Many people live their lives one day at a time with no clue what tomorrow will bring, while others live their lives with a dream to catch and a dream to hold on to. Jonathan Wortman, a student majoring in global fitness and wellness, has a dream that only a few can say they’ve accomplished, and soon enough he will be able to say he accomplished too.
Wortman is a senior who will be graduating in May 2015. He has been a part of Phi Beta Sigma for four years and is president of the Greek Senate board. Wortman became interested in Greek Life while doing research about it during his freshman year of college. “I didn’t know anything about Greek Life and through my research I felt like Greek Life was for me,” he explains, “[Phi Beta Sigma] are leaders on campus. [Somebody] on student organization inspired me to be better,” and thus his Greek Life career began. He became the president of Greek Senate two years ago, and was re-elected into presidency last year.
Besides being a part of Greek Life, Wortman is also the student manager for the Kean University Cougar’s men’s basketball team. Wortman played for his high school basketball team, but once he began college, he chose to be a volunteer instead of a basketball player. “My passion isn’t playing basketball anymore, it is coaching so the players can excel at their talents.” It is no surprise then that his major is global fitness and wellness, with his goals consisting of coaching basketball as a short term aspiration “while [my] long term goal is to go back to school to get [my] Master’s in Work Administrations and become an athletic director.” He continues to say how his short term goal includes working for the National Basketball Association [NBA] internationally to help other people in different countries learn how to play basketball.
Some may think that someone who has a career goal of coaching basketball has a topnotch NBA team as a favorite, such as Miami Heat or Los Angeles Lakers, but Wortman is a fan of the Detroit Pistons, and his favorite current player on that team is Brandon Jennings. Of course, Wortman’s favorite collegiate basketball team is the Kean University Cougar’s, but “my favorite division one collegiate basketball team is the University of Florida Gators.” Although Wortman would love to coach a divison one basketball team like the Gators, “the reality is, it’s very hard to become a coach of that kind of team without the experience,” not that it can’t happen, of course. “That is why I am building up my resume,” Wortman continues, “and I had the chance during the summer to help coach a basketball team at a summer camp in Pennsylvania. One of the coaches was Kevin Boyle [former coach of the Saint Patrick’s High School men’s basketball team], who helped me with my skills.” Wortman will also be participating in a senior fellowship at a professional level.
If anyone knows who Wortman is, one will definitely know an “interesting fact about myself…is I love to stroll. People know that about me. [Strolling] is like stepping and dancing combine[d].” He continues to say how much he loves to do stepping, how wherever and whenever, “whether it be in the car or at an event on and or off campus, I am stepping; wherever there is music.”
As Wortman shows, college life doesn’t have to be about hitting the books every night. College life is a part of life, a section of life to make mistakes and grow. Wortman will graduate with the remembrance of learning how Greek Life became important to him and how basketball became more than just a game.
