Jeremy Andrew, contributor

Last week I had the chance to sit down with Joe Palmer, a member of the Augsburg University basketball team, to learn a little bit about what it’s like to be a college athlete. Palmer is currently a junior this year at Augsburg and is coming off of his best basketball season, where he won the MIAC Player of the Year award. 

Family is very important to Palmer. He chose to go to Augsburg because of his fondness for the city atmosphere and city life, but also because of its proximity to one of his older brothers in Bloomington and his hometown of Faribault. Although he played baseball and football in high school, Palmer chose to zero in on basketball in college, citing the influence of his older brothers, who were also basketball stars at St Mary’s and UW-River Falls. 

“As a young kid I saw that and I thought it was really cool, so I wanted to do that too,” he said of his brothers’ exploits. His brothers are 12 and 14 years older than him, now in their thirties, and retired from basketball but still attend as many Auggie games as possible. Next season, he is looking forward to hopefully winning some championships, but also to playing alongside his younger brother John, who is a freshman on the same team.

Palmer misses the change of pace from season to season when he was playing all three sports, but enjoys the camaraderie of the Augsburg Basketball team. “We’re all like best friends pretty much, it’s awesome,” he said. “Seeing everyone every day is something I definitely don’t take for granted.” He notes that his college team is also a real step up from the level of play his high school team was capable of, and that he wasn’t as close with his teammates in high school.

As one of the wing players, Palmer’s job is to be a leader on the defensive end as well as be a crucial threat on offense. “We just kind of run-and-gun, and I love to just get out and get in transition […] fire up shots […] and hit threes,” he said of his role. He credits Matt Carik  who is “probably the best [point guard] in the league” with bringing the ball up the court and being the driving force for the team. When describing his approach to the game he also says “when I’m on the court I kind of like black out.” Palmer told me how numerous people will come up to him after games asking him if he remembers when the particulars of a play and he almost never does. “It goes by fast, that time on the court,” he said.

You can find Palmer studying between classes and before practice in the library and around campus. He’s majoring in History with a minor in Secondary Education, and hopes to be a middle school history teacher, and eventually a principal like his father, after graduation.