The student athlete experience

✍ Scribed by Joy Gaston Gayles

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2009
• Weight: 62 KB
• Volume: 2009
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0271-0579
• DOI: 10.1002/ir.311

✦ Synopsis

Prior to the 1980s, the literature on the experiences of collegiate student athletes was rather scarce. Since that time the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) has passed several eligibility rules to address concerns about the academic performance and the overall experience of student athletes on college campuses. As such, the literature related to the impact of participation in college sports on student learning and personal development over the past two decades has grown substantially. Although there is still much to learn about the experiences of student athletes in college, we know much more about factors that bear on student learning and personal development for this population than we did twenty years ago. Of particular interest today is the extent to which student athletes benefit from their college experience in ways similar to their nonathlete peers. As future research is conducted on student athletes' college experiences, it is imperative to understand the data sources available to answer key questions for the purpose of developing policy and practice.

Today's Student Athletes

Student athletes on most college campuses today represent a special population of students with unique challenges and needs different from their nonathlete peers. Student athletes on average spend over twenty hours per week in practice or play, sustain bodily injury and fatigue, and miss a fair number of classes when their sport is in season (Watt and Moore, 2001;Wolverton, 2008). These students are also expected to perform well in the 33 3