Former Players - Would You Do It Again?

[DuffMan]

An interesting topic was discussed at work yesterday.  A former manager of mine who played 1 year of D3 football and 4 years of D3 baseball asked me, if you had to do it all over again, would you play football in college again?

Background on me, I played at Saint John's from 1999 - 2002.  My instant response was 100% yes.  He said he would not.  He asked if I thought it took away from my studies.  Honestly, I don't think that it did, and I majored in chemistry, not some fluffy business program.    I truly think that, given a good program (i.e. coaches with priorities in the right place), intercollegiate athletics enhance one's educational experience.  Time management, prioritization, teamwork, sacrifice, etc--there is so much to be gained from athletics, and 15 years later, I have a successful career and family, so I would do it all over again in a heart beat!

Thoughts?

[HansenRatings]

I fall pretty firmly on the side of "Yes, in a heartbeat," but I made it through relatively unscathed. I have a few friends who probably wouldn't based solely on the pile of surgeries and nagging ailments they've had to endure since leaving college.

In terms of "sacrificing" academics, I always found the daily structure of football season aided my studies. It was a lot easier in the winter/spring term (especially the few semesters when I was in a morning workout group instead of an afternoon workout group) to get home from classes and convince myself that I didn't need to start my homework right away-- I had all afternoon & evening to work on it! And then six hours of playstation later I realized I hadn't started any of my schoolwork. During the season, my schedule was lift, eat, school, eat, school, practice, eat, film, homework, sleep, repeat. It wasn't overwhelming, but it was structured.