Why I Won't Stick To Sports: Gabby Minier
Student-Athletes are particularly engaged
Gabby Minier
Why I Won’t Stick to Sports is a first-person series written by Colorado State student-athletes. Nationally, athletes are told to “stick to sports”, but as members of the community, they have ideas, motivations and a passion for creating meaningful change in the world. Their talents and knowledge are not limited to fields of play. In their own words, this is why our student-athletes will not stick to sports.
Some people may believe that athletes aren’t knowledgeable or engaged in their communities, but from my experiences, I find that to be very inaccurate.
Being a student-athlete practically all my life, I found that having a say in my community and issues impacting our country is important to me. I have watched many of my fellow student-athletes be successful in the classroom and engage themselves in many community activities.
Don’t discredit someone's knowledge just because they play a sport. Playing a sport doesn’t mean that we pay less attention to our studies, it means that we work even harder to accomplish both. From my experience, I found that being an athlete means you have to be on top of things. We have to schedule out our days and find times to do our work, go to class and practice. With the little time in the day we have to accomplish all that we still manage to get it done. We accomplish this by having great determination, which I know most student-athletes have. It helps us push through many obstacles to gain the knowledge and intelligence that we want and need to know. Athletes shouldn’t be thought of as any less intelligent, we work just as hard or harder than any other student. We are Educated!
The engagement that I have seen by student-athletes in our communities and country are very extensive. This year has given many people opportunities to voice their opinions in many ways; for example, the anti-lock down protests, the BLM movement, the upcoming election and many others. I have watched many student-athletes express their voices by participating in these events and sharing their thoughts through social media. The posts that I have seen express many of their cultures and beliefs, and I feel that they have the right to do so. For example, in June there was a day called Blackout Tuesday. This day was to go silent on social media and reflect on recent events to protest against racism. I saw many fellow students share their thoughts on this day about the matter at hand. Many expressed that a change should be made and many have acted on it to create change. The engagement that I see from our student-athletes is remarkable, and I believe that their voices matter and can inflict change.
With my voice I plan to continue supporting my fellow student-athletes and their right to express their opinions. I feel that it is important for everyone to share their voice because that is how we get things done in the world. When we share it creates a sense of community, which allows for us to work as one. In the end, no matter our race, personality, or intelligence, when we all work together we can accomplish extraordinary things in this world.
Gabby Minier is a sophomore on the women’s golf team, earning academic All-Mountain West honors.