You tell someone that you are a student athlete, and they immediately question how you have time to balance academics with sports. In some cases they assume that you don’t, waiting for the day that we student athletes realize we should quit the sport that pulls us away from our studies. For those of us in division three athletics, a mix of academic pressure and campus disinterest (compared to a division I school) is something we have grown accustomed to. We don’t receive financial-aid for our skill, nor do we expect a future in professional athletics. Despite everyone’s rationalizations, most of us feel that life at college would be much more difficult without our sport.

Freshman 15? Forget about it. I thought I was going to LOSE 15 pounds after camp was over rather than become overweight. Staying in shape is something I’ve never had to worry about since I started playing football or running track. I don’t need to make time to work out because I run and lift nearly every day.

I didn’t need to go looking for friends when I arrived on campus. I had 90 teammates on the football team from freshman to seniors. I was invited to social gatherings and got to know many other people on campus as a result. There was a culture to support me when I needed it and my closest friends came from my team as well. It was a great starting block for a rigorous four years and I haven’t felt alone or lonely since.

My stress levels never get too high. For every bad test grade, frustrating interaction, or general bad day, I can take my anger and anxieties out on the field or on the track. My euphoric moment comes from a full speed sprint or a big hit. For others, it may come from beating baseballs into oblivion or burying a soccer ball into the back of the goal. Regardless of the sport that excites us, we all agree that there is something that provides a physical release of our angst and brings us back to an emotional balance. On our bad days, our practices allow us a controlled way to hit and kick things until we feel better. Afterward, we’ll just pass out, often too exhausted to be angry or emotional and often with a renewed sense of perspective.

We each love our sport for everything it has done for us. Throughout our careers, athletics have provided us countless life lessons while teaching us how to handle everyday adversity. The injuries that can halt many individuals, push us to train harder than ever before in order to overcome them. When we weren’t chosen for that starting position, many people would have accepted that this position or skill just wasn’t for them; But not us. We worked our butts off until it was ours. That moment coach told us that we weren’t good enough to play motivates everything we do in life. Many of us have proven that coach wrong and now smirk when life chooses the other guy.

Not everyone comes away a champion. In fact very few do. Many seasons end in a loss and every athlete has their own tale of heartbreak. These experiences taught us to be hungry for the success that we know does not come easy. We have lost hard fought battles and were defeated by demoralizing margins. So that 47 on a test? It’s the same as that 30 point loss we suffered last year. That feeling of coming up one answer short of an A? No different than losing the conference championship this season. We invest ourselves in our athletics as we do with our jobs and schoolwork, and we can now deal with the rewards of success and the consequence of failure.

While we’re unlikely to like everyone we meet, being on a team has taught us to work with anyone. I have had teammates who I didn’t get along with and sometimes felt like I was one more confrontation away from fighting them. Yet, a moment later I was ready to go to bat for the same kid during a game because he was a teammate. We could overcome our differences for the benefit of the team. While many in society may struggle working with others on group projects, teamwork is something that comes natural to athletes. If discussions break down in a meeting, we can usually refocus the group to complete the team objective.

So, no, we don’t get paid for performing on the field and by no means are we compensated for the hours of training we complete each week. We are not superstars on our campus, and there are some people on campus who don’t even know we play a sport. And while the demand of balancing school with sports causes a cramped schedule, sleep deprivation, and provides little free time, sports has also provided us skills and lessons unobtainable in the classroom that will serve us throughout the rest of our lives. Sports are there for us when life isn’t going our way and we need an outlet. I don’t know where I would be today without sports. Being an athlete has given me -given us- so much more than we could have ever asked for, and we could never stop playing.