7 Big Perks For Being A College Athlete

Hey team, Alex Swenson here. Hey, thanks for joining me today. And if you're new here, I'm a former Division I college coach and recruiter with 11 years of experience and I'm here to help you or your son play at the next level. And in today's video we're going to be talking about all the major perks, the benefits of being a student athlete. And I would go as far as the life changing benefits of being a student athlete. And the reason I'm doing this is to shine the light on those benefits. Benefits. Just in case you're not aware or maybe you're not so sure if you should pursue this avenue of being a college athlete. And it's not for everybody, but if you're on that line, hopefully this will help you either pursue it or step back and not pursue it. Okay? So if you get anything from this video, please select that like that thumbs up button and subscribe to my channel. I put out a weekly video on recruiting and how to get better on and off the field. All right, let's dive in. Being a student athlete in college is no doubt challenging, but so, so worth it. And what I mean by that is for an 18 year old it's basically going into more than a full time job. And what I mean by that, and this job is awesome by the way. Okay. It's just challenging when you get kind of shocked with your system when you get to college and you have all these things to do and you got to work on your time management, you got to think ahead, et cetera from there. But usually what your day looks like is a 6am workout. Workouts will go somewhere between 7 and 7:30. Then you have to go grab a quick bite of breakfast, maybe between 7:30 and 8, then you're going to class at 8:00'. Clock. You're going to have your classes in the morning because you're going to have practice in the afternoon. So maybe you have class from 8 to 12:30 or 1, then you have a little downtime, get some lunch, then you have practice around 2 or 2:30. Most schools have this around that time. And then you're having practice to around 5:30, 6 6:30 depending on the day, depending on if you're playing games or just more just skill work. And then if you're a freshman you might have study hall after that. So you're at study hall at 7 to 8:30. That is more than a 12 hour day right there. Now not every day is like that, but a lot of the days are like that. And you do have downtime, but not nearly as much downtime as you would as just a normal student. So this is why I say it's challenging. And you really have to have your Ducks in a row. And you got to be committed to the team, you got to be committed to yourself of, you know, continuing to improve on and off the field. All right, let's get into number one for the benefits. And that is getting into a school that you might not otherwise have gotten into. All right, so you can be a low academic kid or even a high academic kid. And I'm going to use just an example with even just a high academic kid, but maybe you're going for an Ivy League school and you're still pretty good academically. Maybe you're just an example a 3, 8 and you have a 1280 or 1300. So all of that 3, 8 and 1280 or 1300, it's called 1300, are below the standards in an Ivy League. If you were just going to apply as a student, you wouldn't get in. But if you're a student athlete and you're a baseball and the coaching staff really likes you, they have a certain enough number of slots where they'll be able to kind of get you in. Okay, so that is a big benefit. So that could be whether you're a high academic kid or you are kind of an average kid like I was. I wasn't a huge, huge academic kid going through, but I was able to get into a good school that I might not have been able to otherwise because I was a student athlete as we go. Then also the academic support that you have when you get in there. It is very, very hard to fail in college when you're a student athlete. It's just you have so many resources available to you from an academic standpoint. You have tutors, you have the coaches checking in on you, making sure that everything is going well. And the motivation factor, because you have to keep your grades up to continue to play. Now, every school will have different standards, but you need to keep your grades up to play. And if you don't have to keep your grades up, you're not going to play. So that's a big motivation factor. And it keeps you in line. It kind of forces you to keep moving on the academic side and really structure. It can really structure your day. And these coaches help with that and these tutors help with that. That another benefit. This is number two, and I love this one. This is one of my favorite ones. You have a Mentor right away. When you get into college. And when I say mentor, it's mentors. You have your coaches and you even have. If you have good leaders on the team, you have leaders, juniors and seniors that have been there around a while that are helping you through this, through college, not only athletically, but academically, socially, they're helping you through it. And those are the top two big ones that I would get into. Let's get into number three. These next two have impacted me the most and really made me who I am today. And these are in no particular order, by the way, but number three is the foundational relationships that you build at the college level. I mean, you are. It's blood, sweat and tears with these guys. And there's a bond that you build because you spend so much time together and you guys are going for a goal and the relationships last a lifetime. I can't tell you how many weddings I've been in, how many times I've been a groomsman with the guys that I played with and that I still talk to and have dinners with today and go to their kids birthday parties today. And it's helped in so many ways. So the relationships, but also the coaches and the connections and the references that you have. And this goes. It's just so widespread of all the benefits of relationships that I'm sure that you. And if you're a parent watching, you know the benefits of relationships and how it can help you in so many different areas. So that's number three. And number four, the life lessons that you get from being a student athlete. The lessons that you learn from failure because you're going to fail a whole lot. The life lessons you learn from success and how to deal with success. The life lessons of going after a goal and what it means to go after a goal together as a team and being selfless. There's so many that carries you into life after sports and after college, because as you guys know, and if you haven't thought of it this way, you have another 40, 50 years and hopefully longer after college that you're going to be living a life and that you're going to be building a career and you're going to need to make hard decisions, hard decisions that you've had to make in college, like, hey, whether go to a party or not, right? And is it a game day? What do you need to be doing? Things that set you up, all of these life lessons that set you up for success and how to learn from the mistakes that you have. All right, let's get into number five. And that is the recognition and possible benefits of being a student athlete that you get post college. And what I mean by that is because I have a personal experience, this is everything that we just kind of covered one through and the life lessons and how to deal with failure and the discipline and how you've had to go through the challenges of being a student athlete and everything that you had to do being a student athlete from again, the workouts to school, to study hall, to practice, to games, to travel. You learn a lot there. And employers recognize that. So I have a quick story for you. I was an IT consultant right out of college. That was my first job out of college. Now, I didn't stay very long because I realized I wanted to go back and coach real quick. But I got this job. I was an IT consultant at Concur Technologies and I had no business getting that job at all because I wasn't qualified for what they were looking for. But I had a buddy of mine who was relationships. I was like, hey, go on and apply to this. And so, so I did and I got the job. And after a little while, after about six months from doing the job, and I built a relationship with the boss that I had. I asked him, I was like, hey, why did you hire me? I didn't have any of the qualifications. And he says, hey, I saw your resume. I know that you were a student athlete. You were a leader on your team, you were a captain. And I knew that you were going to put in the work. I can teach you the rest, okay? All those values that you learned as a student athlete. I know that, hey, you just show up, you work hard, you stay disciplined, you're good with time. You show up and get after it. I can teach you the rest. And he did. And he did. And I was good at my job because he was a good teacher and good coach, good mentor at the next level. But ultimately I didn't want to stay with that. I wanted to go and coach as I went on to my career after that. But I'm just. I'm telling you the story because that is a real life example that I went through. So that was a benefit. Let's get into number six. Two more to go here. Number six is staying fit and learning about your body through nutrition and weightlifting. I am such a proponent of this. Anybody that's gone through my academy, such a proponent on health, nutrition, strength and conditioning because enhances your life in so many different ways. But you learn that going through colleges, of being a student athlete through great strength and conditioning, coaches, nutritionists, and you learn about your body as you go. And number seven, the obvious one that kind of really everybody gravitates to is the possibility of scholarship and money that can help pay for these expensive colleges and the possible academic money you can get. So if you're a student athlete, sometimes you can stack scholarships on top of each other. They call them stack. And you can stack if you're doing good in school and you have an academic, you get an academic scholarship. Maybe it was because you were an athlete in some cases. And they go, they give you student or, excuse me, academic scholarship and athletic scholarship on top. So maybe you got 25% academic, 25% athletic, and you have a 50% scholarship. That is huge. That is a huge, huge benefit going in to save you or your parents money going forward. But that is the seven benefits of being a student athlete. Hope you got something from this. Please comment down below. If I missed anything or you have other benefits that you see, I would love to hear from you. And if you have any questions on the recruiting process again, please comment down below or schedule a call with me or go to my website and I'll be happy to help you there. All right, I'll see you in the next video. Take care.