High school is a stage in every young adults life where they are able to make memories they will hold on to forever. For many students, sports play a big part in the memories taken away from their high school years. Recently, individuals have been looking further into the relationship between student athletes and academics to see if there is a negative relationship. Sports are a big part of high school and always will be. They teach students certain things that will not be taught in a classroom, which is why student athletes are more proficient in academics than non-athletes. 

Sports have been a huge part of my life for many years, specifically in high school. Soccer was the sport that I participated in throughout my life and the memories I made playing soccer are memories I will never forget. There are certain lessons one learns playing a sport that you will not be able to learn by sitting in a classroom. For instance, athletes will learn that losing is ok, because in future performances it motivates that athlete to win. Teamwork is one main concept learned through playing sports and by working as a team one will have the opportunity to make lasting friendships and bonds. I was taught to keep going when I was tired and to never give up. Most of all I was taught how to treat my opponent with respect, even if they did not earn it. The lessons that I was able to absorb during my time playing sports will carry on with me into my college years as well as my future career in business. Academics are certainly more important, but playing sports has a lot to offer and the lessons learned go beyond the sport itself. 

Recent studies have shown that high school students that participate in a sport have a higher chance of graduating high school and college, as well as getting a better job after their education is over (KU.edu). An article I found from the university of Kansas stated that, "In general, an athlete is not smarter than a non-athlete," which is true, but what a non-athlete lacks is that an athlete has more of a drive to excel in their academics in order to be able to compete in their desired sport. Someone that does not play a sport naturally won't have the same drive as an athlete, which may give him or her less of a chance to graduate and become more successful in the future. Many companies are interested in workers that have played a sport throughout their life, because most likely your boss has played in high school or college. They understand that same drive a former athlete has, because they experienced it themselves. The drive an athlete had during their time playing a sport carries over into the real world and is a reason why many student athletes get better jobs in the future.

A lot of the time sports are used as a stress reliever for students that have difficulties going on in their life. High school can be very difficult at times, especially when the student is playing a sport and juggling academics at the same time. After exercising or playing a sport athletes will feel more motivated to be productive, which would help with getting homework and projects done. This is when your body releases a chemical called endorphins and they are usually released after exercise.  The endorphins interact with the receptors in your brain that reduce your perception of pain. The endorphins also produce a positive feeling in the body, which can be related to morphine (WebMD). This positive feeling is what makes athletes more productive off the field, not only in academics, but also in community service and other extra-curricular activities. 

Of course there are people that think sports are not beneficial for students and believe that they are affecting the way students perform in the classroom. In an article written by the Atlantic "The Case Against High School Sports", the author Amanda Ripley talked about how our test scores for math and reading are noticeably lower than other countries such as China, South Korea, Poland, Japan, and England (The Atlantic). The explanation was that because of the competitiveness of sports, athletes are not focused enough in school and in return our countries test score average is suffering. It is known that in other countries they do not take high school sports as seriously as we do. In the same article a student that has moved to the United States from different countries around the world quickly saw that sports were noticeably more important than academics. Sports have always been very important in the United States and people consider them comparable to a religion, because it is something they are annually a part of. I can see how people think that sports are the reason that our test scores are suffering, but the people saying this are most likely the people that have not played a sport in their life. 

It has been a reoccurring theme throughout the years that star athletes are secretly given an "easy ride" through education in order to focus on their sport. Many coaches find a way to make this happen so they do not have to worry about the athlete doing badly in school and so the athlete can focus on his/her sport over academics. This usually takes place in lower income neighborhoods where crime and poverty is high and where there are a lot of exceptional athletes that may not be so academically gifted (ESPN). This is a big issue and something that has decreased in recent years, but is still happening frequently in high schools in America. Not only is this unfair to students that have to manage both sports and academics at once, but it is unfair to the athlete that is missing out on a good education. Not getting the proper education can seriously hurt a student after his athletic career is over. If the athlete didn't retain sufficient knowledge throughout their high school and college career, once sports are set and done with, this athlete will not know how to proceed in the real world. Academics are important and the faster athletes realize this, the better they will be in the future and the better they will be in their sport. As much as this may be a problem in the United States, there is only a small percentage of this going on; therefore it is impossible that this alone would dramatically affect our test scores. 

An article "Have Sports Teams Brought Down American Schools?" wrote by Elizabeth Kolbert discusses problems associated with the parents of high school students. A problem that we see often is various parents taking their child's sport more seriously than their academics. Elizabeth gave an example stating that if students were to have two math sessions a day, two weeks before school started like they do for sports, parents would feel it was unnecessary and ask questions to why this is happening (The New Yorker). Interestingly enough, if you play a sport in high school you will have practices throughout the summer and eventually have two practices a day to prepare for the season. The argument the author is trying to make is that parents accommodate more for their child's athletic career than they do for their education. This is clearly a problem and a step to fix this would be to educate the parents on how necessary and important education is. Our parents and the generation before us should be the ones that understand how important education; because the opportunities our generation has now, our parents did not.

To most people sports are more than just sports; it is a life style, an everyday commitment and to some individuals even a religion. It's important to stay active and playing a sport is the best way to do that. People that don't play a sport don't understand that the lessons you learn from involving your self in athletics are more beneficial than one would think. Sports help students in high school achieve greatness and excel in academics. In my high school we would be benched if we failed a test or if a teacher complained about us not doing well in their class. This taught us not to do poorly in school again, because you are letting your team down as well as yourself. As much as athletes may not look at playing a sport as motivation to do well in school, it absolutely is. I was a better athlete than I was in my academics during high school and struggled not because of sports, but because of so called "learning disabilities". My "learning disabilities" along with playing a sport motivated me to do better in school and eventually graduate and attend the university I love. These obstacles never stood in my way to graduate and go on to the next level. The people complaining about sports being the reason for students doing poor in academics is just an excuse and is what is wrong with America today. The more you make excuses for yourself and others, the less confident and successful you'll be. 

Marilyn Price, the author of "The Psychology of Youth Sports" talks about intensity and the greater time commitment an athlete has to a sport, the more strategic thinking of tactics and strategy they gain. Marilyn connects this concept to how this can affect athletes not just in their sport, but also away from it as well saying, "This can lead to the development of strategic thinking which is helpful in all aspects of life, including the ability to find and excel in the job market." She goes on to say that playing a sport throughout your childhood is important, and that studies show that just playing occasional middle and high school sports isn't enough to develop initiative and internal strength (Psychology Today). From this students will be able to over come challenges and obstacles during their sport by working with a team. They will also learn to cope with challenges off the field by working with others, which is why continuity is important.  Balance may be the most important aspect of the three, which ties into academics and being able to juggle both at a high level. School isn't the only thing that balance pertains to, but also in after school clubs and volunteering around the community. Being able to balance all of these together will not just make one a better athlete, but also a better person and understanding that there is more to the world then just winning and losing. 

In a YouTube podcast video "Why Playing Sport Gets You Better Grades", the narrator talked about an experiment he did to see what would happen if an athlete stopped playing his/her sport. The student that he used was a high level athlete and an above average student in academics. This student stopped playing sports for 6 months to see if his scores would increase, but instead his grades dropped, and he started to get very stressed and depressed. This caused him to see a psychiatrist who conveyed him to go back to playing sports, which would help with the stress. When the student went back to his sport, his grades slowly improved and the student started to feel less stressed and more confident. The narrator uses the term balance in his podcast and expressed that people who have balance in their life typically do better in academics. High school athletes tend to have balance because they have multiple tasks they have to balance at the same time. If you don't do well in the classroom, typically you won't be out on the field until you pick your grades up, which makes athletes try harder in school in order to always be ready to play when it comes game time. This experiment is solid evidence that sports play a positive role in students succeeding academically (Rowan Kunz). 

Sports have always been an essential part of high school and will always be important for years to come. As I researched more about sports and the affects they have on academics, the more I was able to decide that sports have a positive affect on students and their grades. Before I started researching for this project, I had a lot of knowledge on high school sports and how it affected me with my academics. It was clear when I started researching that for majority of the articles, sports had a positive affect on student's academics. The main reason that athletes are able to succeed in academics over non-athletes is that playing a sport motivates them to thrive in school, because if they aren't performing well in school they won't perform at all in their sport. Playing a sport has taught me important lessons that I wasn't able to take away from the classroom. The lessons I have learned have helped me and will help me throughout my life in my future endeavors. High school sports and sports in general are important aspects to majority of our daily lives. Throughout this project I was able to determine that students that play a sport are most likely positively influenced by their sport to do better academically. This concludes that high school sports don't have a negative affect on student athletes and their academics, but instead helps students succeed and become a better person. 

