College Football
Davis juggles engineering, linebacking

By Scott Davis
Special to The Seattle Times

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Finding the balance between academics and athletics is the key to keeping your head above water as a student-athlete. It's difficult, but I'm grateful for the opportunity to get the degree of my choice and the chance to develop my athletic skills.

I'm pursuing a degree in engineering. A lot of people question that decision, with football taking up most of my time, but it's a challenge that I'm willing to take on. On average, I would say that football takes up about four hours per day, not counting game days or the extra film we watch on our own. The rest of the time off from football is devoted to homework and social lives.

What I try to do is take all of my classes in the morning before I have to go to practice and before I have film. If I get a chance, I watch film before meetings. As a team we practice, drill and lift weights, and then watch film again.

After I get all the football stuff out of the way, I go home and relax for about an hour or so. I try to eat dinner before 8:30 p.m., so it leaves me enough time to do homework until 11 or 12. I try to get to bed early to wake up a couple of hours before my class to do any homework that I need to finish up. Then my day starts all over again.

Trying to stay up with athletics is not hard for me to do because I enjoy football so much. School, on the other hand, is much harder. The trick to doing well in the classroom is to forget about the social distractions and put in the effort — it's that simple.

I try to sit in the front row of class to make sure that I won't fall asleep. I make appointments with professors and teaching assistants to get to know them and their teaching strategies.

The biggest help that I take advantage of is the tutoring that is offered here at WSU. We have a great academic staff, including football counselor Matt Leituala. He is a former football player at Idaho, so he understands the commitments we have. At the same time, if you aren't holding up your end academically, he will find you.

The appointments that you set with the tutor have to be met or you pay for the tutor, and I don't have any spare cash lying around. This kind of pressure makes you want to go and study for your classes.

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

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