Post 5 March Madness

March Madness is the best time of the year for college basketball players and fans. This is the time of year that they get to show what they have been working on all year. This is the time for the National tournament. All the Division 1 schools qualify for the tournament but the top 64 teams will make it. It is a 6 round tournament finishing with the sweet sixteen, elite 8, Final 4, then the championship game. This is the biggest televised basketball event, filled with buzzer beaters and full court presses. It is a single elimination tournament so everybody plays like they have everything to lose, because they do. 

Post 4 Struggle continues

Student athlete struggles continue even after your sport is done because you are never really done with your sport until summer hits, even then you have workouts you are expected to do. Unless you are lucky enough to play at your hometown college, most athletes live somewhere away from their family. Often times athletes who play at a high level and will have to move out of their house and to another state.  With colleges in every single state with athletic programs every where, there is no telling where you could get a recruitment call from.
 I am from California, I received calls from school in Texas, Alabama, and Massachusetts. These are places where I never thought I would go especially ending up in Kansas. Being home sick is a very serious thing, I know of some players who left and couldn’t make it because they couldn’t be that far away from home. The struggle of not being able to see your family waiting for you after the game is hard. For so long my father would be at every game and he was someone I could go to after every game to talk to and now being so far away from home he is not able to be at every game. Its hard to seem my teammates get to be greeted by their family after every game we play, but that comes with choosing to go to a college far away from my home state. I can honestly say that playing a college sports is 80% mental; you have to be able to take adversity and turn it into motivation.  

post 3 Post season

Post season is usually the easiest part of the year for athletes. It’s a time where you can finally sit back and relax after a hard season playing any sport. Not having weights and practice taking up all your time and energy after a 5 month season feels pretty good. The athletes have time to reflect on the season and try to adjust for the next, granted you have a next. You finally have the time to focus on school, get caught up on any homework you may have missed, as well as spend more time studying. Some may even get a job to get a little extra cash here and there. It is the only time of the year that you don’t have anything regarding your sport. After 2 weeks of your season ending you will begin post season workouts but these are not near as time consuming or exhausting as preseason or especially during season.

Post 2 Mid season struggle

Depending on your sport you can either be waiting all year for your season or it could be first up.  Its the best time of the year, you can finally put into action what you have been practicing during the off season. Busy schedules are probably the top struggle in my opinion. Having to do homework before a three hour practice just to do three more hours of homework after. Just by playing a sport half of your time is taken away from any other activity with the total of film time, practice, and weight room. As an athlete you must maintain a 2.0 GPA to continue to play and this is something that can be difficult due to the loss of time. Traveling is another big part, sometimes missing three or four classes a week. Class still goes on whether we attend or not. Every time we travel I have to bring my lap top and homework because sometimes I'll have to do homework or takes tests that I have missed. Having this work load with sports on top of that is something that I feel people tend to forget when they stereotype athletes. The sports season is by far the most exciting time of the year but it is also by far the hardest part of the year with managing all the homework, workouts, and games. 

Post #1 Student Athletes

School is hard enough by itself, and when you try throwing in an activity, basketball, that takes up anywhere from 30 to 40 hours of your time each week it becomes even more difficult. The stereotype of student athletes that don't have to do their work or that balancing school and sports is easy, may very well be one of the most inaccurate statements I have ever heard. With each semester every NCAA qualified athlete has to be enrolled in 12 hours every semester equaling usually 3-4 courses. Preseason is the second easiest part of the school year for most athletes, we have workouts, study hall, and practices. But it is not the work load you get when you are in your sports season. Each athlete is filled with excitement and energy because the season is coming. Preseason takes up a lot of an athletes time but not near as much as when you are in your sports season. When you are in season you have all the workouts, practices, games, and road trips to get to the games that take up a huge amount of time. Student athletes have to really learn how to time manage because with out it there would be no way to keep up on school work and be successful.