I came up with this model to illustrate the priorities a student-athlete should uphold. As a college athlete your resposibilities to uptain your student life, athletic life, and social life, should fall into a pyramid like this one shown below.
Every aspect is crucial to the optimal college experience as a student-athlete. However, these aspects should be organized like a mountain, not a volcano. If it were to rain on this mountain, the top tiers would drip down to the bottom tiers. So sometimes in college, being a student drips down and interferes with your athletic responsibilities, and being a student and an athlete can drip down and interfere with your social life. These drops create water ways through the other aspects of your life, and force you to make sacrifices. For instance, you may have to give up going out on friday night due to having softball practice early on a saturday morning. Sometimes you’ll have to study into the late hours of the night, and show up for morning work-outs a little groggy the next morning. However, this mountain is not a volcano; your social life can’t be spewing destructive lava up through your athletic, and academic career. These flaming rocks of lava can permanently burn your student-athlete career, even taking it away from you. The same can be said about your athletic career ruining your academic career, and in turn, ending your athletic career altogether. You can’t go out on a thursday night, and show up to practice completely exhausted the next day, and then in turn go to bed early without doing your homework that night.
The basis is, you, as a college athlete, are a STUDENT-athlete. You have to be a student first. You are a student before you are an athlete, and in order to stay a student-athlete you must put your academic and athletic career before your social life. It is so important for coaches, and athletes alike, to realize that without academic success, athletes wouldn’t even be allowed to play collegiate sports. Students who didn’t succeed in the classroom in high school, can’t get into colleges to further their athletic careers.You must put your academic career first. It’s the only thing that is keeping you on the field.
Quote of the day:
“There’s a reason we are called Sudent-atheletes. It is a privilege. Uphold your commitment.”
One Game, One Love. 
I like this notion and agree with it.
In terms of time I would portray it with the pyramid upside down highlighting that you spend more time on your studies then sport then social life.
Good post!
yes, I also thought about re-arranging it to reflect the time aspect. However, I didn’t want the placement of social life at the top to imply extra significance. It’s definitely an interesting thought to contemplate though! Thank you for your comment!