At some point, every student-athlete at Saint Louis University must choose what is most important: school or athletics.
For both Division-I and club teams, athletes are held to high expectations from both teachers and coaches. This makes it difficult to commit fully to both the team and the classroom.
Sophomore ice hockey player Andrew Smith said the hardest part of being a club athlete is being gone on the weekends.
“Teachers usually understand [when I miss class for hockey], although technically club sports are unexcused,” Smith said.
Junior Andrew Guerra, who plays D-I baseball, said he has had problems in the past missing class because of his sport. In one instance, the teacher threatened to fail him for only making one class in three weeks.
Guerra described the difficulties he faces on game days, being on the field until 8 p.m. and still managing to study for his classes. Travel days, he said, are even worse, because the team is gone for the entire day.
“The hardest problem to deal with being a student-athlete is managing your time in order to get everything done,” Guerra said.
Leaving during the school week often means making up assignments and tests on the athletes’ own time. If players miss class in big groups, the teachers tend to be more understanding of the situation, according to Guerra.
“At the beginning of the semester each player has to go up and give the teachers a sheet of what days they will miss due to traveling and games so they are prepared,” Guerra said. “The teachers, for the most part, are understanding, though.”
One tactic that athletes employ is to use travel time as study time.
Teammates generally study with each other if there is a common class between them.
“We have bus rides that can get up to eight to 10 hours long, and you can only sleep so much or watch enough movies,” Guerra said. “So, we get together and make study guides for upcoming tests or ask each other questions about things we went over in class.”
Both Guerra and Smith, having gone to the same Jesuit high school in Dallas, said their experience before college helped them balance schoolwork and sports at SLU.
“Being an athlete in high school was much more relaxed and laid back,” Guerra said. “If you had class, you could tell your coach you needed to skip, but normally practices or games didn’t run too late. However, college sports are a job.”
When the course work gets too overwhelming, some students find themselves making a decision about whether to continue playing or not.
Junior Thomas Larkin, who played club rugby, is one athlete who decided success in the classroom was more important than success on the field.
Since quitting, he said his grades have improved.
