Do student-athletes perform academically better than non athletes?
First and foremost, an athlete isn't smarter than a non-athlete and vice versa. However, studies show that lessons learned within athletic competition can help academically, such as the knowledge of doing the right thing, participating in school, and persistence.
Being a student-athlete has two parts; the student part and athlete part; and most of the time, student athletes forget the “student” part and how their academics come first.
I asked Ms. Janice Duzey, a counselor here at Costa Mesa High School, about student-athletes and regular students academically. She said, “It depends on the individual because half of the student-athletes underperform and just maintain a 2.0 GPA and they just want to cruise through high school. The other half are the top students in their grade and perform well at their sport too. There’s no exact answer to if student-athletes perform academically better than regular students.”
Mr. Todd Young, the athletic director at CMHS, also talked about student-athletes vs. regular students. He said, “Sports are used for teaching students about being accountable and responsible. If coaches hold their athletes accountable, then they’ll be prone to do the right thing. We have a ‘maintain a 2.0 GPA rule’ and behavior expectations for a reason. It is to teach the athletes that kind of stuff can affect whether you can play or not. But there’s the other side where yes, student-athletes are taught to do the right thing, but there’ll always be a voice telling them to do the wrong thing and there’ll be some gray parts that we can’t do anything about because we’re not that student-athlete.”
There is a difference in priorities between student-athletes and non-athletes. Student-athletes’ priority academically is to perform well in school, and their athletic priority is to be the best at their sport. Student-athletes must be able to balance both priorities without putting more energy on one priority than the other.
Non-athletes’ priorities also consist of having a good academic performance, personal development, mental health, and future planning.
Health studies show that students who are in physical activities tend to have better grades, cognitive and memory performance, and classroom behavior like staying on task. So this goes to show that being an athlete can mentally help students with academics.
Many regular students might think that being a student-athlete is not hard, but the impact of sports on student-athletes academically is beyond being good in school and staying on task. Being a student athlete teaches students time management skills, discipline, teamwork skills, resilience, perseverance, leadership, adaptability, and flexibility.
Teachers and administrators encourage students to join sports because of the reasons above. Playing a sport in high school can teach you valuable life lessons.
