Morehouse Matriculation of a Student Athlete by jaiden

Morehouse Matriculation of a Student Athlete by jaiden - May 2026 Scholarship Essay

The Morehouse Matriculation of a student athlete is a journey that provokes solutions within to overcome challenges.

“A tough time I went through in my matriculation at Morehouse definitely has to be adjusting to football… as well as school,” Nick Lemons said.

Being an athlete here, athletics and academics feel like two separate entities, with one not correlating with the other. Practice for football players could range from five in the morning to 4 in the afternoon. Therefore, the two hour slot of time is either before, after or in between a full day of classes.

“Keeping my grades up was a struggle in the beginning… so I definitely had to work and get better,” Lemons said.

In the fall semester the football team has the majority of their games on Saturdays, with most of them taking place out of state. Also having their Sundays reserved for workouts, meetings and treatment for ones that are possibly hurt or injured. Weekend time that is set aside for students to have focused academic time, theirs is taken up.

This makes for a hard learning curve, especially for freshmen, for athletes such as football to adjust to a new schedule of classes in their respective sports season.

“I got injured in football…that was kind of a really rough time for me because I was already sacrificing so much,” Lemons said.

Collegiate sports at any institution is a business. One commonality in collegiate sports is the presence of aches, pains and injuries.

Therefore, when it comes to the business of sports, you could be viewed as damaged goods if unable to perform at your full potential. Making for a strong mentality of “next man up.” Allowing for a strong theory in players minds that they can be replaced in their respective sports.

In many cases sports scholarships and funding is a strong reason for student athletes to attend the school. Anything affecting their performance could put that funding at risk, making for unwanted stress for themselves and their academics.

“I would say grit… it takes a lot to be able to just keep going through things… knowing it’s not going to be perfect and you have to sometimes do it yourself,” Lemons said when I asked him how he would describe his Morehouse story in one word.

You must make sacrifices in being a part of Morehouse College, such as time, money, relocating and in this case, his body. These sacrifices don’t guarantee success, especially if you're a student athlete, usually coming with setbacks. These setbacks can serve as challenges or endings depending on the building of grit and determination.

“If I could choose one word to describe my story at the end of my Morehouse Journey, it would be profitable,” Lemons said. “Being able to finish Morehouse… means that I can pretty much do anything without quitting.”

To be profitable means to be beneficial or useful, symbolizing and reflecting how student athletes internally transform their challenges at Morehouse into personal growth and purpose.