Student Athlete Research Paper

Michael Leonhardt

Mrs. Gaffney

Comp I

17 November 2015

Student Athletes vs. Non-Student Athletes

“I would love for a regular student to have a student-athlete's schedule during the season for just one quarter or one semester and show me how you balance that. Show me how you would schedule your classes when you can't schedule classes from 2-to-6 o'clock on any given day.” said by Richard Sherman. Richard Sherman is right. Living the life of a student athlete is a hard thing to do, we have to go to school, go to practice/games, do our homework to get good grades and stay eligible, and get eight hours of sleep. The life of a student athlete is a more stressful way to live than a non student athlete, but I wouldn’t change it for anything.

Non-student athletes have more time to do their homework and hang out with friends. They have a lot more time than athletes, so they can go get a part time job and earn money. They can also get into a lot of bad habits like smoking, drinking, and doing drugs. Bad habits are terrible to get into because the person doing it can get addicted to it. Non-student athletes have more time to do leisurely activities. With that time they can play video games, watch television, read books, go shopping, and go to movies and sporting events. All of this extra time can lead to good or bad habits.
Student athletes have a lot less time to do their homework than non-student athletes. Student athletes go to school all day then we have to go to practice for two and a half to three hours after school. During practice we go all out and use up most of our energy, and after practice we go home eat and do at least one hour of homework. Once we finish our homework we have very little time to be social because we need to get enough sleep to be able to do it all again the next day.
Expectations for student athletes are a lot higher than those not in sports. To be eligible, we have to get good grades. For example, my football coach threatens us that if we are struggling in a class he will go to the office and get our locker combination, so he can get our homework and bring it to the field so the person failing can work on their homework instead of practicing. The result of this threat is the team receiving academic all state gold team award for five years straight. Non-student athletes, however, aren’t held to this expectation so they do not work as hard in school because they don’t have the repercussions as student athletes. Student athletes have to hold each other accountable because people will slack off and not do well in school, and if one person becomes ineligible the entire team can suffer.
Student athletes tend to have better attendance than non-student athletes. To be eligible for games, we have to be in school the day before, the day of, and the day after. Non-student athletes can come and go whenever they want. Missing too much school for student athletes and non-student athlete can put them behind in all of their classes which could result in poor grades and lower their GPA. Colleges are looking more so at student athletes whose attendance record is higher than non-student athletes as this shows that student athletes are more responsible to make good decisions for life long values.
Student athletes lives are a lot more grueling than non-student athletes. We have to make sure that we get our work done because if we don’t we can’t play. To athletes not being able to play is the worst thing punishment possible. We are held to a very high expectation that forces us to do succeed on and off the field.