by Breanna Adamick

It is an interesting thing to compare the past to the present—the subtler similarities and differences noted in history books or else the glaringly obvious similarities and differences we can easily contemplate ourselves.  

One part of life today that is remarkably different than it was around fifty or one hundred years ago is education. Not only is education—basic and higher levels—more openly available to individuals of various races, sexes, and socio-economic statuses, it is vastly altered in that academics are not always the entire focus anymore. Athletics are a huge part of today’s world, both in college and outside of it, and they have been around in colleges since about the mid to late 1800’s. One of the first occurrences of a sport in college took place in 1852, the year that Harvard and Yale first began meeting for competitive rowing races. Athletics in colleges began gaining popularity around the 1920’s and 1930’s with a wider selection of sports, and the popularity of academics mixed with athletics has only continued to grow since then. 

Most colleges boast at least several different sports teams, whether in a big or a small school. Division one schools are even required to have at least seven sports teams for men and seven sports teams for women. At Greensboro College, a school with a population of less than 1,000 students, there are eight men’s sports teams and eight women’s sports teams, with a couple of new sports teams in the works as well. This makes it obvious how popular the sports world is, when even very small schools have a wide variety of athletics to offer you.  

I believe that students having the opportunity to continue the sport they love while further pursuing an education and career is amazing. However, there is a limit to how good and beneficial the athletic side of things is if it starts to interfere with academics. Going through school as a student-athlete is a great challenge—it requires hard work and discipline to be able to succeed in both. Not everyone is cut out for such a rigorous, tight schedule, and quite often, unfortunately, this is reflected in poor grades. Rather than focus their efforts more intentionally on classes and studying, student-athletes may appear content to scrape by with test scores that only reach the bare minimum, while continuing to pour forth just as much—if not more—effort into their athletic performance. 

To put it mildly, it can be discouraging to witness the lack of interest and care in the pursuit of knowledge. I have been an athlete of multiple sports all my life and can well understand the drive to do well on the field or the court, as well as how all-consuming it can sometimes be. This is college though, and when you are in college you are an adult about to go out in the world and have to provide for yourself. What you learn at college should help you find a career in which you can succeed. You should be filled with knowledge in your field of study—what you learn in class and retaining that information should have high priority in your mind, not techniques to improve your curveball or tricky ways to break tackles.  

It is true that not all athletic careers end at the college level—some student-athletes go on to compete professionally in leagues such as the NFL, MLB or NBA. This is not the way of the masses, however, as only about two percent of individuals make it to the professional level, and in those instances, the athletes were already competing at a high level in a division one school. 

As a division three school, Greensboro College takes an enormous and surprising amount of interest in athletics considering there is almost certainly no professional future for its athletes after leaving the school. Like so many other schools, GC seeks to draw great attention and excitement to its athletic programs when, as such a small school, one would think it might try to garner more attention and interest for academic programs, as well as encourage all students and student-athletes alike to take their academics more seriously than their other more frivolous activities.  

College is a privilege to be able to attend and afford, as it can provide incredible knowledge for life and for dream careers impossible without further education. We have come a long way from when education was exclusively for white men of good social class, and from when next to no schools existed for women or for people of color, and yet still, higher education is not possible for everyone. Those of us who have the opportunity to attend college should remember the purpose of it: to learn.  

Sports are fun, entertaining and a huge part of our world today, but unless you are good enough to become professional in your sport, it does not pay the bills. Even careers in the athletic world that do not involve being an athlete require extensive knowledge, training and studying, not just a basic education and prior experience playing the sport in question.  

Use your time at school wisely; apply yourself in your studies to prepare yourself for a future career, whether in the sports world or not. Sometimes to succeed, you have to sacrifice something pleasant to end up achieving your goals. Get your priorities straight—what you get from classes will help you in life more than what you get on the field or the court.