It is an everyday commitment to be a student-athlete.

For an entire season and beyond, you and all your teammates are expected to be dedicated to the work that it takes to compete at a college level and be successful.

It’s difficult to be a student-athlete, plain and simple.

The transition from being a high school student-athlete to one at a college level has definitely not made life easier.

I did not expect life to be a picnic when I got to Baker in August.

Life in general isn’t exactly excruciating, but it’s tough to go from living at home and playing a high school sport to living in a new environment and playing a college sport.

It’s a learning experience within itself.

For an entire season a daily routine is set: school, practice, homework and repeat, over and over until the end of the season.

For many of the students at Baker, including myself, we have a lot of pressure to perform on the field and in the classroom.

Failure is never an option for us.

Many of us are on scholarships, and if you take a step back and really look at a lot of us student-athletes, you would see that we have a lot to lose. I don’t think many of us realize it.

I think the most frustrating thing about being a student-athlete is watching other students not being completely committed.

It’s not like we have to eat, sleep, breath and only think about our particular sport, and no one asked us to only be committed to our classroom responsibilities.

We can have lives outside the classroom and off the field, but sometimes we just have to figure out our priorities.

Everyone experiences a reality check.

I had mine this weekend when I watched my team, the women’s soccer team, lose to a team that we knew we could, and should, have beaten.

When student-athletes are put in situations where they have to step back and re-evaluate their commitment to their team and themselves, it’s interesting to see how most of them will react.

Once again, I feel the need to repeat myself, being a student-athlete is tough.

It takes dedication to stay committed to yourself and your team while also staying committed to work in the classroom.

Balance becomes a necessity; time management and dedication becomes one of our biggest challenges.

Most of us are up to it, getting through those tough times and finding success, because in the end, isn’t that all that matters?