Double-major Mowafi gives life to the term ‘student athlete’

For a third straight year the PSUAC has partnered with a 400-level sports journalism class at University Park to offer feature stories from around the conference. This is the first in a series.

By MITCHELL CORCORAN

With the rise of name, image and likeness opportunities, along with the transfer portal, the student part of the term “student athlete” in college athletics is often thought to hold less weight these days.

But there is at least one person who is still truly both a student and an athlete.

Malak Mowafi is a senior at Penn State Schuylkill.

She is double majoring in criminal justice and cybersecurity analytics and operations, and minoring in sociology and security and risk analysis. She also is a peer tutor and an academic coach.

That alone is enough to overwhelm the average college student, but Mowafi also is on the Penn State Schuylkill women’s basketball, track and field, and cross-country teams.

Mowafi said she has prepared for this all her life as she has been a multi-sport student athlete since she was in middle school. But the birth of her work ethic also dates back to her childhood.

Mowafi was born and raised in Egypt until she and her family moved to the United States when she was 10 years old. She went to a private international school in Egypt where she said it was highly competitive, even in first grade.

“We were taking nine or 10 classes every day,” Mowafi said. “Compared to here, I feel like it's a lot more lenient, which helps me be able to balance everything just because I grew up going through a more rigorous type of schooling and education.”

When Mowafi moved to the states, she and her family lived in New Jersey where she attended John F. Kennedy Memorial High School.  

“We had about 400 of us in our graduating class and I'd say the top 50 went to Ivy League schools,” Mowafi said. “So, all throughout high school it was very motivating, and my competitive nature also came out during that time.”

When it came time to decide on where to continue her education after high school, Mowafi said she knew she wanted to go to Penn State, but Schullykill wasn’t her first choice. However, it was the campus’s athletics and size that drew her to Schuylkill.

“It did have all the sports that I wanted, and I wanted to continue playing sports throughout my (college) career,” Mowafi said. “I wanted just to have that connection with the professors, and get to know everybody, more than just being a number like at (University Park).”

Those same connections have yielded success for Mowafi off the field. She said a big reason why she can handle the rigorous workload is because many of her professors and coaches are very supportive and understanding. Mowafi also mentioned her criminal justice professor helped her get an internship for next summer.

“They just want the best for you always, and they'll do pretty much anything to get you to where you want to be,” she said.

On the field, those connections have helped Mowafi earn 14 honors across all her sports and the Chi Alpha Sigma National Women's Scholar-Athlete of the Year in August.

Mowafi hopes to go to graduate school next year and said she’s focusing mainly on criminal justice. Although Penn State Schuylkill wasn’t her first choice, Mowafi said it was the right school for her.

“I do think that it was the right choice at the end of the day, because of everything I've accomplished here,” Mowafi said. “I probably wouldn't have been able to do it at the main campus.”