Student Athlete, Not Athlete Student

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Student Athlete, Not Athlete Student Student athletes should be required to meet academic standards to play sports in college. It is not a right to be a student athlete, but a privilege. It is quite a feat for someone to be a talented athlete or to be really smart in school, but to be able to balance the two of them is the true test to the student. Rules have changed over time that requires student athletes to perform well not only in their sport, but in their academics as well in order to compete at a college level. Extremely gifted student athletes back in the early 80’s could get into any college in the US, even if you had the lowest grade point average (GPA) in the state. They did not care if the athlete was as dumb as a stump, as long as they could win the school competitions and games then they were happy. Now a days, the NCAA has brought in an institution called the NCAA clearinghouse. In order to compete as an athlete on a varsity team in college you have to be cleared by the clearinghouse. This is to keep athletes and coaches truthful to the rules and not having ineligible athletes play for a team. The athletes must have a GPA of 2.0 and get a certain score on their SAT’s or ACT’s depending on their GPA. This keeps it fair to students who are not athletes and attending the same university. Having academic standards in place for the athletes forces them to have a balance between academics and their training. My dad always told me that school comes first and sports come second. When he would say this to me back in grade nine, I would never believe him and think to myself as long as I am a good enough runner, I can go to any university in the states that I wanted to go to. So all the way through high school, I just cruised by not caring about my marks. Then when grade

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