Maryland Love Connection: Mike and Emily Shawaryn

Mike Shawaryn lived in Allegany Hall his freshman year, while Emily Brauckmuller resided nearby in Charles Hall. Mike was a pitcher on the Maryland baseball team from Carneys Point, New Jersey, and Emily was a gymnast hailing from Auburndale, Florida.

But all it took for the now newlyweds to cross paths initially was their involvement with Maryland Athletics — "the athletic life," as Mike put it.

The student-athletes on the baseball and gymnastics teams were close. As these two lived in South Campus, they often walked together to and from study hall. And after being friends throughout their freshman years, Mike and Emily started dating in the fall of 2014.

"We would see each other all the time, whether that was going to study hall, hanging out on the weekends, just doing stuff," Mike said. "We were always around each other and got to spend some quality time at the beginning, and it just kept going."

Nicole Dragon was Emily's roommate and is among her best friends. A Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey, native, Dragon's family has a summer house down the shore. Emily celebrated her 19th birthday with Nicole at that beach house — and Mike came over from South Jersey to join them.

"That's really when I think it went from being something that was more friendly to, wait, there's actually something here," Dragon said.

Once they returned to campus for their sophomore year, Dragon remembers helping Mike brainstorm ways to ask Emily to be his girlfriend. Dragon pointed out Emily's love for Ben and Jerry's Oreo-flavored ice cream.

"I have such a big sweet tooth, and Oreo ice cream is my all-time favorite," Emily said.

Mike went to the South Campus Commons Shop and picked up a pint of Ben and Jerry's Oreo ice cream. He had a plan where she'd open it and see a message on a sticky note under the lid asking her to be his girlfriend.

But Emily wasn't hungry and suggested he put the ice cream in the freezer.

An hour passed, and eventually, Mike was like, "I really really think we should open the ice cream." Emily reassured him that she was all right, but Mike said he wanted some. So, she opened it, and there was the start of their relationship.

"It was just funny because the one time I was like, 'I'm actually okay right now,' he was like, 'Seriously?'" Emily said.

While how Mike and Emily initially met may be a relatively traditional way people meet, Emily's first interactions with her husband's family were, shall we say, different.

"I'm pretty sure I met all his family without him present," Emily said. "He was always on the field, so I was always just introducing myself."

While they each played different sports whose schedules mostly fell in separate seasons, both being Maryland student-athletes helped them understand each other.

"It was nice knowing that both of us were busy, both of us had practice, stuff like that," Emily said. "We understood each other in that sense — that our sport came first in some aspects."

As gymnastics and baseball seasons overlap in February and March, it allowed Mike to attend many of Emily's early-season meets and Emily to see Mike on the mound in Big Ten games down the stretch.

But they made efforts to support each other in more than just their offseasons.

Maryland baseball opened its 2015 campaign on a frigid day in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, with Mike scheduled to start the season opener. It was an 11 a.m. first pitch, allowing the sun to provide a little more warmth on a cold day.

Mike remembers looking up into the stands and seeing lots of extended family in attendance — his parents, sister, aunts, uncles, and more. He has a relatively taller family, with most over six feet.

He unexpectedly noticed a shorter person up there with them.

As Mike was racking up seven strikeouts over six innings of work in a 7-3 win over Western Kentucky, Emily was going up to all of Mike's family members and introducing herself.

"That was one of the cooler memories that stick out to me," Mike said. "She completed a surprise."

And those solo introductions went both ways. The first time Mike met Emily's father was at a Maryland gymnastics Red vs. Black exhibition meet.

Emily graduated from the university in 2017, a little unsure what she wanted to do. So she moved up to New Jersey and became a kindergarten teacher's aide as she tried to figure herself out. Then, in April 2018, she took her current job, doing administrative work for a medical staffing agency in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Mike said goodbye to College Park a bit earlier when the Boston Red Sox drafted him in 2016. 

And with that, the two were managing a long-distance relationship. That lasted until Emily started working remotely when the pandemic hit.

She would fly up to visit Mike most weekends during his season, sometimes three or four times a month. However, they didn't move in together until 2019, so even during Mike's offseasons, he was still living in New Jersey, and she was still living in Florida. 

"It definitely wasn't the ideal scenario, but we made it work," Mike said. "I think that, along with the years at Maryland, helped grow our relationship into what it is today. Even though it wasn't ideal, I wouldn't trade it for the world."

After dating for five years, they knew they were in a spot where they could get ready to spend the rest of their lives together. But it was on Mike to come up with the right way to ask her.

They already lived with each other at that point, in December 2019, so he had to disguise his ring shopping as just going home to see his parents. He flew home to his parent's house on a Wednesday night, picked up the ring Thursday morning, and was on a flight back down to Florida that afternoon.

That Sunday, he wanted to take her out to breakfast and see Nicole Dragon, who was in the area at the time. So Emily was in for even more of a surprise — but it had to wait.

Mike was texting with Dragon, trying not to make his plans obvious. But while he was on the highway with his soon-to-be fiance, Dragon texted that a drawbridge delayed her, and Mike had to stall time.

He was in the third lane of the highway, and Emily was like, "Shouldn't you get off this exit?" Meanwhile, Mike was intentionally trying to miss that exit, so he wasted time getting gas, even though he had a full tank and didn't need any. So he stood there for about a minute, letting the tank fill until Dragon texted that she was close.

"It went off without a hitch," Mike said about their engagement that followed.

Mike had this plan in his mind for about six months. They'd been dating for years, so it made sense that this would happen soon enough. It was just about getting it done, and Mike did just that.

"He nailed it," Emily said.

After they got engaged, Emily was excited and ready to get married, aiming for November 2020. But with baseball cutting out about half of his year, Mike felt a two-year engagement would work better — as that would still mean about one full year of planning for them both and not put too much pressure on Emily to plan this whole thing while Mike is busy with baseball.

They booked their venue around the end of January 2020 for their 2021 wedding. But then came the pandemic.

Luckily, this two-year engagement meant they didn't have to change their date like many couples had to do amid the pandemic. And the whole thing couldn't have been much more memorable for them both.

On a Friday in Tybee Island, Georgia, a small beach town outside Savannah, they married. Neither of their families is from there, so it made for a fun four days for everyone involved.

"I'm at a loss for words describing it," Mike said. "It was just amazing."

In 2019, Mike got the call to "The Show."

On May 30, 2019, the Red Sox played the New York Yankees in the Bronx when Mike got the call he dreamed of hearing. But as he was a reliever, he didn't know when his debut would come.

After 10 days of anxiously awaiting his moment, he came into pitch on June 7 at Fenway Park against the Tampa Bay Rays. It was a Friday night, and Emily had a flight scheduled to land her in Beantown around 6 p.m.

But her flight was delayed. So she missed the entire game. And after being in the house for almost every one of Mike's call-ups, she watched his MLB debut on an airplane, crying hysterically.

"That was just kind of a funny moment," Emily said, looking back. And there was some upside.

She still got to Boston around midnight, and she and Mike watched the game back together. So the first time Mike got to watch his major-league debut — after living it — was with Emily by his side.

Mike stayed in the Red Sox organization until 2021 when he inked a minor-league deal with the Kansas City Royals and briefly pitched for the Omaha Storm Chasers in Triple-A. Now, he's a free agent currently living in Tampa, Florida, with his wife.

Since the pandemic, Emily has been able to work remotely, which has helped her attend more of Mike's games and travel with him. While they're currently in an apartment and don't have much space, they have all sorts of Maryland memorabilia at their parents' houses and plan on making a whole game room once they have a more permanent living situation.

Still, they're wearing Maryland shirts and sweatshirts all the time.

"We're Terps through and through," Emily said.