School Comes First, Right?

School Comes First, Right?

“Don’t wait for tomorrow when you can start today.”

As athletes and parents we tend to get blinded by the excitement when the words “college” and “softball” are fused together on the horizon for our daughter’s future. We forget or sometimes lose the ability to find balance with our busy schedules; lessons, practice, tournaments, training, school, and tutoring, not to mention all the traveling, work, and the others kids you have to take care of! Softball takes up a vast amount of our time, but we can’t let our kid’s education get put on the back burner. Your daughter will work her butt off to get to her highest potential on the softball field and she WILL get recruited! BUT she still has to get ACCEPTED into the school. So make sure she is also working diligently on her school work as well!

Our athletes put so much time into their sport; taking lessons, going to training, practicing on their own, watching new drills, and going to camps to better their skills and mechanics. Softball is challenging and fun, so we need to make sure our athletes also see the benefits of school! Your athletes won’t realize how incredibly important all of those lessons and basic classes they took in high school until they get into college, so start telling them now! Just like softball, you learn the basic fundamentals and then you grow and heighten your skills. School is exactly the same! They have to learn the basic fundamentals in order to keep building their knowledge and reaching higher levels of education. If you don’t have the basics down, then it is extremely difficult to be successful whether it is softball or school. We need to make sure our athletes understand that they are STUDENT-athletes. School is crucial to get into college to play ball, and to get a career they want to thrive in.

School is frustrating and also time consuming, and it is hard to find the balance between school and softball, but make sure your athlete is working within a schedule that is built on helping them become successful in the classroom and on the softball field. Of course it isn’t easy, and all of our kids are different, so find what works best for them! If they are struggling, make sure you’re helping them whether you can help, a teacher can help, or going to tutoring. Don’t wait last minute to find help, because it is not easy to work their way back into a passing grade!

We have to remind and keep reminding our athletes that they are students as well, and if they want to go to college, play in college, and have a career that they love, then they have to work hard in each of their classes, not just on the field!

We have brilliant athletes who are different types of athletes, learners, have different personalities, and have different goals and interests, but it is up to us to help guide them onto the path that will help them learn hard work, passion, and dedication towards the importance of education and the sport. Help them thrive in the classroom and on the field. Hold them accountable. Teach them values. Talk to them. Communicate with their teachers. And always make sure they are understanding the importance of everything they are doing and where the diligence is taking them. They have dreams, help them get there!

Written by Nikoli Sharp