The chances of earning a Division 1 football scholarship are remote. Thinking realistically is important.

If you don’t have the size, speed, and skill to play at the D1 level, all of the odds are against you. If you do acquire the size, speed, skill, and desire to play D1 football, the odds of you receiving an athletic scholarship are better than what people may lead you to believe.

With roughly 1.5 million high school football players, the odds are less than 1 percent. But what is not taken into consideration is a high school football player is not competing against every other high school football player in America. He is competing against a couple thousand athletes of the same age who possess the size, skill, and speed to play at that level.

The number of high school athletes that actually go on to play college and pro sports is limited, and that is putting it mildly.

The 6’7” 303 lb senior Tristen Taylor is apart of the 1 percent that has acquired the opportunity to attend a Division 1 program. He will be attending Eastern Washington University on a full-ride scholarship.

“I know I’m going to miss my family and friends, but this is what’s best for me,” Taylor said. “So, I guess you could say I’m happy and not happy.”

Exposure is as equally important as a player’s build. It’s exposure at the right level that will help you get recruited. However, no amount of exposure will make up for the lack of size, speed, and skill, especially at the D1 football level or any level for that matter.

College coaches don’t read your local newspaper and they probably don’t attend your high school football games. Roughly, only the top 1 percent of high school athletes are sincerely noticed. In fact, 98 out of 100 high school athletes never play collegiate sports of any kind at any level.

Taylor leaves early August of 2015 to set out on his new journey in Washington. “It’s going to be more intense and faster,” Taylor said. “I’m excited to play on T.V. and get better.”

The fame and fortune of being a professional athlete can be very attractive to an athlete in high school or college who is trying to figure out what to do with their life.

Taylor is aspiring to major in sports science or criminal justice.

Student before athlete.

This is one of the most important ideals of those who play sports. It is what molds the lifestyle of a student-athlete.

Sophomore Andrew Muthart carries remorse as he is currently on academic probation for his junior varsity year of basketball.

“I messed up my freshman year,” said Muthart. “It was stupid.”

This athlete admits that he allowed for his grade-point average to fall below a 2.0, during the off-season, in his first year of high school.

As tryouts for the JV team were coming to an end, he got his wake up call at the time of cuts. “I didn’t think they would look back at my freshman grades,” he said.

The sophomore was on the verge of not making the team. However, JV coach John Gilgert Jr. sees his potential. “He’s a kid to learn from his mistakes.”

Gilgert is one of the coaches in the program who encourages his players to become better students, while also improving as athletes. He confiscates jerseys from students whose grades start to plummet, with F’s red flagged on grade checks and report cards. “Having grades opens up so many more doors.”

He proudly recalls his last year’s team of starters, who made up the highest GPA of the team. Four of the five students maintained a 4.0 or above.

Junior James Green was one of those JV players. He continues to strive for exceptional grades through his first semester of junior year, though he says that football season is when he struggles the most to maintain them.

Green has an established routine after his football practices. He puts his priorities of classes in order, mapping out what work he needs to do for the following days. Green plans to make the workload minimal, by avoiding procrastination.

Football coach Don Norton also encourages his athletes to maintain excellence in their studies. “He likes it when athletes have grades,” Green said. On game days, Norton opens room M3 for a place to do homework, eat lunch, and relax beforehand.

According to Tony Espinoza, athletic director, “Sports are an incentive for doing well in the classroom, academically and behavior wise. The goal is to have athletes out there, representing athletics in a positive way.”

There are two types of academic probations that can be used. One is the freshman probation which allows a first year high school student with low grades to play a sport, only during the spring semester. The other is the regular probation where again a student with a low GPA (less than a 2.0) is considered to be on the team. This probation can only be used once.