One player said he woke up one morning last week and caught his roommate with his nose buried in his geography text.

“It’s definitely tough,” said Gasser, who is majoring in business marketing. “I know I spent Sunday and Monday before we left just trying to get ahead in classes.”

The day the team left for California, Bohannon said, he was up until 4:30 a.m. working on a case study that he and two other students have to present this week. Bohannon, 23, who spent two years at the Air Force Academy before transferring to Wisconsin, completed his undergraduate degree in economics in December 2012 and then earned a master’s in life sciences communication. He is working toward a master’s in business administration.

“My teammates kind of all make fun of me for being the nerd on the team,” Bohannon said.

At 6 feet 6 inches and 206 pounds, Bohannon calls to mind the actor Jack McBrayer, who played the NBC page Kenneth Parcell on the sitcom “30 Rock.” He has a smile that draws people closer, a neat coif and an insatiable curiosity, all of which augur well for his political aspirations.

A desire to find out more about issues affecting student-athletes led Bohannon to become involved with the College Athletes Players Association, which is behind the effort by a group of Northwestern football players, led by quarterback Kain Colter, to gain the right to form a union and bargain collectively. On Wednesday, a regional director of the National Labor Relations Board ruled in the players’ favor.