team said "The ideal candidate is a high school senior with two or more years of shop mechanic experience who wants to continue his or her development as a mechanic in the race setting, while earning an undergraduate degree and traveling and working with a high-performance cycling team."
The student mechanic will work alongside the Marian Cycling team staff to maintain team equipment, service athletes' personal equipment, and prepare for travel and competition in collegiate cycling's five disciplines.
"It takes a lot of equipment and many moving parts to compete at the highest level of collegiate cycling, and we have learned that it is more than one dedicated person, or even two, can do," said the team's head coach, Dean Peterson. "We are hoping this program offers a unique educational, leadership, and mentoring model for students to grow as bicycle mechanics while being a part of a collegiate cycling program. A great mechanic is just as vital to the operation of a top team as the great sprinter is to a winning lead-out train."
Marian Cycling is reaching out to high school cycling groups to recruit candidates for the program.
Michael Kubancsek, the team’s director of operations and chief mechanic, said, "We have connected with several of our industry partners to ensure these student mechanics will have access to training and technical knowledge, in addition to learning more about the various opportunities that exist in the cycling world – whether through sponsorship, team management, technical education, customer service, and the like."
Interested students should contact Kubancsek at mkubancsek@marian.edu. A campus visit and tour will be arranged with the admissions department, and the recruiting process will include an interview with the staff.
