In this blog post, the writer talked about how athletes have advantages that are unfair to regular students and how athletes benefit more from all the extra academic help they get which in the writers case makes it “unfair” for regular students. In the article “Either/Or,” Ariel Levy explains how in races, category should be more fair than just male and female. The writer for the “Non-Athletic Regular Person” blog also brought up the Cater Semenya event which resulted in a concept of fairness and divide. It was said that she had an advantage in her reaches due to her inner hormone levels. It is hard to consider what is really unfair and an advantage. But I seriously beg to differ on the point brought up in the “Non-Athletic Regular Person” blog post that athletes have an unfair advantage over regular students.
Many regular students seem to stereotype the athletes, thinking they’re all “dumb jocks” which is really sad because there is a numerous amount of athletes that get very impressive grades compared to regular students. There are some cases where your student athletes do have trouble getting into top universities and are very heavily helped by the school and sport to get in, but you can’t stereotype all athletes to that.
Athletes don’t live the so called “regular life”, we face many different obstacles and great adversity such as; performing beyond expected (to keep our scholarship), time management, a limited social life, a multitude of fatigue due to training and most importantly academics. It may look easy from the outside, but really there is so much stress going through many athletes heads all the time. For example I leave the dorms at 2:30 for practice and end up getting home at 6:30. That is time “regular students” can study have a social life or do what they need to stay organized.
Athletes not only have to remain focused on education, but they must also fight to be “great” within their respected sports, a challenge which not many people can achieve. Furthermore, it is true that there is a leniency upon student athletes to be less dominant in their academics but that is because it is highly recognized that they have much greater stresses to focus upon, making their lives more challenging then that of a regular student. Being a student athlete is something special, it demonstrates complete ability to master more than one great thing at the University of Michigan while facing difficult tasks like constant traveling, long enduring training, NCAA rules, inability to join clubs and far less time to study compared to “regular students”. Those who claim that the benefits given to athletes are not just/unequal should first step into their shoes before making such false statements.
“It may not look fair” as Ariel Levy would say but really it is. “Non-Athletic Regular People” should be comfortable with what they are given and who the are as so athletes. For example Caster Semenya was comfortable with who she was, but others felt she had unequal hormones.
The Political Habitat 
I do agree that athletes have much more rigorous lives than us regular students, but athletes also receive a lot of benefit. You mention that they have the stress of trying to remain eligible for their scholarship. This is a stress that most students don’t have to worry about because they are paying full tuition and as a n out of state student I know how much that is. There are also students who have to work jobs while they’re in college. They too have a large time commitment but instead of playing a game or running around they are busing tables and are having to put up with their boss. the lives of athletes in this school are difficult no doubt, but there will always be those who have it worse.
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I respect your opinion as you are more than entitled to have one, however I agree with kcasp above. Athletes are not the only ones with “scholarships to keep.” Many students here at the university have academic and financial aid scholarships which require them to work their way through school. In the same respect they face adversity with “time management, a limited social life”, and a multitude of fatigue due to long hours on the job followed by late nights catching up on academics. These students aren’t given any of the same advantages even though they share same the same amount of adversity and difficulties as athletes.
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