Athletidemia

Access to education can come from various places and have various angles, and for my sister, her angle was running. She was athletic for as long as I can remember, but it wasn’t until high school that she truly realized her potential as an athlete, and its implications in terms of applying to college. Now as the fall starts to roll around and my sister begins her college application process, I can help but reminisce and compare our experiences. So much of my access to education has been involved with my cerebral nature and channeling that into being the best student possible, whereas my sister is flourishing as a result of her talent as a star track athlete. In this instance, her access to education has nothing to do with education at all. It is interesting to note because here my sister is getting rewarded as a result of her brawn, in exchange for a shot to expand her brain. This brings up to question the idea of how fair it is for colleges to allow admittances to athletes solely because of how they will benefit the team and thus raise that school’s reputation. I remember looking back jealously at the student athletes who seemed to have been gifted some preternatural skill that seemingly gave them a free pass to college that my peers and I had spent the past 4 years slaving away towards. Now being on the other end, already in college, and with a younger sister preparing to apply to school I’m no longer jealous because I see how much work she puts in. As a star athlete, my sister has no down time. She runs 3 seasons a year, and puts her body through grueling practices day in and day out. She monitors her body obsessively, constantly worrying about how much sleep she will be getting and how that will affect her next race. I realize that the work that most students are putting into their classes to get into school, my sister is putting into athletics. It is the same high intensity, high stress, competitive environment but in a completely different realm. Why is it that the academic realm and athletic realm are so inextricably intertwined? Are my sister’s efforts any less worthy (or more worthy) than her peers just because she is an athlete? These are questions I’m not sure I have the answer to, but are important in discussing the nuanced status of athletics in the world of academia.