Junior Zachary “Zach” McRoberts has been playing basketball for as long as he can remember, and unlike most athletes, McRoberts said he plans to continue to play basketball throughout college.

“The possibility of a scholarship is something that is very important to me,” he said. “Getting college paid for and playing basketball is something that not a lot of people can experience, and I would love if that was the case for me.”

Not all athletes, however, share McRoberts’ enthusiasm about continuing their sport in college.

Samantha Miller, cross-country runner and senior, said she has no intentions of running in college, and part of her reason comes from the stress during her four years of cross-country.

“I got pretty stressed out during cross-country season in high school because it was hard to manage my time between running and homework,” she said. “I didn’t feel like I had enough free time and my social life was definitely limited. Also, all of the colleges I am applying to have Division I teams, and I think that if I tried to run Division I, I would still be stressed out.”

Athletics Director Jim Inskeep said playing sports in college is a major difference for student-athletes as opposed to high school.

“A college student-athlete is basically taking on a full-time job to continue competing in athletics,” he said via email. “There is usually more of a balance in life when they are a high school student-athlete.”

For his part, McRoberts said he understands why some athletes choose to stop playing sports in college.

“I don’t think a lot of people continue sports in college because it is such a serious thing,” McRoberts said. “You can’t kind of want to do it. It is such a serious commitment and a lot of people don’t want to make that choice. You aren’t just going to class and doing homework. You have class, homework, film, practice, and you know you’re going to be traveling for games. This adds to the difficulty of the already difficult schedule of a college student.”

Miller said she agrees that it was a large time commitment, and said she is looking forward to having more opportunities to participate in other activities.

“I think that it will be really nice to have more free time,” she said. “I will be able to get involved in a lot of activities that aren’t running-related, something I didn’t have a lot of time to do in high school.”

While she will miss the team aspect of school sports, Miller said she is looking forward to avoiding the pressure that comes from high school running.

“Although I will definitely miss being a part of a team and all of the traditions that come with it, it will be nice to be able to join a running club and run road races without any pressure,” she said.

On the other hand, athletics do have a positive side. McRoberts said the idea of playing in college has helped him to stay focused in school and that our school has helped him prepare academically to be a student-athlete.

“There are certain classes you have to take to be eligible to play in the NCAA, but they are mainly classes required by the school anyways,” he said. “Some colleges like to see you take school seriously, and that can scare away some schools if you aren’t taking school seriously.”

Inskeep said academics should continue to come first in college, even for athletes, and that there are some common misconceptions about the time commitment from certain sports.

“The most important goal in college is to emerge with a degree,” he said. “Collegiate athletics are very difficult for many reasons and often it is a time management issue that can be overwhelming. Some collegiate sports travel a lot more than others and missing class becomes very difficult to keep up with course work. Most people would be surprised to know that baseball and softball miss a lot more class time than football and basketball.”

Miller said she believes she will be able to focus more on her education because she won’t be running in school.

She said, “I think I will be able to focus on school more and have a lot more time to study. I am definitely looking forward to doing other things with my time.”