Going to college is no small accomplishment to just write off; it takes years of hard work and dedication in order to attend a top institution. However, some students are being recognized for their awards more than others due to athletic scholarships. Although many students at Air Academy receive generous academic scholarships, these are just dust in the wind compared to the highly esteemed scholarship to a school to play a sport. Perhaps this is so due to the intense amount of hard work these students put into their sport in order to play at the collegiate level. However, should a full athletic scholarship be recognized by a community more than a full academic scholarship? While this accomplishment is nothing to scoff at, this doesn’t mean we should overly praise a division three half-scholarship to a school for baseball at the expense of a full academic scholarship awarded to a prestigious university. Sports Stars do hold a different level of recognition in our society over intellects because of media exposure and the excitement that surrounds the games. So when a local student has the chance to participate in these events at the collegiate level, it makes sense the community puts them on a pedestal. Before you confuse the D3 Hockey Commit for Wayne Gretzky, be sure to give the next Albert Einstein who got a full ride to Harvard a little recognition.

In order to play at the collegiate level students more often than not have to play for a club team outside of school. These teams often go year-round causing students to quit other sports they play robbing them of the opportunity to make new friends and increase their real life social network. Club sports not only robs these athletes of the opportunity to play other sports, but also robs money out of the accounts of the many athletes involved. For some clubs that travel, the total costs of the year can reach all the way up to 15,000 dollars a year. Now, people say it is worth it if the student-athlete receives a full athletic scholarship, however, if that student started their club sport in eighth grade, the family can have already shelled out 75,000 dollars. That is more money than it would cost to send a student to many public in-state colleges for four years. For out-of-state, if you pay that and get the full scholarship, odds are you could’ve saved more money by not playing the club sport and just trying your hardest to get academic money. The hypocrisy of paying college-like fees for a child to play a sport and get scholarship for it is very real. If you do not want to pay for a kid’s college, why would you pay nearly the same amount to play a sport? For the kids that do not get those scholarships because they were not quite good enough, it is almost as if they have to pay for more college than they already do. So, why do parents still do these club sports over the much cheaper high school sports? Perhaps due to the “year-long commitment” so students can get better at their sport. But this has proven time and time again that for many young athletes, they get burned out and begin to lose the passion they once had for their sport just from how much they play it(looking at you baseball).  Perhaps it is due to the best competition to play against which is a valid point, but why don’t all the club players just decide to play high school instead. Wouldn’t that force recruiters to high school games over club games due to the sudden influx of talent into the high school pool? If the families and athletes of club sports saw the ridiculousness of the prices having to be paid in order to play a game then they would most certainly do it, but, these clubs must have their ways of pulling people in and never letting them out.

In other words, college athletics is incredibly hard to crack into, nonetheless, don’t let the dream of playing in front of roaring fans take away your common sense in how you play; if you do achieve it, don’t forget about your nonathletic peers.