Week 1: We are Athletes

We are Human.

Athletes are self righteous. Athletes get it easy.  Athletes don’t need to work hard in school. Athletes are dumb. Are these accurate representation on how others perceive athletes?

Athletes are like everyone else. We aren’t perfect. We make mistakes. We say things that might come off as egotistical or ignorant but we are still the same. Human. Us athletes are held high to some and held with no expectation from others. We work hard to get to our goals and work even harder to exceed them. We are perfectionist, constantly chasing after something that can never be achieved As athletes, we need to work harder in the classroom. We need to stay eligible in order continue being athletes. Held high in balancing school and sports. As an athlete we know that it is a privilege to play a sport. At any level.  But not being an athlete is  harder than being an athlete. Sports are our lives and we will work hard to continue.

We were raise on televised sports. Watching professional athletes live our dreams so we can create our future goals, lifestyle, and etc following through theirs. But, in reality less than a quarter of those kids don’t achieve those dreams. They quit because we are playing games of failure that people enjoy watching. Behind the mask of game days, competitions, practices, workouts and all the time we put in we never have the chance to breathe. On top of that we are regular students struggling to balance school, family, friendship, and what we don’t focus on enough are ourselves. But to the outside world, we are stuck up people, who are perceived as egotistical rocks who are better than everyone. But actually, we are the entertainment trying to learn to cope with ourselves.

Athletes need to be understood more. By their peers, teachers, parents, family,  and friends. You will never know what is going on in an athletes life if you don’t take the time to ask them what is on their plate. Understanding an athlete is one step closer to unlocking the truth about us and not our stereotypes. We aren’t egotistical we are competitive. We aren’t dumb, it’s just a label. We learn like we practice. We eat up knowledge in the classrooms, make ourselves known to professors so we can progressively improve through one subject to the other.  Doing those things tend to leave athletes with no time for themselves.  Understanding, that they need to take a breather and realize they are human. We are like everyone else. We are student first, athletes last.  We just need to be understood.

This is the introduction to the stigma around athletes from a college athlete’s point of view.

Hello everyone and thank you for taking the time to read my first ever blog on my passion as an athlete! I am here to spread awareness about athletes mental, emotional, and physical health and how they handle adversity in college.