Balancing School & College Sports How Student Athletes Can Kill It in Class & on the Court

Choosing your major can be a lot like choosing the sport you play – you should enjoy it, and if you do, you’ll be motivated to do well. “When it comes to a major,” says Olson, “I recommend selecting a focus you know you will enjoy. Being an athlete, especially a rower, is incredibly difficult and if you don’t at least have an interest in your studies, athletics and academics become very difficult to balance.” Ideally, this should be a factor before you even apply to colleges. Says Olson, “I was fortunate enough to be a part of an incredible program where my teammates could be pre-med, pre-law and engineering majors as well as athletes. Not all college athletic teams will allow this as it can interfere with practice schedules.”

As much as possible, try to choose class times based on your practice schedule. If that’s not possible, remember the power of online classes — you can register for distance education classes even as a residential student. And if they’re asynchronously delivered, you’ll have even more flexibility.

Practice isn’t easy, but at least the coaching staff has mapped it out. Studying is a different story. Let’s say you have a 50-page excerpt to read, a six-page essay to write and a two-hour midterm to study for — where do you start? The vague answer is whatever is the most important assignment. The more effective answer is to work backwards and budget your time accordingly. By knowing when each assignment or task is due and then estimating how much time you need to work on each one, you can create a schedule that accounts for everything. If you’re not sure, though, that’s what office hours and your academic advisor are for. Don’t hesitate to ask for guidance from professors and/or advisors when priorities are unclear or overwhelming.

As a student, it’s your responsibility to manage your time so that you can complete your school assignments, pass tests, earn good grades and graduate. As an athlete, you may have road games or other athletic commitments that conflict with this responsibility. Always crosscheck your academic and athletic schedules for potential conflicts. Then…

Professors get paid to do the most important thing at a college – teach students. They’re not likely to give athletes a free pass, but they are likely to be flexible or provide support when needed. “We had our meet schedules at the beginning of the year and would meet with our professors one-on-one to see if there were any conflicting dates,” recalls Percy. “Almost every professor was very understanding and willing to help by letting me turn in assignments or write tests early.”

Olson agrees that discussing your schedule in advance will show professors that you take your academic life seriously and increase their willingness to find a flexible solution. “Developing relationships with your educators and your advisors allows them to know that although you are incredibly busy, traveling, and not always in class, you still care about your education — and they are more willing to lend a hand. The last thing a student athlete needs to deal with is arguing over grades.”

Practice and workouts are on a set schedule so that they become routine. By studying or doing homework during set times each week, your academic life becomes routine as well. That can be a little bit harder for road trips, though, according to Percy. In this situation, her recommendation is to plan ahead and get things done early. “The most challenging was definitely [the conference meet] because we missed a week of school. And when you are competing at the biggest meet of the year, you don’t really want to do homework. But we were all very good at time management. You get everything done early if you can, or time it so you were not working on your big race days.”

Many student athletes are self-driven types who have never let a New Year’s resolution slip. But there are plenty of others that thrive on the accountability that a team of players and coaches provides. Ask one of them to hold you accountable to your academic goals. Better yet, form a study group with other athletes. Some teams bake the accountability into the program. Percy recalls that, “Going in freshman year every athlete was required to do a semester of study hall. If you got under a 3.0, you had to continue going to study hall. That really motivated everyone to work hard in the classroom.”

With practice and workouts taking up most of the non-academic hours in a day, student athletes may be tempted to get in their socializing after hours. But whereas many college students can afford to stay up until 1 A.M. and then mosey into their morning class in pajamas, student athletes who don’t get enough sleep – and still have to get up for early morning practice – quickly burn out and fall behind. And while it might be tempting to cut down on studying to make room for more sleep, doing that over the long term doesn’t bode well for your academic goals.

You are what you eat. And if you want to function at your full potential – inside and outside the classroom – you’ll need to fuel your body with healthy, clean foods. Stay away from fatty fast food and stick with high-quality protein such as lean meats, fish, poultry and eggs. But don’t forget to include some veggies and carbs too. And don’t even think about skipping breakfast.

“If I did it again, I would stress less,” Percy says. “There was a lot of pressure to preform, and much of that I put on myself. You’d be hard pressed to find a high-level athlete that doesn’t strive for perfection, and that is a tough spot to be in. As an 18-year-old moving to a new country, on my own for the first time, living with teammates and figuring out how to ‘adult’ while competing… it was a lot.” Part of the solution, she suggests, has to do with mental preparation. “I think athletes are taking mental preparedness a lot more seriously, and I would have really benefitted from some of the things I use all the time today.” (See the Resources section for mental prep apps.)