Let
your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify
your father in heaven.
- MATTHEW 5:16
You
are of God, little children and have overcome them, because He who is in you is
greater than he who is in the world.
- 1 JOHN 4:4
To
be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is
the greatest accomplishment.
- RALPH WALDO EMERSON
The summer
of 1994 was ending and it was almost time to report to UK for a series of
freshman football practices before double practices started for the upcoming
college season. All summer I had lifted
weights and performed the cardiovascular exercises given to me by the UK
strength coach in the mail. I wanted to
be in the best shape possible and start my freshman year on a good note
weighing a solid 220 lbs. The middle
linebacker position was vacant due to Marty Moore’s being a senior. If I had anything to do with it, I was going
to learn the defensive playbook and compete for the starting position.
There are seldom
times in a person’s life when he truly feels the power of freedom. Two such times I can remember in my life were
when I first learned to drive and got the opportunity to drive myself to work
at Hawkins’ Supermarket to work in the produce department. I was 16 years old and I can still hear the
country music that was turned up a little too loud. The cool breeze was blowing on my arm that
was hanging out the window and the feel of control with a dash of power
overwhelmed me as I tightly gripped that steering wheel with my one hand and
drove unsupervised for the first time.
The second time
that freedom really took on a completely different meaning was when my parents
drove me to UK to drop me off for my freshman year. I can remember the anticipation and
excitement of thinking about the future experiences I would encounter as a
student athlete at UK. As we arrived at
the University, everything I needed from the van was placed into my dorm room. After spending some time with my parents and
introducing them to my new roommate, we said our “goodbyes,” and they drove
back to Medina, OH. There I was, lying
on my bed in the dorm room, 18 years old and on my own for the first time. I think the feeling I felt was not
necessarily freedom from my parents, because we have always had a good
relationship. It was more a freedom of
responsibility.
In a sudden
instant, I was transformed from being a teen to a responsible adult - a student
athlete that had to be accountable for his actions and not willing to settle
for mediocrity. I knew I must be brave
enough to say “no” to something that was not right. I must be strong enough to be a leader,
instead of following the pack. Once you
get to college, you have to be prepared to face trials and tribulations of all
sorts. You have to be ready to make
difficult decisions in the face of adversity.
That is unfortunately the life and responsibility of a student athlete. You have more people than you know watching
your every move and waiting to say, “He’s just another typical student athlete
who is a poor role model.” The challenge
is to prove them wrong and differentiate yourself from the others. The question is, “Are you up for the
challenge and are you willing to stand up for what you believe in?”
ROOMMATE GRANDE
Regardless of what college you decide to attend,
there is one thing that is as certain as the sun rising in the morning and
setting at dusk. That one universal
thing is that you are going to have countless stories that will last a lifetime
about your college roommates. The
roommate process for freshman college athletes is always interesting because
you don’t really have a choice of whom you are going to be paired with for a
minimum of a semester. During the
recruiting trip, you meet recruits for the first time, and before you know it,
you start the first semester at college, living with someone you hardly know.
I will never
forget walking into my dorm room for the first time. My college football roommate was an offensive
lineman that stood 6’7 and weighed 265 lbs.
He extended his long arm to shake my hand and I knew things were about
to get interesting. Let me tell you that
dorm rooms are not as spacious as one might think and if you toss in an
offensive lineman that is 6’7 with size 18 shoes, your world tends to feel a
little smaller. Now I’m not going to say
that we did not have anything in common because we both played football, but
besides that, we were total opposites.
My roommate was raised on a pig farm in Midwestern Ohio and graduated
from a high school in a small town with a senior graduating class of about 30
students. Needless to say, he was not
the cleanest person in the world and had a strong tendency to drink on the
weekends with so many of the other freshman.
So how do you
maintain the lifestyle that you are accustomed to living while sharing a dorm
room with someone who is totally opposite?
The answer to that question is quite simple. You set your own standards and hope that some
of your positive traits rub off on your roommate. The one thing you cannot be afraid of is the
feeling of rejection from players if you are not willing to partake in
extracurricular activities like drinking or smoking. The fact is that if they are your friends,
they will respect you for your personal decision. Besides, deep down inside, they are probably
envious because you have made a decision that many college athletes are not
able to make regarding alcohol and smoking.
Now there is
always the chance that your good example produces little change in your
roommate by the end of the semester. If
this happens, don’t get discouraged, because you always have the option of
swapping roommates with another football player as I did. You may have to grin and bear your gloomy
predicament for a semester, but when that semester is over, it’s time to
wheel-and-deal to find a more suitable roommate. Sometimes the trick can be finding someone
who actually wants to live with your roommate.
Luckily for myself, that was not hard due to the number of drinking
buddies he had in the dorm.
During my first
semester at UK, the weekend would roll around, and we would each be given $40
for meal money. An alarming amount of
the freshman players would head straight to the liquor store and buy 24 packs
of beer and hard liquor like Jim Bean, vodka, or whiskey. I’m not quite sure how much they actually ate
during those weekends, with all the drinking that was going on in the
dorm. Do you know what I did with my $40
dollars each weekend? I know some of you
might laugh, but I walked to the nearest Kroger grocery store and actually used
my money for what it was intended for. I
bought food. I can still remember
sitting in my dorm room during those freshman weekends. While my roommate and other freshman players
were drinking alcohol, I would be eating a mango and drinking Gatorade.
Although a full
scholarship can be good for four to five years, the one thing coaches fail to
mention during recruitment is that it is contingent on a year-to-year
basis. That means that the head coach
has to make the annual decision of whether your scholarship will be
renewed. I worked extremely hard to get
my full scholarship to UK. I was not
about to let anything get in the way of playing college football, and more
importantly, getting a quality college education. If that meant that I had to walk on the road
less traveled by many college athletes, then that was exactly what I intended
to do.
PUTTING ON THE RED SHIRT
To this day I truly believe football teaches you
more about life than any other sport. It
is a game of teamwork, heart and even self-sacrifice. The last of those three things is what I
experienced most my first season at UK.
It was not long after the excitement of being away at college that the
time came to get down to business. Let’s
face it: College football is a business.
There is a reason you get to attend college for free. The fans long to see the players on the
field, and you are the reason they line up to get autographs. Revenue from ticket sales, advertisements on
television and money given to colleges for bowl game appearances far exceed a
couple of million dollars during the course of a season. The great football machine is a money-making,
revenue-generating “cash cow” for every University.
After checking into
the dorm, it was not long before we had our first football meeting with all the
freshman players and the coaches. We
were given our playbooks to get familiar with and a schedule to follow for
double practices. Freshman players
report earlier than veteran players so they can get a jump start on
understanding how the offense or defense works, depending upon what position
you play. For myself, it was a defensive
playbook that seemed thicker than a giant-sized telephone book. Due to the secrecy of material in the
playbooks, we were basically instructed to guard the books with our lives. The last thing you want to do as a freshman
is lose your playbook and have it get into the wrong hands before the start of
the season.
My first college
football practice is still fresh in my mind.
There were definitely butterflies in my stomach that day as I performed
the drills we were instructed to do.
Perhaps this was caused by all the media that was at practice, taking
pictures of our every move. All the
attention made me feel like a robot as I did a bag drill or ran to catch a
pass. Needless to say, my performance at
the first practice did not exactly turn any heads - not a good start for
someone who wanted to compete for the starting middle linebacker position at a
college football program in the SEC.
After getting in
some quality practices for the first few days of freshman doubles, it was time
for the big boys to start practicing with us.
It’s hard to forget seeing the upper classmen players for the first
time. If you have ever seen the movie,
“Pumping Iron,” with Arnold Swartzenegger, it was very similar to when Lou
Ferrigno saw Arnold in person for the first time. He turned to his father and said, “Boy, Dad,
he’s big!” That is about the reaction I
had when I first started seeing the players walking into the locker room. I was an eighteen year old teenager, getting
ready to bang pads with young men in their early twenties.
As double
practices got into full swing in the humid summer heat of the Bluegrass state,
there was little time to think about anything except playing football. The morning began with breakfast about 7
a.m., morning position meetings, and the morning practice, which lasted about
two hours. Lifting was required four
times a week to keep up your strength, usually after the first or second
practice. After taking a shower and
drinking plenty of fluids to rehydrate yourself, it was off to lunch. If you were a fast eater, you could sneak
back to your dorm room to get in a 45 minute power nap before heading back to
the Nutter Center for afternoon team and position meetings. Afternoon practice lasted roughly two hours,
and then it was time for dinner at the mess hall. The evening was reserved for position
meetings, to review practice and critique the players so they could
improve. After about 9 p.m., you had the
rest of the day to yourself before doing it all over again the following day.
It did not take
too many double practices before I started getting anxious for college classes
to start. My body was exhausted, and by
the looks of my location on the depth chart for middle linebacker, it was
looking more and more every day like I was going to be redshirted. It did not help that my position coach was
not exactly the kind of person you would call a player’s coach. He definitely was not one to encourage you
with kind words. He seemed to like the
tough guy image and would try to break you down at every opportunity. I can remember very few times that he ever
even smiled.
Now for those of
you who do not know what being redshirted means, I will elaborate for you. Once a college football player enrolls in a
University, he has five years to play four years of football. This is made possible because coaches can
decide whether they want to play a freshman his first year or redshirt
him. The second option would allow the
player to get stronger and faster for the following season without losing a
year of eligibility, hence, having five years to play four. Once that window is closed, the only way someone
can possibly get an additional year is by qualifying for a medical
redshirt. This can happen when a player
has a season-ending injury that results in his missing the greater portion of
the season. The reason it is called
“redshirting” is because the player participates in every practice as a member
of the scout team, wearing a red shirt.
He continues to do the lifting program and goes to all the meetings;
however, when it is time for a game, the true
freshman usually does not get to dress and will probably be watching the
game from the stands.
This sounds like
a raw deal but you really have to step back and look at the bigger
picture. For any freshman player who is
redshirted, it is never easy to sit back and watch your team play its opponents
on Saturday afternoons. The reason I
know this is because I ended up getting redshirted my freshman year along with
a majority of our freshman class. The
players in our recruiting class had signed their letters of intent a couple of
months after UK’s appearance in the Peach Bowl against the Clemson Tigers. The 1994 University of Kentucky freshman
recruiting class ranked 13th in the country. The majority of our freshman class was
redshirted. These were very talented
athletes being recruited by top-notch colleges all over the country before
signing to play at UK. Being redshirted
did not mean that we lacked the talent to play at the SEC level; it just meant
we needed a little more time to develop physically and mentally as players.
If you have been
recently redshirted, let me be the first one to congratulate you on this
accomplishment. That might seem like a
strange thing to pat someone on the back for achieving but let me explain. The first and most important benefit you have
just gained is another year of college at no monetary cost to you. Your education is the one college experience
that will last you a lifetime. Once you
obtain your bachelor’s degree, no one can take it away from you. This extra year can be used to pursue a
double major or even start working on your master’s degree. In addition, you will have more time to focus
on your studies and build a solid academic base for your G.P.A. By the way, you also just earned free
weekends to yourself with no football responsibilities when the team is playing
away.
Now some of you
are saying to yourselves, “Man, I came here to play football and not sit on the
bench.” You might not be fully
interested in the educational aspect of the college experience because your
master plan consists of playing in the NFL and being set for life. Now there is nothing wrong with making the
prospect of playing in the NFL a goal for your life. I think everyone should shoot for the stars
and try to outlive their dreams. All I
am saying is that in life you should always have a Plan B just in case the
unthinkable happens. If you are drafted
in the NFL, how long do you think it will last?
I can assure you it will not be a lifetime like a college
education. That is why I think it is
wise to make that plan B a college degree.
The opportunity
to be redshirted gives you another year to grow physically and mentally. In most cases, it is the best thing that can
happen to you, long-term. I know
countless players who were not redshirted their first year of college and
regret having a season being wasted on special teams and occasionally getting
to play their position when the score was out of reach. The redshirt will allow you to get a better
understanding of the offensive or defensive systems that are used, and your
chance of being a true student of the game will greatly increase. Lastly, just like Rocky, you will get the
“Eye of the Tiger” for the upcoming season.
Hopefully you already have it but I am talking about an enhanced
eagerness to play the game at a level that you could never have imagined.
The one thing
that a redshirt certainly does not exclude you from is freshman hazing. Depending on where you go to college this
process can vary in intensity and duration.
Some upperclassmen have all the freshmen shave their heads. Others might take turns giving all the
freshmen wedgies. My freshman class had
to memorize the UK fight song and sing it in front of the upperclassmen in the
dorm on a selected night. I know you’re
thinking that is a simple test; however, you had to be wearing nothing but your
boxers and drink a dixie cup full of a special concoction created by the
seniors. The ingredients were not openly
discussed with the freshman but I remember it being hot and spicy. There is a good possibility that a large amount
of hot sauce was used. There was a rumor
that some snuff might have been one of the mixed ingredients but that was just
speculation. As we sang the fight song
in selected groups that night after drinking the strange brew, I vividly
remember a cornerback in my group sweating profusely as he was singing the
fight song and clapping his hands. It
must have been some good hot sauce they used.
OVERLOOKED BENEFITS OF A BACHELOR’S DEGREE
There are many benefits that are associated with
a bachelor’s degree besides the fact that you will be more marketable in the
workplace. According to the National
Center for Education Statistics (NCES),
In 2001, the
better educated a person was, the more likely that person was to report being
in “excellent” or “very good” health.
Among adults age 25 and over, 78 percent of those with bachelor’s degree
or higher reported being in excellent or very good health, compared with 66
percent of those with some education beyond high school, 56 percent of high
school completers, and 39 percent of those with less than a high school
education.
In addition, to
having a better chance of being in excellent health, a bachelor’s degree can
also increase your chances of making it to the NFL. According to the National Football League Players
Association (NFLPA),
Education is
crucial for success to become an NFL player or a success at any career. Completing a college degree will not only
prepare players for life after football, but it also seems to pay off during a
player’s career. Players with degrees
earn 20 to 30% more than players who don’t have degrees. They also have a career that lasts about 50%
longer. While there is not one answer
for why players with degrees have strong careers, one theory is that players
who show the intelligence, concentration, and mental discipline to complete a
degree show these qualities on the field more.
Doing well in school from an early age also helps players develop
concentration they will need to memorize plays and avoid eligibility problems
in high school and college.
If the NFLPA is saying that about education and they work for the
players, it shows the real importance of getting a bachelor’s degree in
college. Now before you get all excited
about what team you are going to be playing for in the NFL, let me run some
alarming statistics by you. According to
the NFLPA, “statistically of the 100,000 high school seniors who play
football every year, only 215 will ever make an NFL roster.” That comes out to a whopping 0.2% chance of
making it to the NFL! The NFLPA also
says, “Even of the 9,000 players that make it to the college level only 310 are
invited to the NFL scouting combine, the pool from which teams make their draft
picks.” That leaves you with a 3% chance
of playing on Sundays in the fall.
There seems to be
a general misunderstanding among college football players that if you make it
to the NFL, you are automatically going to be a millionaire. According to the NFLPA, “In 2000, the minimum
salary for rookies was $193,000. While
the highest paid players in the league can make $7-$8 million per year, most
players make much less than that.” In
2005, the league minimum salary was raised to $230,000. Of course, your NFL salary comes with
benefits like dental, medical, disability, pre-season pay, severance pay and
pension coverage. The problem is that
with an average NFL career lasting only three and a half seasons, you really
need to be a savvy investor to make your NFL earnings last a lifetime.
Let’s say you
were to get drafted, are better than the average NFL rookie, and pull in
$300,000 a year for 4 years. That
probably sounds pretty good to a lot of you reading this right now. You may be thinking, “Man, what I could do
with $1.2 million dollars!” Before you
start spending your money, we have to give Uncle Sam a piece of the pie. It is really more like a chunk of the pie
when you consider that you’ll be paying at least 33% in federal taxes, 5-6% in
state taxes, 6.2% in Social Security taxes up to the first $90,000, 1.45% for
Medicare taxes and most likely, fees associated with the NFLPA. So what does that roughly leave you
with? Suddenly your $300,000 a year
salary has turned into approximately $165,000 a year!
When you factor
in the fact that professional players buy sports cars or expensive SUV’s
exceeding $50,000 and that a nice houses can be between $200,000 to $300,000,
there is not a great deal of money left.
That $165,000 a year for four years is $660,000. After you subtract the $50,000 for the car
and approximately $250,000 for a house, you have $360,000 left. When you consider that the remaining money
has to last you a lifetime due to not committing yourself to getting a
bachelor’s degree, things look pretty bleak.
Let’s assume you started in the NFL at age 22 and that your career will
end at age 26. If we predict that you
may live to the age of 70 and divide the remaining $360,000 by 44 years, you
have a minuscule $8,182 a year to work with, considering no supplemental
income.
Now consider what
you could have earned if you got a bachelor’s degree in a major like Accounting
or Finance. You can easily earn $45,000
to $55,000 a year. If we multiply
$50,000 by 44 years you will earn $2.2 million dollars over your lifetime after
your career in the NFL. That is not even
taking into account the annual cost-of-living raises or a 401K savings plan
that can be earning interest on your pre-tax dollars. It definitely pays to study hard and earn
that degree.
STATE-OF-THE-ART FOOTBALL GEAR
Doubles during my freshman year were a whirlwind
of excitement. Besides all of the grunt
work during practices as a scout member of the defense, there were exciting
things taking place. Due to UK’s Nike
football contract, each year every team member received a new pair of Nike’s
latest and greatest athletic shoes.
Those sweet kicks could not even be found at your local shoe store. The reason athletic shoe companies love to
supply Division I football programs with free football gear is because when you
are playing on ABC or ESPN it is an excellent way for them to advertise their
name. Athletic shoe companies have been
known to pay the universities of the bigger college football programs more than
a million dollars to be able to supply free football gear to the players. Every marketing manager knows that nothing
says “Buy Me” to a young kid more than watching a football player catch a pass
with his Nike gloves on national television and waltz 50 yards for a touchdown
sporting his Nike cleats. Every player
on our team received four pairs of shoes a year. We received a trendy Nike athletic pair to
wear to college classes on campus, a pair of Nike astro turf shoes, a pair of
Nike practice cleats and a pair of Nike cleats for games.
The equipment
room at UK was unlike anything I had ever seen.
It would give Foot Locker or even Sports Authority a good run for its
money. Regardless of what type of
athletic accessory you were interested in to compliment your standard football
equipment, they had just what you wanted.
Most everyone who watches football on Saturday or Sunday knows that
standard football equipment consists of the helmet, shoulder pads, hip pads,
knee pads, thigh pads and a tail bone pad.
Of course, if you are watching the NFL, some players, like the
receivers, just wear the shoulder pads and helmet.
Let’s say you
were in UK’s equipment room and you wanted a visor for your helmet. Not a problem. Consider it a done deal. Maybe you’re looking for receiving gloves or
lineman gloves. All you had to do was
pick the style you wanted. I would
compare my experience in UK’s equipment room to a sugar-craving child in a
candy store. Everything looked so good
you wanted to try one of everything. The
options I chose to go with my standard equipment were elbow pads, linemen
gloves, additional knee pads and a neck brace.
There is one
thing I know for certain about football, and that is, that danger is always
present on the field. You have to
protect yourself, and that is just what I tried to do. On the first day of full contact during
freshman practice, my linebacker coach called me “Pad Man” when he saw me in
pads. The mistake I made that day was
wearing the elbow and knee pads instead of getting the sleeves. Not only do the sleeves look cooler but they
are less bulky, lighter and a tighter fit.
Needless to say, after the first day of full contact practice, I was
sporting the new elbow and knee sleeves.
Rest assured that “Pad Man” is not the type of nickname you want during
your collegiate football career. That is
right up there with being called “Cotton” for being soft. Luckily for me, the nickname did not last
more than a couple of days.
AUTOGRAPHS AND MORE AUTOGRAPHS
During the end of double practices, right before
the start of college classes, UK held its Annual Football Fan Day. It was located at Commonwealth Stadium field
for all the fans to meet and greet the players.
The players wore their home field game jersey, pants and new Nike
shoes. I remember some players did not
want to wear their new shoes because they were afraid they would get grass
stains on their sweet kicks. The coaches
did not give them an option, so they had to suck it up and take their chances
with the grass.
As a freshman who
had not even played a single down for UK, I was not expecting to sign any
autographs for the fans. In college
football I figured that kind of stuff was reserved for the quarterbacks,
running backs and receivers who score all the touchdowns. Besides, a little over three months ago I had
just graduated from high school and recently moved out of my parent’s
house. I was not exactly the type of
person you would approach for an autograph.
Much to my surprise, that day I must have signed over 100
autographs. I signed media guides, UK
banners, footballs, baseball caps, posters and notebooks. There were even fans that had their pictures
taken with me. I would be lying if I
said I did not sneak in a couple of bicep flexes during some of those pictures.
Fan Day at
Commonwealth Stadium boasted a strong showing of parents with their children
who wanted nothing more than to get everyone’s signature on the football
team. Some of the fans even knew the
freshman players by name, what position they played and where they were from,
because they were die hard Wildcat fans.
It was a humbling experience signing autographs and getting my picture
taken with our fans as if I were some sort of a celebrity. It was also a small taste of what it would be
like to live the life of a bright and shining college football star. One thing was for sure that day, it was a
rock-solid confirmation that Wildcat fans not only bleed blue, but were and
always will be the best fans in the country.
PICKING THE PERFECT MAJOR
It was finally time for college classes to
start. The sound of college students on
campus was refreshing after being with football players for over two
weeks. Students who were rushing for a
fraternity or sorority were on campus about a week before classes started, and
the campus suddenly stopped feeling like a ghost town, and more like a bustling
campus. It also presented an opportunity
for football players to partake in the drinking activities during rush week. This was another obstacle for the players to
overcome as they prepared for the first game of the season against the
Louisville Cardinals.
Doubles felt like
it lasted several months, but it had only been a couple of weeks. Prior to the start of the first semester, all
the freshman players registered early for their classes. This was crucial, because your classes had to
be either between 7 a.m. and 12 p.m. or after dinner, which was around 6 p.m.
to 7 p.m. This was due to the block
reserved for football meetings and practices in the afternoons. If you registered early, you were pretty much
guaranteed to get the classes at the times you wanted before enrollment reached
capacity.
Another advantage
to having a full scholarship at UK was that when it was time to pick up your
books and college supplies at the University book store, everything you needed
was neatly placed in a large carryout bag.
The person responsible for filling the book orders for the football
players would see what classes were being taken and provide every book and
study guide applicable for that class.
For those of you in college, you know how expensive new course books can
cost. Some are easily in the $80 to $100
dollar range for the college core text books.
The best part about this whole process was that we would just walk into
the bookstore, tell the clerk our names, and they would give us our carryout
bag. We signed our name and walked
out. If you were taking five to six
classes a semester and each course book was over $50 dollars, it would not be
uncommon to walk out of the bookstore with $300 to $400 dollars in books.
Each football
player was assigned to one of three guidance counselors at the Center for
Academic and Tutorial Services known to everyone as CATS. Your guidance counselor would recommend the
appropriate classes to take for the semester, based on your selected
major. Maybe some of you are saying,
“How can I pick a major when I have no idea what I want to do when I graduate
college?” That is a valid question;
however, before some of you hyperventilate, it is important to know that many
college students can go to college for over two years and still be undecided on
a major. Even when a major is chosen,
many college students change their major several times before they
graduate. One of the nice things about
college is that it offers you the flexibility to get a feel for what you want
to do with your life through all the prerequisite and elective courses that are
required. You might start off your first
semester taking college courses like Writing 101, Philosophy 101, Sociology
101, Business Analysis 101 and Spanish 101.
The beautiful thing is that if you are undecided, these classes will
still count towards the credits you need to graduate college.
For myself, there
was a reality check my first semester in regard to the major I had originally
chosen. Starting out in college, like
many youthful and energetic freshman college students across the country, I
wanted to be a doctor, and chose Pre-med as my major. How young and foolish I really was back then! My first semester, I took Chemistry 101,
which met on Monday, Wednesday and Fridays.
When it was time to take the first test, I showed up to class on Friday
after a hard week of studying. When I
reached the classroom and no one else was there my heart dropped down to my
stomach. I knew something was terribly
wrong so I called the teacher and found out the test was on Thursday, instead
of Friday. Due to the panicked thought of
getting a zero on my first college test, I actually got up the courage to meet
with the Dean of the Chemistry Department to explain my misunderstanding. After explaining to the Dean what had
happened to me, he simply said, “Well, I guess you get a big fat zero.” These were not exactly the encouraging words
I wanted to hear, but it was an unforgettable lesson, teaching me to pay close
attention to details.
The nice thing
about college is that you have an allotted window of opportunity to drop a
class you have chosen if things start out sour or if you are simply not digging
the teacher. As long as the class is
dropped in the required period of time, the class is considered a drop and your
G.P.A. is not affected. Needless to say,
Chemistry 101 was dropped in a heartbeat after receiving a zero on my first
test. Instead of taking five classes my
first semester, I ended up taking four.
This might not seem like a lot, but with football, it was more than
enough.
Getting
redshirted, missing my first Chemistry test and getting my new mountain bike
stolen right in front of my dorm room during my first week on campus was a
sure-fire recipe to make my first semester an unforgettable experience. The funny story about my mountain bike is
that the bicycle seat was stolen one day and a few days later the bike was
stolen. I think I might have actually
ridden that new mountain bike a whole two times before it was snatched. I highly encourage any student athlete who
brings a bicycle on campus to invest in a quality lock. I unfortunately made the mistake of getting a
chain lock, which was most likely cut off when it was stolen.
The following
semester I took Chemistry 101 again and made sure I showed up on Thursday to
take my first test. Even though I
studied as hard as I could, the result of my efforts turned out to be a “C”. It was then and there that I made the
decision to change my major from Pre-med to Finance. I never looked back after dropping Chemistry
101 for the second consecutive time. It
was not necessarily my experience with Chemistry 101 that persuaded me to
change my major, but the fact that I enjoyed business classes more than the
science classes. I knew early in the
game that I wanted to choose a major that I enjoyed doing wholeheartedly. Ever since I was small, I have been
fascinated with the American dollar. I
figured a Finance major would allow me to see just how our economy functions on
a daily basis and how the dollar can grow over a predetermined period of time
in the stock market.
For freshman
student athletes looking to choose a college major, I offer these tips that can
potentially save you time and heartache.
The first thing I would recommend is choosing a major that you can see
yourself doing. Many college student
athletes have fallen into the trap of choosing the major that is the easiest to
complete. I knew many football players
who chose Sociology, Communication, Journalism and Education majors, because
they knew they would be the majors with the least amount of work. We are at a crucial time in our country where
we need more teachers for our school systems, and I salute those who step up to
the plate and receive education majors to become teachers. The fact is that these college student
athletes were not looking down the road at what they really wanted to be. They simply had their sights set for the NFL,
and in the meantime, chose a major that required the least amount of work.
The second trap
you can fall into is picking a major based on the amount of money you can earn
or the title that comes with a degree. I
encourage student athletes and college students in general to look on the
internet and do some research on the respective majors that they are
considering. It is always nice to know
what type of salary range you can expect to receive from your major when you
graduate from college. Just keep in mind
that the money earned for a particular degree does not always amount to the
same level of job satisfaction if you are not enjoying what you are doing. Perhaps you think it would be cool to be
called an architect or a marine biologist, but you have no idea what the jobs
entail. You need to keep all your
options open. There are too many student
athletes who go to college for four to five years and then obtain a college
degree they cannot use.
Lastly, once you
are comfortable with the major you have chosen, I highly encourage student
athletes to get familiar with the required classes for completion of your
major. After my second trip to the CATS
guidance counselor, I had all my classes for the upcoming semester selected
prior to my scheduled meeting every semester.
You will most likely do a better job of selecting your classes than your
guidance counselor. Nobody is going to
know what classes you are going to excel at or have difficulty with better than
yourself. During college I was very
aware of the classes that were required for my major and always tried to pair
difficult courses with moderate liberal and free elective courses to balance
out the work load with athletics. An
example of this would be taking Accounting 201 and Economics 201 with Writing
101, Philosophy 101 and Communications 101.
A balanced course load like this will give you the best chance of
getting above a 3.0 G.P.A for the semester.
THE LUXURY OF A POWER NAP
Little could prepare me for the rigorous
schedule my first semester at college once classes started combined with
football responsibilities. One of the
many things you have a new found respect for in college is the luxury of a
power nap. I can remember countless
times in the afternoon where I would head back to the dorm for a little siesta
before reporting to the Nutter Facility for football meetings and then
practice. Those critical 30-to-45-minute
power naps would be just enough to keep me going strong in the afternoon.
The CATS facility
had the freshman football players on a strict schedule the first semester. It was necessary to ensure that players were
making the most of their time to get ahead on their studies and start out
strong. Many players complained about
the mandatory two-hour freshman study hall every morning after weight lifting
and breakfast that first semester, but I saw it as time well invested. There was plenty of course work to do, and
getting a head start on some of it before banging helmets at football practice
in the afternoon was all right with me.
A typical day
during our first semester consisted of lifting at the Nutter Center at 6 a.m.
in the morning, followed by breakfast at the University cafeteria. Everyone who has ever seen or met a football
player knows that he likes to eat lots of food.
Luckily for us, our meal plan consisted of eating as much and as often
as we liked for free - another one of the many perks of being a full
scholarship football player. After
breakfast, the freshman football players would head back to the Nutter Facility
for a mandatory two-hour study hall and then head toward campus to attend one
to two college classes before lunch.
Typically classes on Monday, Wednesday and Friday were an hour in
duration, whereas the classes that met on Tuesday and Thursday were an hour and
a half long.
After classes, it
would be time for lunch and maybe a quick power nap depending on your class
schedule. Are you getting tired
yet? I’m getting tired, just thinking
about it. After lunch, the players would
head over to the Nutter Facility for a brief team meeting, a longer position
meeting and then a two-hour football practice.
After practice, players would go to the dining hall for dinner and then
head to evening class, if applicable.
When you think the day is over, that is when you head back to the Nutter
Facility to review film of your upcoming opponent. Afterwards, you retire to the dorm for some
well-deserved sleep before waking up and doing it all over again the next
day.
After hearing a
schedule like that, you can see that a lot more goes into preparing for a
football game than merely getting suited up on a Saturday afternoon. There is a great deal of sacrifice that is
required to be a student athlete, and I believe that is one of the reasons that
student athletes are admired by their fans.
It takes a special person to commit themselves to a sport and put their
heart and soul into it day in and day out.
Discipline is the cornerstone of success on the football field, and I
was certainly learning the ropes my first semester.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1) When you left home for
the first time, do you remember feeling a freedom of responsibility? How
is that different from solely a sense of freedom?
2) Would you agree the transition
from adolescence to adulthood occurs when a person truly understands the
consequences of their decisions and how they affect other people?
3) Do you have an interesting
roommate story to share where there was a clash between your beliefs and
values? If so, was it difficult to hold true to your beliefs and values?
4) Have you been or are you
in the process of getting redshirted in college? Do you view the redshirt
process as an opportunity to grow physically and mentally while building a
strong academic base?
5) Do you think some
student athletes put all their eggs into one basket being their respective
sport? What is the danger of not having a plan B like a viable college
degree? Do you think student athletes, in general, do a good job of
preparing for life after their sport?
6) Are you surprised that
obtaining a college degree has been statistically proven to lengthen a player's
career and increase their earning potential in the NFL?
7) Have you ever signed an
autograph for a fan? If so, how did it make you feel? Did it make
you more aware of your responsibility of being a positive role model?
8) In your opinion, do you
think college students choose majors they can see themselves doing or do they
simply choose the easiest major to complete? What are the pitfalls of choosing
a major based solely on the title or salary of that major's potential
employment opportunity?
No comments:
Post a Comment