We’ve all seen those American classic movies that revolve around high school, like Mean Girls and Grease, where it shows the different cliques: the nerds, the popular girls, and of course the athletic boys. Throughout the years, society has perceived these varsity sports players as dumb jocks. Although this is stereotype isn’t necessarily true, it still has stuck onto everyone’s back of their heads, including the athletes themselves. Unfortunately, this lead to them having a lower academic performance by restraining their true potential.
In Clifton B. Parker’s article, he mentions how a Stanford researcher noticed that stereotypes genuinely do ingrain into the athlete’s head and negatively impact their performance. Different discourses that were highlighted that impacted athletes were their gender/race differences as well as their reputation and how people viewed them as a person. He stated how even just “warning people about the phenomenon can help overcome feelings or thoughts that they don’t belong to a particular group (Dee)”. To put it simply. having athletes self consciously be aware that they aren’t “dumb jocks” just because they are athletes is an important mindset that more people should have.
I personally don’t feel that there aren’t any other tension between student athletes and the larger student body. However even this one discourse between the communicates has lessened; I believe that more people are starting to notice that athletes can be just as academically productive as regular full time students, if not then more. It has been scientifically proven that those who stay physically active on a constant basis have more motivation and energy to be productive. Furthermore, many sports whether they may be competitive division teams or smaller club teams, require a certain GPA score, to ensure that their team players are able to equally dedicate themselves to both their sport and education.
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