I’ve been to many high school games and have observed the behavior of high school student athletes. Many of the student athletes believe because they have incredible athletic ability that somehow they are on top of the world and can do no wrong.
Players sometimes have poor attitudes towards everyone and everything because of their athletic skills. Just because they are a star athletes they feel like they can slouch in their chairs in the classroom or walk around school with the ‘I don’t care, I’m better than you’ attitudes.
Because they have a gigantic ego many of these student athletes feel that they are entitled to certain things and should be given special treatment.
I can understand where the confusion in the minds of many of these exceptionally talented ballplayers can come from. No one is buying a ticket to watch some kid take a math test or hear a student give a speech in history class. We do buy tickets to see student athletes perform and this is where the confusion begins.
Most people pay attention to what student athletes are doing. Because of all the attention athletes receive, it can sometimes play a positive or negative role.
Academics and athletic ego plays big a role in whether a student athlete ends up at a major college program, a small college program or no college program at all. Having a 1.9 GPA and you’re a 6’6 basketball player who has the talent to play at a big time college program does not guarantee that college program will overlook your horrible grades just because you can play ball.
The NCAA will begin to penalize college programs who bring in student athletes that cannot meet the academic requirements once they’re in college. Too many times student athletes who have poor grades coming out of high school are accepted into college and many of them haven’t even graduated. Academic reform is about to take place.
It use to be that if you did not meet the academic requirements coming out of high school, you can still go to a junior college and then transfer to a university after two years. Now things are changing; in order to transfer, you still have to meet academic requirements even at the junior college level in order to move up to a four year institution.
Many student athletes are not graduating from college and these changes are necessary if you’re in college to get an education, not just to be an athlete. Far too many players, regardless of the sport, believe that one day they can turn pro and earn millions of dollars. We all know the odds of reaching the professional level in any sport are slim to none and I do believe sometimes the ‘I can do no wrong’ attitude can prohibit a student athlete from becoming a success outside of sports.
How many times have we seen these piss-poor student athletes who think they’ve got it all going on but end up not getting recruited to play college ball and eventually become a forgotten name in their community?
I think attitude plays a large role in student athletes’ academics because it shows how good they will be athletically and whether or not they end up with a scholarship.
Student athletes, no matter where they are talent wise, should always be humble but should always be working on all aspects of their lives.
