A different kind of brick

June 27, 2008

By Amy Farnum Novin
NCAA.com

Wheaton College's Ida Kruse does not shoot many "bricks" on the basketball court, but during the summer months, the rising junior stays busy working with them as a mason's assistant in her hometown of Vershire, Vermont.

After graduating from the Rivendell Academy in 2006, Kruse was looking for a summer job, so she asked her former high school coach Russ Wilcox, a mason, if he needed any help. He took Kruse up on her offer and she has been helping him in the summers ever since.

The 20-year-old college student does a variety of tasks for the mason from cleaning old bricks for reuse to mixing mortar to hauling bricks. Kruse says Wilcox is a great boss and enjoys the work -- plus it adds some muscle.

Kruse is Wheaton's first front-court option off the bench, and she posted 12 points and six rebounds in the Lyons' New England Women's and Men's Athletic Conference tournament championship victory over Springfield in March. She says it is difficult to compare basketball and masonry because they are so different.

"I think you have to have a lot more stamina (to be a mason)," said Kruse. "You just keep going - carrying an armload of bricks back and forth, over and over again - that's a lot more tiring than playing a basketball game."

An unrelenting work ethic, however, is a positive trait on both the court and the job site.

"You have to have a pretty good work ethic to endure some of the pain," said Kruse. "That is one similarity between masonry and basketball -- there is a certain amount of pain you have to put your body through and put up with mentally. Gritting your teeth and just getting through it -- that sort of mentality is important to me and something I use in school and in basketball."

When Kruse helps build dry stone walls, she says sometimes it is more exhausting because of the mental effort constantly needed.

"It's harder than it sounds because you have to find the right size stone to fit in the right spot," said Kruse. "It can't wiggle around -- you have to be able to stand on it and rock back and forth. That's pretty hard to do and it takes a long time to learn. It's like putting together a puzzle. You look at a piece and then walk over to rock pile and look at a stone and say, 'that could fit this way.'"

Kruse is usually the only female on a job site in the male-dominated construction industry, but she has learned to fit right in.

"When I first started, I was a little uncomfortable, but now it's really, really fun to go to a job site with a bunch of guys," said Kruse. "You don't have to worry about how you look or what they think about you because no one cares about that stuff -- they're just there to get a job done."

An English major, who plans to go to graduate school to be a physician's assistant, is not looking at a future in masonry, but she loves it as a cool summer job and the unique skill she is learning.

"It is teaching me how to do something kind of cool that not many people know how to do," said Kruse.

This page is maintained by Scott Dietz. Last updated on 6/27/08.
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