Student Athletes Doing Good On and Off The Field

Sports can affect people’s grades or even their GPA’s in negative or positive manners.Sports are the most popular activity for high school students, taking up a lot of time and energy.

I know how hard it can be because I have hockey on Tuesday and Wednesday nights making me tired the next day. Sports are the most popular activity for high school students, taking up a lot of time and energy.

I got to interview one of my good friends Jakob Hullinger on how football affects him. The first question I asked was, does football ever affect your grades in a negative way? Jakob replied, “Football affects my grades because I don’t have a lot of time to finish my homework because I get tired after football and I procrastinate”. Then I asked Jakob if football affects him in any good ways? He answered, “Yes actually it does, football keeps me motivated to keep my grades up because if I don’t I can't play the game”.

After our interview I went to Mrs. Clair who is a Biology teacher and is the JV volleyball coach . I asked her about how student-athletes are different than other students who don’t do sports. She said, “Student-athletes are more motivated during their sports season to keep their grades up so they can play. But student-athletes are more tired than other students some days”. Then I asked her if she gets any excuses from student-athletes about homework or school. Mrs. Clair gave me a quick response after I asked that. “ Yes, they do give me excuses on how they had practice or a game and said they couldn't get the homework done”. So I guess it goes both ways in affecting the student's school work but it also keeps them motivated to do good in school.

Michigan State did a study on whether sports affects student athlete's grade or not. In 2009, the average GPA was 3.10 for a female high school graduate and 2.90 for male students. Researchers at Michigan State University determined that students who participated in sports did 10 percent better in science, English, math and social studies compared with other students. Different studies show different results regarding athlete versus non-athlete GPAs, with some showing athletes having a full point higher GPA than non-athletes. Also, gender plays a distinct role in GPA and athletic performance. Something interesting is female athletes report the highest GPA’s over nonathletes and boy athletes. Boys, both athletes, and nonathletes tend to have lower grades and cause more school misconduct than girls. While both male and female athletes report higher GPAs than nonathletes, the females contribute more to the difference between athletes and nonathletes. From what I can tell it seems like being a student-athlete affects their grades in a more positive way than a negative way.