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As a student at ČZU and then captain of the junior hockey team Sparta, Robert Sovík was busy. He was the only one on the team who put on a jacket and headed out to exams between practices. He always focused on getting good grades, excellent English, and getting a diploma in case his career as a professional hockey player didn't quite work out.

In the Czech environment it is very difficult to combine professional sports and university studies. Robert Sovík took advice from an older teammate and set out to try his luck overseas.

However, due to his eight extra-league starts for Sparta, the doors to D1 universities, where NHL teams usually choose their future stars, were closed to him, so his steps led him to Hobart and William Smith Colleges in New York, where he studied economics. Good grades earned him an internship in finance directly in Manhattan and later a tailor-made job. In addition, a project was born at that time, into which Robert ultimately decided to put all his efforts. Today, the USA Sport & Study organization helps Czech athletes take a similarly bold step and go to America to pursue sports and study. “We focus on working with the individual, from preparing skills and knowledge, through choosing the most suitable school and then moving overseas, to setting up the right activities during their studies in the USA,” Robert Sovík describes the main idea of ​​his organization, which over a hundred Czech students have gone through in recent years. “We want such people to take the best steps even before applying for a scholarship. For example, working on English, preparing for tests, but also on the mental aspects of the whole process. After all, they will be overseas for a long time, far from family and friends, in a different environment, in a different mentality and a new team,” he says. It is not just about the students experiencing four great and adventurous years in a new environment. “We try to make the return on investment as high as possible, so that during that period students open the door to a great and successful career, whether in sports or at work,” he adds. The overseas environment also perceives the importance of sports in the work environment, which is perhaps why American universities have long been designed so that people do not have to choose between improving their sports performance and good grades and have sufficient space to focus on both. “Athletes who are on their way to obtaining a diploma have enormous potential to apply for lucrative jobs. I believe that sports provide excellent preparation for the work environment. Athletes can consistently develop their skills, communicate in a team, work under pressure, tolerate defeat or criticism. I myself have been able to resolve many situations in the work environment based on my experience in team sports,” says Sovík, who in 2011 achieved an average of one point per game as captain of the junior Sparta. “With our program, the decision to choose between sports or education is postponed for a Czech athlete by another four years, because in the Czech Republic they would probably have to make this choice already during high school. The graduate can then either stay in America and pursue professional sports, or "to work, or to return to the Czech Republic with my experience and university degree, where many doors are open to me because of it," he concludes.

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