“SuperSmash Bros. Call of Duty…huh..? This dude wants me to leave my video games at home?”
Now, if you’re an avid gamer it’s obvious I pissed you off with the title of this article. Whatever.
Don’t get me wrong, I love video games. I grew up spending an insane amount of time leveling up my Pokemon and honing my skills in Super Smash Bros.
- I used to be hopelessly addicted to Guitar Hero (old video of me playing intro of TTFAF Expert) #vintagejordan
- I would spend a major part of my spare time playing Call of Duty online with my friends (PSN: Bliz1j)
- Spend hours and hours on Madden 10,11,12,13 Franchise Mode
- I uploaded videos of me playing Smash Bros. with strangers online
- I hoarded all of my magazine subscriptions from Nintendo Power and Game Informer.
- Did not know how to study effectively
I still keep up with my video games. When my cousins are over or when I’m with my teammates, we’ll fire up the Wii or PS3 to play Smash Bros or Call of Duty. I save it for when I want to have fun with people. I don’t use it to lock myself in my room, bored…okay not all of the time.
Videogames distract me too much. I would always use it to procrastinate, it would take up my time blah blah blah blah blah blah you already know all of this. I’ll try to keep my “mom” advice to a minimum.
I knew I’d be extremely busy being a student athlete at NYU.
I didn’t bring any of my video games to college. As much as it sucked, it benefited me:
- I learned how to study effectively in my dorm (nothing to distract me with)
- I had no problem balancing athletics/academics/ AND a part-time job.
- I used the time I normally spent for video games to sleep earlier (improves mood and time management)
- I prioritized my time better
Now I’m not saying you should never play video games. I still played video games during college, but I knew as a student athlete I had to focus on other things. Plain and simple, I just purposely limited the ways I can play video games. Now if I have free time and I’m hanging out with friends then of course I’ll play.
It’s hard to establish a regular routine during the first few weeks of college. You’re getting used to living on your own, and you already have the burden of motivating yourself to get up for 8 A.M’s. Hold off a little before you start to add video games into your college life.
I know I’ll get distracted if I have a PS3 in my dorm.
If you don’t get distracted easily then go ahead and read my other articles. You don’t have a problem. For me, I knew other people at NYU would bring their video games. So I saved the hassle of traveling with it, cut out the distraction of playing it, and let other people do that for me. They brought the video games to me. I would play it to get to know other people and after I got all of my work out of the way. It was easier to learn how to study effectively this way.
As a student athlete you have no time to waste. You’ll likely develop a new routine for how to study effectively.
You’ve already given up a large amount of your time to your sport. It’s hard enough trying to do well in college in the first place, so why make it harder on yourself with all of the distractions? I don’t know how else you get distracted, (social media, YouTube etc.) but leaving your video games at home is a good start. It’s CRITICAL that you learn how to balance your student-athlete lifestyle. You don’t want to become so swamped up with work that your GPA declines. Then you’ll become academically ineligible and move closer to sitting on the bench.
J