Student-Athlete Defined

There are over 380,000 student-athletes that participate in the National Collegiate Athletic Association. All of these young men and women, whether participating in basketball or golf, Division I sports or Division III sports, or whether they have an undefeated season or don’t win a single game, are doing something very commendable. It is not easy to start a new life away from home and do well in school, never mind making the incredibly time-consuming commitment of playing a varsity sport in college. It is both mentally and physically draining.

This concept of the student-athlete is why I have not had much of an update about our season over the past week. At Vassar, there is no leniency for athletes in terms of their academics, nor should there be. We are receiving an incredible liberal arts education and it is our own decision to participate in a varsity sport; we are not bound to it by a scholarship or a contract. But that does not make it any easier to juggle our intense academic load with our respective sports.

We have not practiced since our game last Tuesday, a tough loss to an extremely impressive Western Connecticut team in which we held a lead for a lot of the first half, but were unable to sustain our efforts in the second half due to lack of numbers and foul trouble. Instead of practicing, athletes all over campus have become strictly students with long papers to turn in and cumulative finals to take over the last ten days. I have written three lengthy papers and taken four finals in this time period. A teammate of mine has written four papers and taken two finals, while another just refuses to add up all the work she has done over the last two weeks. Is the work undoable? Absolutely not. But this time of year in particular is a time where at Vassar, the ‘student’ in student-athlete must be the dominant force.

This is not to say we haven’t done anything physical over the last ten days -- we’ve been playing pickup with some of our male friends around campus as well as getting into the gym to shoot or lift (it works as a great study break). Now, as we all return home until we come back for practice on January 2nd and then have a two-week period of basketball without classes. We will be able to get the rest we need and then focus more on the ‘athlete’ part of student-athlete for a while.

What I’ve realized by playing basketball here is that at Vassar, I really do get the best of both worlds.