High school athletes spend hours dedicated time to their sport with hopes that it will pay off. However, only two percent of all student-athletes are awarded an athletic scholarship, according to ncaa.org. There are a few students who have earned a scholarship and have committed to a specific school with the dream of pursuing their sport.

Annalise Harry: Volleyball

Senior Annalise Harry began getting scouted for volleyball when she was only 13. She eventually committed to Lindenwood after making some tough choices.

“I decided that I want to lean more towards making it a full-time commitment, so I decided to play Division I or Division II,” Harry said. “I started looking at those schools and narrowing it down, and then I had to go on to a bunch of recruiting sites. I had to make a ton of highlight videos, talk to a lot of different college coaches and college recruiters.”

College sports can be much more demanding than high school sports, so a high amount of commitment and passion is required.

“On the nights that I have in the gym for five hours I may have five hours of homework, so it’s one of those things where you have to sacrifice sleep, but honestly it’s all worth it,” Harry said. “In the end, my body is getting stronger and so is my mind. It’s a lot of time management. I have to sacrifice a lot and compromise. I think it will be even harder [in college] because it will be difficult also balancing friendships and living in different situations, but I think it will be easier too because I’ll have other girls that are doing the same thing with me so we can kind of walk through it together.”

Jacob Stern: Football

Being one of only about one thousand students accepted into the Air Force Academy every year, according to academyadmissions.com, senior Jacob Stern committed mid-September 2018 to play football. Located in Colorado Springs, Colorado, football is not the only reason he wants to attend the academy.

“It’s not really the football aspect of it,” Stern said. “Yes, they have a good football program, but the future is endless. A degree there is almost comparable to Ivy League and you’re guaranteed a job after you graduate making $75 thousand a year minimum. Their business program is really good and their engineering is top notch.”

Moving far away from home and attending a school that has high standards will not be easy, it could be a little nerve-wracking.

“I was kind of nervous about balancing the military with the athletics and everything like that, but then once I actually got out there and saw the place, it was a no-brainer,” Stern said. “It isn’t going to be easy, but everyone out there is going through the same thing. If you look to your left and right, someone’s going to be there to help you.”

Madison Crawford: Soccer

Ever since she was four years old, soccer has been apart of senior Madison Crawford’s life, and she plans to continue playing in college. She has committed to the University of Southern Indiana, but soccer is not the only reason she chose it.

“I chose it mostly for academics, I’m going pre-med there and they have a 90 percent rate for getting people into medical school,” Crawford said. “They also gave me a scholarship, so I went there for soccer and I really like the coaches there as well.”

Scholarships are not the only reason to play a sport in college though. There are many other added benefits that are not tangible.

“I just love the idea of being with a team, it kinda creates a second family,” Crawford said. “It really taught me leadership and speak up for myself. It was something that I could be really confident about. It has taught me a lot of responsibility and time management to be able to do it all. I know it’s going to be stressful, but I’ve kind of prepared myself for it.”