A while back, I posted an entry about a particular student athlete of mine who was notably...um, shall we say...dim-witted. I've since determined that he has a little bit of a crush crush on his TA. It's quite obvious, like when he turns around in class and sheepishly waves to me. Or when he makes comments like "I turned in my homework on time this week, aren't you proud of me???" And my personal favorite, today on his way out of lab, he turned and added a "Bye Mary. Good job today!" hahaha. Anyway...I would like to swtich directions to a new student athlete of a different sort.

I have a student that I have been impressed with from the get-go. Not only he is incredibly nice, polite, hard-working and sociable, he is an amazing student. He consistently gets A's on homework and tests. This is interesting to me because I know that he is one of the students that supposedly has learning difficulties. We get letters from the learning needs center, and according to the letter, he struggles with certain aspects of learning. Well, I think this is a clear case of getting labeled in 3rd grade because you were having trouble with something and it following you through life. For instance, his letter said that he struggles with "organizing written work." I've seen this kid's notes - they are amazing. He has everything written down neatly, diagrams drawn with precision and formulas perfectly labeled and worked out. Anyway, today I asked him what he was doing for the summer and he said, "Staying here, taking classes and working out." So, I said, "Are you an athlete?" It turns out he is on the football team and is a starter at that. I almost said, "Wow! I never would've known you were an athlete." But, instead we talked about football and about the University. I asked him if he came here for football and he said, "No. Actually, I came for the academics. It just works out well that they have a good football program." So there you have it folks. This is what a student athlete is supposed to be. My favorable impression of him only grew today after I learned that he's an athlete and a seriously committed student - I just had to share! :o)