Long nights at practice, hours of homework, consecutive weekends of games and competitions–it’s time to set priorities.
Some students have a bigger focus on school sports and are letting their grades slip. A higher GPA requirement leads to student-athletes trying harder in school.
“For the vast majority of college athletes, it is a fact that their future profession will rely heavily on their education. Therefore, the emphasis must be placed on academic performance, not on wins and losses in athletics. If an athlete decides their schoolwork is superfluous to their immediate goals, they damage their future possibilities,” According to Berkeleyhighjacket.com.
Most students that focus on sports now, will likely focus on something academic-related in the future. Grades help to guarantee success, if an athlete’s grades fall big colleges like U0fM may not offer them a scholarship, even if they are a star player.
“Honestly, that is the way it should be. It is, after all, a student-athlete. The legendary NCAA advertisement highlighted this, with the tagline, ‘There are over four hundred thousand NCAA student athletes, and just about all [student-athletes] will be going pro in something other than sports.’” According to Berkeleyhighjacket.com.
Most student-athletes will do the bare minimum to stay on the team. Shifting the focus from sports to school will force an equal effort to doing well in both athletically and academically.
“Athletes know they can get through high school by doing the bare minimum and still play sports; but when it comes to playing sports in college their GPAs would be way too low to get accepted into a college. Raising the GPA requirement would force athletes that really care about the sport to focus more on school instead of the sport they play,” According to Athensoracle.com.
On the other hand, raising the GPA requirement for student-athletes increases stress on adolescents. Students that only go to school to stay on a team most likely will not show up after a GPA increase.
“‘I have a couple of friends who, because of the 2.0, they didn’t get to play football. So to them, why bother coming to school? A couple have dropped, and there are still a couple in here that don’t do the work,’ he said.” According to www.espn.com.
Students who refuse to attend school because they would rather not try should not be in high school sports. Period. If they are not going to try in school, what makes them able to try in sports?
The GPA requirement of 2.0 should be raised to 2.5 or higher. School should be the top priority of all students. Barely passing should not be acceptable to coaches and/or parents. Raising the GPA requirement will raise the effort put in by student-athletes.
