Reader’s Guide to Student 

Athletes’ Academic Success 

By: Jasmine Jenkins
Multimodal Reader’s Guide:
Collegiate Student-Athletes’ Academic Success

Introduction

Chapter 1
Factors That Contribute Into an Athlete’s Academic
Success
Chapter 2
What it's Like Being a Collegiate Student Athlete
Chapter 3
Achieving Academic Success While Playing Sports in
College
Conclusion

References
 Introduction
The extent that academic success in college is affected by playing a
collegiate sport is a topic that has been greatly researched and explored.
The average student in college does not have to face the same challenges as
a student who is playing a sport while being a student in college. There
comes many positive and negative consequences to being a student-athlete;
some consequences are able to be controlled but some
consequences are not. Depending on their
background, a student-athlete may find themselves
having a hard time balancing the two. Finding time to
focus on just schoolwork and finding time to focus on
just your sport is a very challenging situation. Due to
this challenge, some athletes may have to changes
some aspects of their lives in order to successfully
balance the two.

The goal of this reader’s guide to show the cause and effects of being a
student-athlete in college but to also show how to be proactive in order to have
the best possible outcomes. In Chapter 1: Factors that contribute to an athlete’s
academic success , will show exactly what affects the academic success and
who is more prone. This chapter will highlight all of the research and experiments
done in order to find these answers. In Chapter 2: Achieving academic academic
success while playing sports in college, while introduce skills and technique in
order to achieve the academic success. There will include the research done on
how an athlete can be most success in their school work.
 Chapter 1
Factors that Contribute to an Athlete’s Academic Success
The main/biggest aspect of academic success according the articles is
where the athlete came from. The hometown demographics, high school
academic history, and what the athletes did in the years before college have
the biggest impact of the academic success of collegiate athletes. First, the
demographics of the student athlete has a big factor in how they perform in
school. Demographics include race, gender, hometown, type of area, and
more. Along with the demographics being analyzed, what an athlete did in
high school is also observed. Their high school activity is observed through
their SAT scores and their high school work ethic. There is lots of carry over
between the two. The carry over include their study skills, their time
management, organization, and involvement.

(Article)Comeaux, E., & Harrison, C. (n.d.). A Conceptual Model of Academic Success for
Student-Athletes.(Author abstract)(Report). ​Educational Researcher,​ ​40(​ 5), 235–245.
https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X11415260
● This source describes how there are many different theories behind the correlation
between D1 collegiate athletes and their academic success. There are many different
reasons why an athlete’s academics success could be affected by their sport. For example,
race, age, gender, type of sport, and more. The source is a composition of many different
studies and research; not just one. The approach this article decided to take is the
influence of the environment the student athlete is in. The article states, “ Rather, many
support centers focus on simply maintaining academic eligibility (Knight Foundation
Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics, 2001), which clearly creates an athletic
subculture of low academic expectations, thus reducing the possibilities for developing
 high-achieving student–athletes (see Mahiri & Van Rheenen, 2010).” This quote shows
the stereotype behind college athletes and sports and how it may be proven wrong.
Toward the end of the article, the article gives a breakdown of how a college athlete
should go about their academic studies in order to be successful. It speaks about balance
and time management. This will really assist me in my research so I can compare the
steps that are suggested versus the steps that are usually taken by collegiate student
athletes.
This source is mainly focused on the background of an athlete before they attend a new
university. Lot of information can be helpful when deciding what causes academic success and
what doesn't. The background of where an athlete comes from, as mentioned in the source above,
directly correlates with demographics. Demographics include race, origin, gender, etc. Hand in
hand, the source below and the source above correlate to each other as they as researching about
the same information. They both focus on the aspects and factors that contribute to an athlete as a
whole. Both article consists of research and data that explain their reasoning for a collegiate
student athlete being successful.

(Article)Gaston-Gayles, Joy L. "Examining Academic and Athletic Motivation Among Student

Athletes at a Division I University." ​Journal of College Student Development​, vol. 45 no. 1,
2004, pp. 75-83. ​Project MUSE​, doi:10.1353/csd.2004.0005
● This source discusses the correlation between division 1 collegiate athletes and their
academic aspects into more depth including the correlation between demographics. The
demographics include race, gender, origin, and the types of areas people were from.The
sources compares and contrasts not only different sports but race and gender as well.
They compare athletes from different background and tell about their current academic
success according to their previous high school success. The sport that the collegiate
athlete played is also considered. They compared high school SAT scores to currently
success and attempt to identify what the cause and effects were. Comparing the scores
will show any progress or regress from high school to now. Also, when the college
careers of the athletes continue, they compare their academic success from each
proceeding year.This source will be very helpful because it goes more in depth about the
singular athlete rather than grouping athletes and comparing by sport. This peer reviewed
article will be very useful because this goes more into what factors of a college athlete
will impact their academic success. In most instances, it is what the collegiate athlete did
before college that leads them into what they do now.
(Article)“Balancing School & College Sports How Student Athletes Can Kill It in Class & on the
Court.” ​Student Athlete's Guide to Balancing Academics & College Sports,​
www.affordablecollegesonline.org/college-resource-center/student-athletes-and-academics/
● This source is from a peer review that is composed of research findings from
experts,written by a driven author and reviewed by many publishers. This source not only
focuses on division 1 schools, but also division 2, and division 3. The source
acknowledges the different levels of difficulty between division 1, division 2, and
division 3 so it discusses different tips for each different levels. The layout of this website
is very attractive, organized, and easy to navigate through. Not only does the website
article give tips about academic success, but it also factors in other aspects that could
affect the overall success of a student athlete. Other aspects include what an athlete eats,
how an athlete sleeps, and which kind of classes they are taking. If a student athlete is not
taking a class that they enjoy or is interested in, then they are less likely to succeed in that
class. The benefits of being a student athlete is also discussed in the article; there are
many unknown academic and life benefits that come out of being a collegiate student
athlete. Being a student athlete also teaches life skills like responsibility and discipline
that will be used throughout the rest of the lifetime of that student athlete.
The article above is about being more proactive than reactive as a student athlete with
academics. The article explains how to most best benefit your body by eating properly/healthy,
and taking care of your body. The article stresses how eating and sleeping play a huge role in
being a success student and student athlete. By properly regulating eat and sleep, an athlete is
more than likely to manage and organize their time better: as they are now cautious of this
priority. The article below relates to this article as it explains the importance of time management
and organization.
Along time management and organization, these skills are best acquired at young ages.
When in middle school and high school, it is best to begin learning these strategies or have them
already learn. In the connection from the two articles that studies the demographics of student
athletes, if an athlete comes from a lower education school that did not focus on teaching these
strategies, they tend to find themselves in situations where they typically do not know how to do
so. Unfortunately, these students will perform poorer compared to student that originate from
areas where the education system was better and they were taught these strategies that they are
now able to use at the college level.
(News)Filpi, Claire, and Andrew Elliott. “Play Hard, Study Hard: Loyola Athletes Succeed in
the Classroom.” ​Loyola Phoenix​, 17 Oct. 2018,
loyolaphoenix.com/2018/10/play-hard-study-hard-loyola-athletes-succeed-in-the-classroom/.
● This newspaper is specific to Loyola University and their college athletes. “Loyola prides
itself on having a 2016-17 graduation success rate (GSR) of 99 percent, which was tied
with five other universities, including Harvard University and Yale University, for first
place among all NCAA schools. The 2017-18 GSR is scheduled to be released late fall.”
shows the academic success of their student athletes. Also, the newspaper states, “At the
end of the 2017-18 school year, 155 of Loyola’s student-athletes were named to the
Missouri Valley Conference (MVC) Honor Roll. In 2016-17 only 122 athletes were
named to the MVC Honor Roll — an improvement assistant athletic director for
academics and student development Samantha Stewart said makes her proud.” which
shows that not only are the athletes graduating, they are also graduating with honors and
surpassing their fellow regular student peers. Loyola is setting a prime example for other
division 1 schools who pride themselves in the success of their student athletes. Loyola is
the perfect example of defying the negative stereotypes about collegiate student athletes;
taking easy majors, having low gpas, etc. Also the students practice good academics
skills; ““I think Loyola benefits from having a really good balance,” Stewart said. “Not
only are they stellar athletes, these are really stellar students in terms of academics.”.
 Chapter 2
What it’s Like to be a Collegiate Student Athlete
Student athletes have to challenging task of being a student-athlete and an
athlete-student. Between the practices and classes, they barely have any free
time to themselves. Most of the little bit of free time they have is spent on eating
or sleeping. Not only do the athletes have little time between practices and
classes, but it is also very hard to manage the time; especially for those who
have never been faced with these challenges before. This chapter will show a
first person perspective from student athletes playing sports at division 1
universities. Not only is it a challenge for the athletes themselves, professor tend
to find challenges themselves. Despite all these challenges, the athlete try their
best and show the many sacrifices it takes in order to live the life that they do.

(Article)“College Athletes Don't Have Time to Be Students.” ​HoustonChronicle.com,​ Houston

Chronicle, 15 Oct. 2018,
www.houstonchronicle.com/local/gray-matters/article/college-athletes-academic-performance-gr
aduation-13308008.php
● This source if from a completely different point of view; this article is from the point of
view of a college professor. The professor explains that on his first day of work as a
professor at the University of Houston, his class quickly filled with many collegiate
student athletes. The university is a division 1 sports school with a very well-known
sports team. He explains that his class was full of student athletes, especially basketball
players, and it was at a very early time in the day. When he began teaching his class, he
noticed the the majority of student athlete who fell behind were black. This point
connects many of the other peer reviewed articles I researched. A lot of the other articles
researched and tested this theory. He places emphasis on the fact that these athlete only
have but so much time set aside for academics. He believed that the student athletes could
simply not balance the drive for their academics and sports success, “Academic rigor and
athletic success were simply incompatible goals.” The professor even admits that he did
his research on the athletes and their athletics and realized that they devoted more time to
their sports than they did their academics.
(Interview)Edison, Rickie. “Richard Sherman: Student Athlete Education.” ​YouTube,​ YouTube,
17 May 2015, www.youtube.com/watch?v=eP0FYeO1N2A.
● This interview is a press conference between the press and Richard Sherman and the
press. They are interviewing him and asking about his college experience with playing a
division one sport at a very prestige university. He was a star football player in college
which made the pressure on him even more harsh. Richard Sherman attended Stanford
university which is a very difficult school not only not get into but to attend as well. He
 states that even the coaches would implement the idea that the college athletes are here
for football; school comes second. Sherman said that the coach would always tell the
football players “you’re here to play football”. I personally believe that hearing this
comment from the authority figures, the football coaches, on a regular could influence the
performance of the collegiate athletes. This source is extremely helpful because it
delivers a first hand experience of being a very good football player and a very intelligent
student. He tells of the hardships and challenges that he faced and how he feels about
them looking back now. This source will be very in my inquiry as I can compare his
experience, with the experience of others, and my own personal experiences.
(Video)TODAY, USA. “Success in Sports and Academics.” ​YouTube,​ YouTube, 7 Dec. 2008,
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ef76qXP1G1I​.
● This video is about a football player from the University of Illinois. The video is not
really an interview but it is just an overview of his life. The video takes the viewer
through a typical day in the life of this football player. It goes through just about each
hour of the day for him. Throughout the video, he also explains how it’s very difficult to
be a student and a division 1 athlete at the same time. He states that maybe he should
have chosen an easier major( his major is engineering) bit he knows that it can be done
because there are others who have done it. What I found interesting is that he emphasizes
the point that it’s really hard to take full advantage of the 4 year education while being a
student-athlete. Rather than focusing 100% on the education, he has to also focus on
doing well in his sport in order to keep his eligibility, his scholarship money, etc.
Personal, I think this is the biggest issue when it comes to collegiate athletes. The
opportunities that college gives has to be forfeited by most student athletes because of the
time commitment to their sport.

All of the above source of point of view perspective from different people who are
involved in this topic. In the video interview of Richard Sherman, there are a lot of
similarities in the life he lived during college with the life lived by the Illinois University
football player. They both seemed to have similar struggles with maintain their grades
along with eating and sleep habits. They both emphasize they did not have much social
time due to have a very packed schedule. They also were both taking tough majors and
were very important players to their respective football teams. They were under a lot of
stress every day of their career. Despite all the hardships, they do understand how it
paid off and the hardships were just as they expected. An unusual point of view from a
professor saw the hardships that these athletes endured as he had many student
athletes in his class.
 Chapter 3
Achieving Academic Success While Playing a Sport in College
This chapter will introduce the best ways to balance a lifestyle of
being a collegiate athlete and a collegiate students. There have been studies
and researches done that provide the results of being a good student
athlete. The results range fro organization, to eating habits, and even to
sleeping habits. There is a misconception with the academic success of
student athletes; they take easy majors, people do their work for them, their
lazy, or they get off the hook with things that regular students wouldn't be
able to. This chapter will defy these misconceptions and show how to be a
successful student athlete.
(Article)Gaston-Gayles, Joy L. "The Factor Structure and Reliability of the Student Athletes'
Motivation toward Sports and Academics Questionnaire (SAMSAQ)." ​Journal of College
Student Development​, vol. 46 no. 3, 2005, pp. 317-327. ​Project MUSE,​
doi:10.1353/csd.2005.0025
● This source tells of the driving motivations for student athletes to do well with their
academics. The article states that the success of a student athlete in college,”depends on
interests, motivation, time management skills, creativity, and other late-developing
qualities that no battery of tests captures well" (p. 117). This source provides more of an
explanation for the academic success of student athletes. It also identifies that not every
student athlete is the same in which different types(demographics, personality, etc.) of
people may face different circumstances when it comes to their academic success. Some
people may be more driven than others; some people may have been raised differently.
Some students may be there for strictly school and some students may be there strictly for
their sport. I found this article very interesting due to the fact that it had different research
compared to all the other peer review articles. This peer review article dives more into the
driving forces that an individual has. Also, this study could be possibly done with non
student athlete and I believe the results could be similar. This will be helpful in my paper
as it is a different aspect of study in my inquiry research.
The article above takes the side of student-athletes needs a driving force and motivation
in order to succes in both their sport and the academic studies. This is more of a
reactive article that explains what student athletes feel after they have begun their
collegiate careers. The article understands that not every student athlete is the same. In
the book sources listed, there is information for just about every kind of student athlete
in the world. These book sources provide guides, suggestions, and tips on improving
academic success while being a collegiate athlete. They use information and research
about ​demographics​, ​eating and sleeping habits​, and motivational drives in order to
comprise a complete instruction on how to be the best student athlete possible. These
last three sources I have placed in my chapter three because they bring all the
information, point of views, and research all together. I found that these sources were
basically summaries of all aspects of these topics.

(Book)Books:​Hirsch, Glenn. ​Helping College Students Succeed: a Model for Effective

Intervention​. Routledge, 2015.
● This source was more helpful as a guide for college athletes’ success in college athletics.
This source described what skills to practice and obtained while being a student athlete.
This source has some facts and research included in it but it was primarily a guide for
student athletes while in college. This book would be best used before or during a college
experience by a new student athlete. I believe this book would be helpful to read for a
incoming student athlete; or maybe a college athlete that is currently suffering from poor
academic performance. I personally enjoyed some of the strategies that the book describe
but it was mainly everything that was taught in seminars and advice given from others.
The book is predictable and could be used by a regular student in college as well. I would
suggest this book to just about any student in college who needs assistance in balancing
their schedule, time management, and organizing priorities. I may not use this source as
much in my inquiry but it was still helpful information to learn. This source was helpful
in showing what a college student athlete should be doing in order to better their
academic success.
(Book) ​Promoting the well-being and academic success of college athletes : hearing before the
Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, United States Senate, One Hundred
Thirteenth Congress, second session​, July 9, 2014.​ (2015). Washington: U.S. Government
Publishing Office.
● This book is an overview of all of the research I have done thus far. The book goes over
the negative stereotypes as well, “There’s a growing perception that college athletics,
particularly Division I football and basketball, are not avocations at all. What they really
are is highly profitable commercial enterprises.” along with, “Recognizing the challenges
exist, it is my hope that the NCAA, its member institutions, the student athletes
themselves, and other stakeholders will seek solutions that promote the education, health,
and well-being of student athletes and seek to preserve amateurism in collegiate
athletics.”The article also goes into the money revenue generated through universities as
well. This book also goes into the “Pay for Play” idea. Also, the book puts lots of of
emphasis on the fact that you also have to have obtained good grades before even
attending a college or university for a sport. “I believe that you were put at the helm of
the NCAA because you have impressive academic credentials and a sterling reputation.
And I think that we all appreciate that you’re extremely well compensated. Your
commendable individual qualities and capabilities are not what trouble me.”this
statement shows that the strong academic
quality of an athlete is definitely valued
along with their sport capabilities.
 Conclusion
In the end, college athlete does affect the academic success of student athlete
but this affect could either be positive or negative depending on the student
athlete and how they approach the situation.There is always room for improve;
many of these sources provide tips in order to help a student athlete who is
struggling, become success. In some cases, some student athletes enjoy the
time management and organization that comes with being a student athlete.
Many in this case, will chose tough major that will keep them busy or will give
them a challenge in their college careers.

There is no direct correlation of what exactly affects the academic success of a

student athletes due to the many types of people, background, and explanation
there are. Despite research, there will always be controversial views about how
student athletes handle their academics. Hopefully this reader’s guide has
opened up new thoughts and opinions about student athletes. Hopefully the
stigma and the word “all” will be eliminate when the topic is brought up because
just as there are many different variations of regular students, there are also
many different variations of student athletes.