By Jared Sugerman

Northeastern University offers its students a myriad of majors, ranging from the traditional, such as economics and accounting, to the obscure, such as music industry, which is offered at only a few schools across the country. So it comes as something of a surprise that, on eight athletic teams at Northeastern, at least 15 percent of the players share the same major.

The Northeastern baseball team is comprised of 34 student-athletes, 39 percent of which are majoring in the field of business.

“A lot of kids on our team do relatively well in school, and [the business] major gives them an opportunity to take advantage of the co-op program,” said Tyler Thornton, a sophomore pitcher on the Husky baseball team.

For the men’s hockey team, business is also a highly sought major with 12 of the 34 majors entering the world of business after graduation.

“Northeastern is known for its business department. In business, there are so many different fields, so if you don’t make it professionally, it can help you stay involved in hockey through things such as marketing,” sophomore forward Dennis McCauley said.

Thornton echoed McCauley’s sentiments, saying “It’s a broad field, and a lot of the players feel that if they can’t continue to play baseball at the professional level, they might be able to stay involved on the business side of it.”

The baseball and hockey players aren’t alone in their uncertainty regarding what they will be doing after graduation. Many members of the Northeastern football and men’s and women’s basketball teams said they like the idea of getting a degree that offers them a multitude of options once they finish school.

“[The criminal justice program] offers a relatively diverse education,” head football coach Rocky Hager said. “It’s one of the pillars of excellence here at Northeastern, and it’s something we use to help attract a lot of recruits.”

Of the 77 players on his team, 19 of them are criminal justice majors. The men’s and women’s basketball teams are also made up of 25 percent criminal justice majors.

“I chose criminal justice because Northeastern is known to have one of the best criminal justice programs around, and I’m interested in becoming a police officer after college,” said men’s basketball senior co-captain Bobby Kelly.

Kelley also said another advantage is to having the same major as other members of his team.

“Last year, Adrian Martinez was on the team and he was a criminal justice major, so we could help each other with work sometimes,” he said.

Kateema McLean, a freshman guard on the women’s basketball team, found the perfect balance of athletics and education at NU.

“I came to Northeastern because I wanted to play basketball, but I also want to be an FBI agent, and I knew that Northeastern has a good criminal justice program,” Mclean said. “A teammate of mine, Kim Carr, is also a criminal justice major and we are in class together, and that has helped a lot so far.”

The engineering and physical therapy programs also attract a number of student-athletes to Northeastern. Out of the 24 members of the men’s crew team, 21 percent are engineering majors, as well as 17 percent of the men’s track team.

Be it in the wild, on the playing field, or in the classroom, one fact seems to hold true: Huskies always travel in packs.