Amid the news of Athletics hiring a new men’s basketball coach with a half-million-dollar salary, after the previous one left after only two years to pursue a more prestigious and likely lucrative opportunity on the East Coast, and on the heels of a lackluster post-season tournament that chewed up more than $100,000 in student funds — it might be tough to look past the financial angle and see what’s at the heart of collegiate sports: student-athletes.
The money and the drama revolve around the performance of young adults who are trying to balance their academic careers with their extracurricular ones, perhaps the same way you are, dear reader. They balance the pressure to succeed on the field with their classwork and social lives, all while trying to publicly represent their school.
In an effort to bring the focus back to these student-athletes, this week we’re featuring a three-part series that explores this balancing act. We kick off that series today with a profile about Alexis Milesky, a freshman soccer player and nursing student.
Milesky quoted the advice of her coach, Aaron Rodgers: “(He) said, ‘No one ever said it was going to be easy to be a student-athlete, you chose this for yourself. So whether it takes five years to get your education done, so be it. You’re here for an education but also here to play soccer. And if people don’t understand that, you have to work around it.’”
It takes a lot of moxie to approach being a student with that attitude, and we applaud it.
It’s not the narrative we’re used to hearing recently when we talk about collegiate athletics, but it’s an important one. We hope this week’s series reminds readers that it’s not just millions of dollars that goes into Athletics. It’s people, too.
Editorials represent the majority opinion of The Post’s executive editors.
