It's BCS bowl time. Here's how some football student-athletes are making waves in the classroom
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When college football's bowl season rolls around, it's hard to imagine anyone thinking about exams and term papers. So many football fans are glued to the big-time Bowl Championship Series games and their mouth-watering matchups that the whole these-guys-are-still-in-college thing slips through the mental cracks of society. But for many of the student-athletes on the 68 teams playing in bowl games this year, the middle of December is a time for studying, writing papers, taking exams, and more studying. And despite what gets covered in the media, there are actually scores of big-time college football players who are making big splashes in the classrooms at their universities.
University of Florida's Tim Tebow gets plenty of ink when it comes to the gridiron, but he's also excelled in the kind of work you never hear about on TV. For all of Tebow's success on the field--including a Heisman trophy and two national championships--it's the off-the-field, in-the-classroom results that stand out and have special meaning for him. Tebow's 3.66 grade-point average landed him this year's ESPN the Magazine Academic All-American of the Year award for the second consecutive year, and it helped him become one of five returnees named to the Academic All-America first team in November.
For Tebow and other players on the Academic All-America team, schoolwork is just like football. And treating it as such has allowed players on some of the best teams in America--Texas and Alabama, the two teams in the national championship, each have first-team Academic All-Americans--excel both on and off the field.
"I'm not going to be the brightest kid in my class," says Tebow, who is on the brink of graduation after three years at Florida. "But for me, school has always been about sticking with it and working hard. It's about how driven you are, how competitive you are in the classroom. If you want to be successful in whatever you do, you have to be successful in the classroom first."
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