Some people agree that mixing academics with competitive sports gives kids the message that they don’t need math or science to be able to succeed in life (Ripley 72). Kids can turn to sports as another path towards a good life, maybe even an easier path (Ripley 72). Ripley, author of “School Should be about learning, Not Sports”, believes that sports can present itself as a priority above school (Ripley 72). This reason being that sometimes student athletes need to be excused from class earlier when they have an away game, however; that does not mean that these student athletes don’t work as hard as regular students. It just means that student athletes just have to work harder because they need to get their assignments completed before all of the other students. This is just so that student athlete is able play in that away game. As you might tell, there are people who might make assumptions that student athletes don’t care about academics. This is only because they can’t see the whole