# U.S. Dopers who played college sports **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 24, 2011, 6:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-s-dopers-who-played-college-sports/575820 "2011-03-24T06:36:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![etv78](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d78d45/32.png) [@etv78](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/etv78)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2011, 6:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-s-dopers-who-played-college-sports/575820/1 "2011-03-24T06:36:51Z")
Did your school have a policy about what time you had to be done with classes, to make time for practices? ---
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2011, 11:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-s-dopers-who-played-college-sports/575820/2 "2011-03-24T11:38:41Z")
NCAA limits the amount of practice per day, I think it’s 2 hours. Most schools practice in the afternoon but some BB teams have early morning practices. ---
**Author:** ![etv78](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d78d45/32.png) [@etv78](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/etv78)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2011, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-s-dopers-who-played-college-sports/575820/3 "2011-03-24T19:18:26Z")
So, student-athletes must be out of class by noon? ---
**Author:** ![Lamar\_Mundane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lamar\_Mundane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamar_Mundane)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2011, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-s-dopers-who-played-college-sports/575820/4 "2011-03-24T20:04:54Z")
I got a letter from the Athletic Department that I would show at registration (before computerized registration). I think most big classes kept a few spots in reserve for cases like this. At worst they would move you to the top of the waiting list. 90% of the time there was no problem getting the classes when I wanted them. I only had to show the letter a couple of times, and only once did I get shut out from a class completely. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2011, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-s-dopers-who-played-college-sports/575820/5 "2011-03-24T20:21:29Z")
No, athletics were pretty much a joke at my alma mater, Oberlin College (the football team of which once made _Sports Illustrated_… for its loooooooong losing streak). ---
**Author:** ![mcgato](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac8455/32.png) [@mcgato](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mcgato)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2011, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-s-dopers-who-played-college-sports/575820/6 "2011-03-24T20:46:03Z")
I did cross country and track at a division III school, and classes came before sports. If I had a lab all afternoon, I got my practice in after the lab. I did grad work and was a teaching assistant at the University of Florida, and they seemed to have place holders for the big classes for athletes. Two semesters in a row, my initial class roster had an Alberto Alligator (or something similar) listed. I figured that was the athletic placeholder. For those that don’t know, the mascot of the University of Florida is the Gators. ---
**Author:** ![Snake\_Plissken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/41988e/32.png) [@Snake\_Plissken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snake_Plissken)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2011, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-s-dopers-who-played-college-sports/575820/7 "2011-03-26T20:35:46Z")
I played football at a Big Ten school, and had a student advisor that was a great help to me. This guy helped with every problem I ever had regarding classes. He was especially important to me because he basically taught me time management skills that have served me my whole life. He is a really nerdy dude, that was a friend of a friend, and we made a pretty unlikely pair, but we have always been great friends, and he was my best man at my wedding. The only thing he couldnt help me with was my Senior year and I needed Phys Ed credits and was injured and couldnt participate in class, so it delayed Graduation for a year. ---
**Author:** ![Oredigger77](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/oredigger77/32/3181_2.png) [@Oredigger77](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oredigger77)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2011, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-s-dopers-who-played-college-sports/575820/8 "2011-03-26T20:56:42Z")
Athletes got priority registration a day before the other students of your grade level at my school. Occasionally there were still conflicts with film study before practice and over the years a remember a handful of students who actually had to miss a bit of practice. It never was a problem with track but practice started a bit later since there weren’t as many ancillary activities. I was Div. II. ---
**Author:** ![jsquire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ce73a5/32.png) [@jsquire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsquire)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2011, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/u-s-dopers-who-played-college-sports/575820/9 "2011-03-27T01:17:30Z")
I ran track/XC at a middle-of-the-road D-I school about 20 years ago. At that time the NCAA’s restrictions on practice time were a bit less than now; we blocked out practice time from 3:30 to 6:00, plus a morning run from 7:30 to 8:00. My HS team practiced for longer than 2 hours sometimes, and on occasion I did 2.5 hour runs in college, so I think the current restrictions are a bit silly. Athletes got priority registration in that the window of time for registering for classes opened a few days earlier than for others. I was on an academic scholarship that got me into registration a day earlier than that, though. It being a 16,000-student institution, I never had trouble working my classes around practice, as there were almost always multiple sections of everything, even senior-level math & stats.