Student-Athlete by Jakob

Student-Athlete by Jakob - January 2025 Scholarship Essay

“You are a student-athlete, not an athlete-student.” This was the most important thing I learned from my basketball coach, but it wasn’t the only lesson he taught me. The same person who made me run sprints at practice also taught me that doing your homework is one of the most important steps to passing a test. His name was Mr. Sleppy from 7:20-2:24, but Coach Sleppy from 2:30-5:00.
My tenth grade year I took my first college credit class. It was called Probability and Statistics, and the teacher was Mr. Sleepy. I had not had him up to this point, but from what I had heard he was a good teacher. I walked into the classroom the first day and he passed around the syllabus. He stood in front of the whole class and told everybody that the homework was on the google classroom and if we wanted to copy it we could. He said he checks it is a very small portion of our grade, but he would recommend us completing it and asking questions if we were confused. Most people hearing this would copy the homework. It was easy and convenient. Like most people I copied the homework the first night. Then the next night, and so on. The day of the test slowly rolled around and I wasn’t nervous at all. I had a 100 percent in his class. I copied all of the homework off of the classroom. I started the test and quickly realized that I knew nothing. After struggling my way through, I turned it in. He quickly graded it and handed it back. It was not the score I wanted, but it was the score I deserved. The homework which meant nothing, affected my grade. Not the day the homework was due, but the day of the test. I started doing the homework and my grade reflected soon after.
By the time my grade was where I wanted it to be, it was basketball season. It turns out Mr. Sleepy was the assistant coach. The subject changed, but the lessons did not. He told us that if we wanted to be good we had to come to practice ready to work. We had to practice everyday with no reward. The practice would not be graded, but it would show how hard we worked on the day of the test. Two weeks of practice went by and it was time for the first game of the season. Everybody was excited for the tipoff, but this excitement quickly vanished by the end of the first quarter. The score was not what we wanted it to be because we didn’t complete our homework like we were supposed to.
Similar to my Probability and Statistics class I learned that it was important to put work in when nobody was watching. I learned the importance of homework even when I think I have the answers and the work is not immediately rewarding. This is a very hard lesson to learn, even for many adults. The difficulty doesn't take away from the importance. This lesson alone has helped me so much in my high school career. Not only in school, but also outside of school.