Smexia: There is a reward to participating in athletics. As with anything you must balance out your life. Just last week one of Texas A&M;'s women's basketball players had to call it quits due to injuries from playing basketball all her life. Now she will hurt and have back trouble for the rest of her life. She is 22. I don't think that is worth it. We must ask ourselves who these kids are doing it for? The fans, the team. mother and dad?? We can use athletics to teach great lessons in dedication, teamwork, and self esteem. These can be accomplished without the total monopolization of a childs life.

Moran: Olympic class athletes are of a sect of people who will and do all they can to be the best in their sport. For an athlete the boundaries between "normal" life and the sporting life become incredibly blurred. There can be no comparison between the aforementioned groups. Athletes hang out together, train together, have their own language and their own scale of devotion to their sport. An athlete knows he has done well when he vomits after a grueling race or when he is in the -zone- during the middle of a race. If these traits were exhibited in the "normal" populous, the "normal" populous would be considered sickly and insane. There is no point for an athlete to cross, there is no stepping over the edge. For the athlete, the reward is a distinct fervor for discipline and devotion that few other "normal" persons may match. That is their reward.