Academic honors a good reward

Student-athlete. Athlete-student. Despite what the sports atheists might think, the two terms co-exist just like socks and shoes.


Nebraska had 55 student-athletes make Academic All Big Ten, including 27 football players, six volleyball players and nearly half of the women’s soccer team, which had 12 athletes qualify. Nebraska football finished second to Northwestern for most players to make academic all-conference.

While Nebraska has always been among the leaders in academic All-Americans as well as graduation rates, this is yet another example of hoe athletics and academics go hand-in-hand. And memo to those who tell the dorky joke of, “What does the ‘N’ on your helmet stand for? Nowledge.” Do us all a favor, think of something original and while you’re at it, tell me what first grade spelling class you failed.

All kidding aside, I have spent several column inches dissecting the Huskers on the field — and justifiably so. Having followed sports for many years, I get very nauseated with anti-sports people labeling them as “dumb jocks.”

If your interest does not lie in sports, that’s fine, I respect your wishes.

Those people simply show their true colors in that they are so insecure that they feel the need to denigrate others to feel better about themselves.

Are there athletes that are not academically inclined? Sure there are. It’s just that stereotyping all of them in that category is ignorance.

I have also found that there are two kinds of people. There are those who say, “Who cares about sports? School is more important” and there are those who say, “We’ve got to have a strong sports program.”

The truth of the matter is that athletics and academics can indeed co-exist.

There’s no reason they cannot or should not. I know grade-point averages do not tell the full story, because you can argue by saying, “Does this kid or that kid have hard classes?”

That’s a subjective and somewhat elitist question. Granted, I’ll give more credence to a student whose GPA is 3.5 with an AP biology and a calculus class thrown in than the one without. However, if a youngster is getting a 3.0 GPA or above, he or she is at least demonstrating that they understand the importance of mixing academics and athletics.

Point being, athletics and academics belong together.

It’s just a matter of getting them to work in concert with each other.