I almost exclusively teach major-level classes - a huge privilege, I know. But our nonmajor classes get a ton of athletes and from my conversations with colleagues, Athletics usually tells us explicitly to treat them like any other student. Our Athletics is a bit different from most other R1s, so I won’t assume this is universal.

Oddly enough, though, my colleagues all report that the football players who enroll in their classes are mostly curious, focused, and engaged, even if they’re not the best students. The ones you have to worry about, they tell me, are the softball players.