No matter your age or gender roughly fifty five percent of high school students in the United States are involved in extracurricular sports. That means over half of the high school students in the United States have less time in their day to do school work while still keeping their grades as high as regular student. This leads me to ask, do student athletes get as much credit as they deserve?

Student athletes like myself have learned to balance their time before and after school between homework, work, workouts, practice, friends, and family. On a normal day for me as a student athlete my day starts with me waking up at 4:30 AM for work at 5:00 AM. Work ends around 7:45 AM so I can be to school by 8:05 AM. School then concludes at 3:05 PM with practice soon after beginning at 3:30 PM. Practice then concludes around 6:00 PM. It is about 6:30 PM by the time I arrive at home. When home I must complete homework that takes between thirty minutes and an hour and a half. When finished with homework around 8:00 p.m. I am very tired already being on the move for about fifteen and a half hours. So, I usually go to bed without hanging out with friends.

With all of these things going on in my schedule I am expected to get the same grades as a student who is home and able to study by 4:00 PM. The schedule of a student athlete like myself is not for everyone. It is more difficult to balance than it sounds. It is also more difficult to stay awake than it sounds. Though we are called student athletes people mostly focus on the athlete part rather than the student part that comes first in the term student athlete. Us student athletes are expected to do the same amount of work with less time and still keep our grades up. Being a student always come before being an athlete and it is very hard to put student first with our schedules. Most people don't realize how difficult the schedule of a student athlete is. I believe student athletes don't get as much credit as they deserve, because people don't realize what student athletes go through everyday.

Not all athletes go through the same routine, but student athletes need to make sure they put being a student before being an athlete. Sports don't last forever but what you gain from school will help you through your whole life.