After Aquila Basket (2016) and Hockey Pergine (2017), the University of Trento signed a cooperation agreement to open a programme combining academic education and a sporting career with Trentino Volley. Back in 2011 the University of Trento opened the first dual career programme in Italy, TOPSport, designed to support professional athletes to reconcile their training and competitions with a university education.
Professor Paolo Bouquet, Rector’s delegate for sport at the University of Trento, explained that “the University reached this agreement because it wanted to launch a dual career programme for professional athletes who play in top local teams. We are pleased that Trentino Volley, with its entire management team, supported the project since the beginning to ensure a secure professional future to their athletes once their sports career is over and to make the club more attractive to young talented players”.
The agreement, which will last for two academic years starting from 2018-2019, will implement the “TOP Team UniTrento – Trentino Volley” dual career programme for all Trentino Volley athletes who are part of the team playing in the men’s major league (SuperLega serie A1) volleyball or who are talented sportsmen planning to enrol in courses at UniTrento (or have already done so).
The University will give these students-athletes the academic support they need to keep up with their sports career: like TOPSport athletes, they will have the opportunity to make flexible arrangements for exam sessions and to receive tailored support to manage their study plan. Trentino Volley, among other things, will select athletes who are interested in studying at the University of Trento but will also design a specific training programme for them. To maintain their place in the “TOP Team UniTrento – Trentino Volley”, student-athletes will have to meet a set of requirements in sport and in their studies.
Two former players of Trentino Volley are participating in the TOPSport programme at the University of Trento: Matteo Burgsthaler (who just earned a master’s degree in management) and Sebastiano Thei (who is in the final stage of a bachelor’s degree in mathematics).