D1 football players, how do you keep up with school
I'm in college, and I just don't see how it's possible to balance school work while traveling the country during times like March Madness.
How do you guys spend your free time ?
Simple, they don't have free time
Most athletes in tier-1 programs get special treatment and major in topics that aren’t challenging so they have more time to practice. They have tutors and their professors are basically forced to be overwhelmingly more lenient on them. This isn’t always the case of course, but if you’re the starting running back for Alabama or a starting player for Kentucky basketball, it certainly is.
Basically if you get recruited on to a tier 1 D1 football/basketball/hockey/baseball team, you’re there to play your sport. Being a student comes second. The more the team is in the limelight, this becomes even more true, and far less if the team is a no-name. Athletes make their schools an obscene amount of money and they’re looked at as high valued commodities rather than students.
“We didn’t come here to play no skool, mufugga” - Cardale “Shotgun” Jones (former Buckeyes QB)
Funny because Cardale Jones actually was very smart and had like a 3.8, and that tweet was after he was pissed he got a B in a class
Our analyst friend above gave THE answer; they don’t have to. They’re issued special tutors on everything who follow them around and provide support where needed (and in some instances, allegedly complete assignments on their behalf). This is also where you see a whole lot of people studying Communications (which is a rather important field, but known for being an easier undergraduate degree). It comes down to major choice and additional resources.
I play D1 football for a consistently top-ranked program with solid academics and placement. Majoring in something real / relevant to industry. Interned with top BB/PE this summer and going to a top BB/PE next year. I’m not a blockhead and don’t know any CEOs. I work hard in school and worked hard this summer.
I think there’s a lot of BS on this thread coming from outsiders (non-athletes, not the other athletes responding). Quite frankly, we work really hard to balance football, school and social life. That explains most of it: hard work. The only “leeway” or “extensions” I am familiar with occur when team events (usually travel) conflict with exam times. The solution: take the exam early or as soon as possible.
At my school, “tutors” are often students who have earned an A- or above in a course (i.e., not all are Albert Einstein’s) and usually also serve as TAs. I don’t use tutors at all. I know many teammates are the same, and tutors are only offered for certain, large courses. A 16-person seminar won’t have a tutor. The 300 person Calc lecture will. Our practice times typically mean office hours are impossible for us to attend. In this fashion, the presence of a tutor is often a mere substitute for professor availability. We can’t meet with our professor, so instead we get to meet with an A- student over Zoom when needed. Does that sound like an advantage?
We go to class, we go to practice, we lift, we watch film and we do our homework. We also have a social life. While I certainly have late nights during the week and am currently writing this late at night, the hours are not nearly as bad as the summer’s were.
We are gritty, and I have a lot of respect for people that place into IB/PE/HF/VC after being a college athlete. They are great teammates and understand how to work really hard.
To dispel myths of athlete free time being nonexistent, just search any “Day in the Life” video for a D1 athlete on YouTube. Often in the videos, you’ll see athletes grab meals with friends outside of team meals, play video games or watch Netflix. Maybe they’re just trying to add flavor to the video, but my screentime on YouTube, IG, TikTok, etc. and interactions with friends would suggest we have enough free time.
Also, two considerations about football / time management:
1. Our travel schedule is much less demanding than other sports’. We travel 5-8 times per season typically only on Friday/Weekends. If you’re unlucky you have a few games that aren’t on Saturdays through your entire career. Football is probably the least travel-intensive sport, and we always fly direct, have WiFi on the plane, etc.
2. If you take summer classes, you can take lighter schedules during the school year. It makes sense to knock out a very hard course when you can focus on it in isolation. Taking 2 classes per summer means one less each semester. Many teammates take the minimum credit load during the season. Some teammates can take the minimum credit load all year. Note that summer school is available to all students.
I think both realities exist; it’s just that they exist differently at different schools. At Alabama and Kentucky, the professors really don’t have leverage over the students in their respective sports, because those students are highly revenue generating. Alabama doesn’t list majors on its rosters, so I’m not going to hunt for that (although I could). I will for Kentucky.
There are 15 players across these courses of study:
8 in Communications
2 in Community and Leadership Development
2 in a General Undergraduate Certificate in Business & Economics
1 in Agricultural Economics (which sits in the College of Agriculture, not Business)
1 in Finance
1 in Kinesiology
None of these are particularly rigorous programs, including Finance and Economics. You also have to consider the fact that most of these players will be drafted into the NBA within 1-2 years, so they won’t even be conferred a degree or see the upper-level courses. Same with Alabama. If you are on a degree track (which I think you are), then this is not your reality, so it’s completely understandable why you’re saying this. The reality at elite athletic colleges like Alabama or Kentucky is that students are present for a few years, study comparatively easy disciplines, and then leave. The professors have very little influence when the Athletics Department puts its thumb on the scales. Then many of the players go off to the professional leagues to make rainmaker MD money. That’s the bargain.
EDIT: I would be remiss to not mention people from your reality. I’m good friends with two football players who have worked in BB IB and are both now in UMM firms (think Thoma level). Truly excellent dudes and sharp as tacks. I think they would both agree with my comments that both exist.
They don't. They get a full scholarship to play ball and gang rape unlucky women as a "bonding experience" with their buddies.
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/05/17/528804172/new-lawsui…
Jealous much?
I'm not a rapist mate, are you?
Horrendous take. Just because some have done it, doesn’t mean that everyone does it. It’s like saying blacks are just criminals& kill, bet you’d loose your shit.
Yep, this forum loves to hate on diversity and other programs like that which sometimes lower the standards a little to let in underrepresented groups, but when some guy can throw a ball around they fucking worship him even if he has the reading level of an eighth grader
Do you enjoy being an irrational hypocrite or are you too dumb to even see that you are?
Tell me you play squash without telling me you play squash
Lmao. I too am a d1 athlete for a tier 2/3 sport. (Baseball, swimming, lacrosse, underwater basket weaving)
UBW is hot right now for Ivy adcoms.
While what the posters above said might be true for some sports and schools it is not the case for all. I played baseball for a school you guys have seen in the college world series multiple times and we were expected to take care of our classes and grades just like everyone else. Tutors were there as a resource but by no means were they doing your homework for you or giving you answers to tests.
The answer for my experience was that we simply didn’t have free time. Up early for weights, classes from 8-1pm (obviously this varies by semester), at the stadium around 2 pm until 6, eat dinner, study until it’s time to go to bed. During season when we were traveling it was a lot of getting assignments ahead of time from professors, getting notes for classes from friends/tutors, and then working on it all when you got back from the road trip. Given, this was a private school that prides itself on its academics so it might be the exception more than the rule. A lot of guys end up majoring in easier programs to make this all work. Some guys are just super gifted and juggle it all while also majoring in an engineering type field though.
March Madness is for bball, btw.
Note that a lot of these guys at elite programs have extraordinarily easy majors like communications, sociology or sports management, so they really don't need to study very much whatsoever. I'm pretty sure Richard Sherman might have been one of like 5 or 6 comms majors across the country that wasn't a member of KKG when he graduated.
That said, there are a lot of remarkably intelligent people who play varsity sports as well - hockey, crew and tennis really tend to stand out there.
Absolutely - good call-out there. Myron Rolle at Florida State and John Urschel at Penn State are a couple who quickly to come to mind.
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