University of Oklahoma Athletics
A Story You May Not Always Hear
July 02, 2007 | Athletics
Mossman Propecies No. 35 | Archive
It's hard to fathom the life of a student-athlete.
The long list of demands include practice, travel and,
of course, academics.
These young people should be applauded
for their ability to juggle so much, especially at
a time when their attention spans and energy levels
are telling them to chase more leisurely pursuits.
Yes, it's a full schedule to be sure. Full enough that if today's student-athlete opted to do nothing but hit the books and don the uniform all of us would understand.
Most don't take that option.
The one thing I omitted in appraising how much they
do is community service. From August to April, the
500 Sooner student-athletes logged 343 hours of community
service while participating at 73 different events.
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At least that's what the OU Athletics Department was able to track. Frankly, the numbers are much larger. Several of the sports do, shall we say, a less than stellar job of recording their community service work.
On one hand, that's frustrating to those of us looking to chronicle this fine work. On the other, it probably tells us that the coaches and student-athletes are reaching out to the community for reasons other than writing it down for reports and touts.
Accounting problems aside, community service is a feat that is rarely recognized by any one other than those benefiting directly. The news media, somewhat understandably, grew wearing of the storyline years ago.
The story has been told. Despite that, may it never be taken for granted.
Student-athletes come under tremendous scrutiny from coaches, academicians and fans that sometimes forget there is a real human being inside that uniform.
The time demands on these young people are substantial. To me, that's what makes their willingness to think of others even more impressive.
A lot of today's marketing efforts and media attention are geared towards getting each of us to think more about ourselves. To me, it's refreshing when a group of people that might be particularly prone to that kind of thinking choose to do the opposite.
The
next time you see one of those Sooners run, shoot,
kick or whatever, remember that not only are they fulfilling
a college sport dream and getting an education, they're
probably also taking time to make life better for someone
else, too.
Mossman Prophecies Archive
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Kenny Mossman, Associate Athletics Director for
Communications, provides his perspective on Oklahoma
Athletics in his regular column on SoonerSports.com.
