Zach Lawson attended this morning’s Division I Issues Forum.

I attended the Division I Issues Forum today and came away with a couple observations I thought were worthy of sharing.

Recently, the NCAA sent out a big “hey, how ya doing?” to its current and former student-athletes. All the responses have been collected for the preliminary results of the GOALS and SCORE studies.

GOALS—Growth, Opportunities, Aspirations and Learning of Students in College—is a measure of current student-athletes’ experience at their university. SCORE—Study of College Outcomes and Recent Experiences—focused on former student-athletes and their recollections of their time in college.

As I expected, the overall attitude toward the student-athlete experience, for current and former, is positive. As a former college athlete—hey, club sports count, too!—I understand the world of going to class, studying, having practices and traveling to tournaments, on a much smaller scale of course.

The opportunity to gain an education, while enjoying that athletic outlet, was a perfect situation for me. Make this the time of your life, student-athletes…doesn’t get much better than this!

On another note…

When is someone going to tell our student-athletes that most of them will not be playing professional ball? I think there is an unhealthy expectation of an athletic career beyond intercollegiate sports.

The Baseball Academic Enhancement Working Group shared their findings in addressing concerns about the academic performance in the sport. One of the topics discussed was the large percentage of student-athletes, in various sports, who have professional aspirations, which, in turn, has some impact on their academics at their respective institutions.

This got me thinking about the intentions of our student-athletes.

In the profile next to my picture in the sixth-grade yearbook, I confidently stated that I would be playing in the NBA when I grew up. I can look back now and realize I may have been a little overzealous—those that have seen my game lately can attest to that. I’m starting to fear that too many student-athletes may be putting too much hope in their chances to play professional sports, and not enough on the opportunity to gain an education, which they would reap benefits from for the rest of their lives.

Beyond the 2-3 hours that we see student-athletes on TV or cheer them on during games, the most important time in their lives are spent out of view developing as people.