What should prospective students know about intercollegiate sports?
Know that intercollegiate sports play a prestige role in university life with many opportunities to participate in a diverse range of sport's within the college framework. The glamorisation of big time NCCA D 1 Footballer athletes that are seen to live a very relaxed and lavish college lifestyle is far from the truth for 99% of college sport athletes. Regardless of what sport you play and where you play it, from the offset you are expected to commit a serious amount of commitment to any program with little leverage considered in terms of academic deadlines. The point I am trying to stress is that for certain student's it's better off to take advantage of the many other extra-curricular activities including intramural sports to keep grades high with time for social activities if desired. For other student's, the commitment of long nights studying, hard training session's and sacrificing the attendance of social gathering's are exercised to fully incorporate the high demands of intercollegiate sports. The size of the school, the specific sport, the sporting institute e.g. NCAA D1,D2,D3 or NAIA, program expectations etc.... These vital components and a lot more, all correlate towards how much time will be needed to incorporate an intercollegiate sporting career.
If your considering entering into intercollegiate sport my best advice is to be ready to take on an overloaded schedule, prioritise all your time perfectly, buy a diary which you check several times a day and add every event in your life such as academic deadlines, games, practice, group project meetings, dentists appointments......INCLUDE EVERYTHING IN YOUR LIFE!! if you think you can handle a full schedule, the rewards for intercollegiate sport participation are endless, literally.