"I don't think college athletes are given enough time to take advantage of the free education they're given," Sherman said. "It's frustrating because a lot of people get upset with student-athletes and say you're not focused on school and not taking advantage of the opportunity you're given.

"I would love for a regular student, for just one semester, to have a student-athlete schedule during the season and show me how you balance that. Show me how you would schedule your classes when you can't schedule classes for 2 to 6 o'clock on any given day.

"Show me how you're going to get all your work done when you get out [of practice and meetings] at 7:30 or so and have a test the next day and you're dead tired from practice and you still have to study and get the same work done."

Sherman said most regular students have it much easier than the college athletes.

"Most of these kids are done with class by 3 o'clock and you have the rest of the day to do what you please," Sherman said. "You may spend it studying and then you may go have coffee with friends.

"As a student-athlete, you don't have that kind of time. You wake up in the morning and have weights. Then you go to class. Then you might get a bite to eat, then you go to meetings and then you have practice. And you have to try to get all your school work done."

Both Sherman and Bennett emphasized the financial hardships some college athletes have.

"And people are upset that student-athletes need a little cash," Sherman said. "I tell you from experience that one time I had negative 40 bucks in my account. It was in the negative more times than positive. You have to make a decision whether you put gas in your car or get a meal.

"People say you get room and board and they pay for your education. But to [the school officials'] knowledge, you're there to play football. Those are the things coaches tell you every day. Luckily I was blessed to go to Stanford, a school primarily focused on academics. But as [former Stanford coach] Jim Harbaugh would attest, we were still there to play football."

Good read.

Well he's right...

Shit is a full time job being a student athlete, you have time for little else.

NFL Hall of Fame cornerback from the Washington Redskins, Darrell Green, who attended Texas A&I, aka now called Texas A&M-Kingsville (Javelinas). He would wake up at 5 AM every morning to run around the track (he was a two-sport star), and not get home until 9 PM, after football practice and studying late at the library. My mother had the same English class with him and told me he'd often sleep during class and the professor didn't mind because he was an assistant coach on the football team. It can't be easy with that heavy workload.

Agree with all his points, doing good in school and playing sports is tough

U do neither BRUH

They get free scholarship stfu and stop bitching

If you don't want to be a student athlete the. Get a real fucking academic scholar ship. Stfu dmb fck

nikka academics wasn't my thang, but i was premier all star balllllerrrrrr



the use of the...

He confidently ignores many things that make regular students that pay tuition have to do get bye. He may be poor but what does he think the student that actually pays for school is doing with his free time, just hanging out and chillin? Most gotta work to earn the money and still go into debt for it.

It's true about debt but Sherman still has a point. Being able to pay the debt off after school when you have a fulltime job is a luxury athletes don't have. It would be easier to take advantage of free tuition if it came at any other time in their life except the 4 years they are already committed to something that takes up all their time.

Obviously I'm not saying that it's IMPOSSIBLE to take school and football seriously at the same time. Some people do it of course. But the system just kinda encourage kids to focus on football and push school aside.

interesting. Me and my professor just had a conversation about this, or about whether student athletes should get paid or not.

I understand the argument about them getting scholarships, yea its a form of compensation/payments but its not nearly enough. They have to take a bunch of classes that they don't have nearly enough time to study for because of their sport requirement(games/practice/etc).

You have to realize how much the school/NCAA are exploiting these athletes. Schools/NCAA make millions off of these athletes through airing games, merchandise, etc. Example would be the Fab Five. They made so much money for the NCAA/University of Michigan but they got nothing out of it.

I think recently there was a ruling that NCAA has to allow schools to pay their athletes, mainly basketball and football. I think it's $5,000 minimum that goes to a trustfund that the student-athlete cant touch until he/she graduates.