Athletics play a major role in Universities all over the country. One of the biggest aspects when looking at a school for many students is how good their sports teams are. The recruitment process for High school student athletes may be exciting but is also a long and stressful process. Athletes search colleges for the best fit both academically and in selecting a competitive team in which they feel is is a good match for their skills and abilities.  However, many people grossly underestimate the demands of playing college sports and the recruitment portion is only the beginning.  College athletes make great sacrifices to play the sport they love.  Basketball, in particular, is one of the most challenging college sports.  To compete, a basketball player is pushed mentally, physically, and academically throughout the season and their four year career as a college athlete.   
	
	A lot of people don't understand the mental toughness needed to play sports. There are a lot of expectations in which athletes are expected to rise to. Expectations not only come from coaches and teammates but also from parents and fans.  The most difficult expectation, however, is the one they have of themselves are driven to succeed.  Basketball is more mentally challenging than other sports because the exhoribtant number of plays that not only need memorized for instant recall but need to be executed in the same fraction of a second.  The speed of the game demands this mental sharpness for success.

	Basketball is also extremely physically demanding. Each sport usually has one main thing they need to be able to do whether it be running long distance or sprints like track teams, lifting weights to get strong for the contact like football players, or doing agility work outs like soccer or tennis and having the quickness of a baseball player. In basketball, all of these physical attributes are necessary in order to challenge opponents on defense and out maneuver opponents on offense.

	Academically, basketball players have the biggest challenge by far because of the length of the season. It overlaps both semesters which causes a lot of difficulties for scheduling classes. Most every other sport only has to worry about scheduling one semester around practices and games and really focussing the few open hours each day to get school work done, whereas with basketball athletes face a lot of struggles with finding and fitting in the right classes at the right times. Another unfortunate part of basketball taking place during both semesters are the breaks that the team misses. Since season starts in mid-October and ends sometime in March the only full break basketball players get is the summer vaction. Normal students usually get four or five days off for Thanksgiving and the basketball teams only get two or three depending on how many games they are scheduled to play. For winter break most colleges give students a month long vacation but because that is during the middle of basketball season many teams only get a week off or less depending on where they travel. The next longest break during the school year is spring break which students get a full ten days off. Depending on how well basketball teams do the season ending NCAA tournament normally falls around the same time as spring break. Being the most important time of the season teams don't get off any days for spring break. Although sports are what athletes live for, it is very unfortunate not being able to go home for breaks like most students and other athletes get to do. 	

	All sports are challenging to participate in during college but the wide variety of mental, physical, and academic challenges faced during a basketball season causes a lot of difficulties that most people,including other college teams, just may not understand.