A student athlete is committed to a team that represents their school. There are different levels of competition that student athletes can compete in:

• The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) there are three different divisions of competition, which contain nearly half a million student athletes.
• The National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) contains 65,000 student athletes.
• College club teams contain about two million student athletes.

Being a student athlete has demands that non-athlete students do not deal with. Not only is a collegiate athletic program different than club or high school programs, but also the school environment is different.

Student athletes are goal-orientated people driven to compete at the highest level. This goal mentality is something they can use throughout their lives.

 

 

 

Gomez, J., et al. “The Challenges of a High-Performance Student Athlete.” Irish Educational Studies, 2018, pp. 1–21., doi:10.1080/03323315.2018.1484299.

Greengarageblogadmin. “12 Primary Pros and Cons of Paying College Athletes.” Green Garage, 19 Aug. 2015, greengarageblog.org/12-primary-pros-and-cons-of-paying-college-athletes.