In total, I really enjoyed my experience as a student-athlete. My teammates were amazing and the athletic-academic balance was good. I was able to train semi-professionally while also getting a degree. I really liked the location of my university and the campus life.
- combining studying and playing high-level sports - location - scholarship for Athletics - teammates - interesting classes - studying in a foreign country/ the US experience (I am an international player)
- dealing with very different skill levels and motivations (some players wanted to go pro very bad while others just played to be part of the team, for the fun) - not an ideal coaching environment - coaching was focused on short- term success only not at long-term success at all - high pressure when wanting to succeed in Athletics and Academics
- focus on long-term process (and also think about student-athletes that want to play AFTER college as well) - make Roster smaller (to have more similar levels of playing) - the strength and conditioning training plans have to be more individualistic and have more structure (not always the same things) - coaching should include more positivity