Welcome to your life.

You are an athletic young man with the potential to do great things. The decisions you make now could affect the next five, 10 or 20 years of your life. As you continue to get older and mature, you'll face a lot of questions internally and externally.

Will you be able to take your athletic talent to the next level? Do you have the focus to excel on the athletic field and in the classroom? What do your classmates think about you? What do your teachers think about you?

In football, the head coach's biggest responsibility is putting together a game plan for success. In order to calculate that game plan, he has to take a lot of things into account -his players, his coaches, the opposition, the weather, etc.

Your life needs a similar game plan for success. And you also need to take several things into account - your grades, your production, your social life, your family and, of course, your commitment to athletics.

Academics

Make no mistake about it, everything begins and ends with academics. After all, you will have more opportunities with a "B" than you will with a "D." Your academics, however, say more about you than just your intelligence. They can explain your focus, your work ethic, your accountability and your commitment to the people around you.

Every coach wants team leaders. They want student-athletes they can trust to do the right things. If you aren't performing well in the classroom, you can't be trusted by the coach. If you aren't trusted by the coach, you aren't trusted by your teammates.

What's going to be your game plan for academic success? Here are a few suggestions.

Make the Most of Your Time: As the old metaphor goes, time is the ultimate democracy. Everyone gets the same 24 hours each day. What you do with it is up to you. In order to find out how much time you have, it might be necessary to make a schedule. Here is an example:

6:00 a.m. Wake up, shower, eat breakfast, get dressed for school

7:15 a.m. - 2:00 p.m. School

2:15 p.m. - 3:15 p.m. Study Hall at School

3:30 p.m. - 5:30 p.m. Practice

6:00 p.m. - 10:30 p.m. Your Time

You have four-and-a-half hours a day. If you take advantage of time right after the school day ends, you will be ahead of the game and may only need to study or do homework for a short period on top of that at home.

Not every day will be the same. Some nights you might have some other activities that cut into your evening. Make sure time is on your side.

Identify and Improve Weaknesses: No one's perfect. And just like you have weaknesses that need to be improved in football, you have subjects in school in which you want to improve as well. And while you avoid that challenging course and take an easier one, it doesn't help in the long run. So identify the academic areas in which you struggle and figure out ways to improve them. Take the story of this student-athlete:

"I wanted to take physics, but I knew I'd need to have a tutor twice a week in order to pass the class. Unfortunately the tutor could only schedule me from 3 to 4 - the first hour of practice. I told my coach and he made a deal with me. As long as I kept a 'B' in the class, I wouldn't have to participate in post-practice disciplinary drills. Well, I kept a 'B' in the class, but I ran the post-practice drills anyway. I wanted to show my teammates that I was willing to go through the same things they were."

Athletics

As an athlete, you strive to be the best you can be. There's really no other way to maximize your potential without the desire.

There are a lot of great athletes out there. You see them on the local basketball courts, at the company softball games and in the gym. However, there are only a few successful athletes. Those are the ones you see on television because they maximized their potential. We call this the COAT method - Control, Ownership, Attitude, Toughness.

Control: Can you handle competition? Can you handle success? How you control what happens around you is crucial to success. How you keep your emotions in check during crunch time can be the key to success. In Super Bowl XXIII, Joe Montana led the San Francisco 49ers on a 92-yard game-winning drive to defeat the Cincinnati Bengals. When he walked into the huddle to begin this historic moment, he took time to point out famous actor John Candy to his teammates.

Ownership: Look at your athletic journey as if it's a business. Seek out the best advice and recommendations. Embrace the competition, the success and the adversities that will come. Invest in your athletic career - what you put into it is what you will get out of it.

Attitude: The athletic field is no place for negative thoughts. Even when times are tough, it's important to maintain a positive attitude and support your coaches and teammates. Be the leader.

Toughness: Only the strong survive and that strength comes from being mentally tough. Enjoy the challenge and be ready to accept the criticisms. Even Jerry Rice had weaknesses, but he was committed to maximizing his strengths to the point that his weaknesses were irrelevant.

Social Life

The average day of a high school athlete is a busy one. There's class, followed by study hall and practice and, of course, the games. But within that busy schedule, there are also plenty of opportunities for socializing, building relationships and expanding your social circle.

It's very common for teammates to become best friends; after all you spend more time with your teammates than any other students in the school. That being said, the quicker you learn how to build relationships outside of your comfort zone, the more it will benefit you throughout your life.

Don't Allow Football to Consume Your Life: We want you to be committed to football (or anything you do) - attend every practice, attend the off season workouts, watch the film study. But man cannot live on sport alone. Pursue other things you enjoy. If you like watching the news, look into being part of the school's journalism program. Want to have a bigger role in the direction of students in the school? Join the Student Council. Not only do these other activities help expand your social circle, but they will help develop your initiative and leadership skills. And that will also translate to the playing field.

Support Your Fellow Athletes: Go to the volleyball game, go to the wrestling meets. Use the school's other athletic events as an opportunity to socialize with your classmates and display your personality.

Identify What You Enjoy: Maybe it's architecture, or comic books, or drawing, but there's something that you love that's outside of the box. Embrace the things you enjoy and find people that have a similar interest. Take the following story:

"I love building model airplanes. I have since I was a kid. So I found a group of kids in the neighborhood who also like to build models and we hang out every Saturday afternoon. It's nice to do something different and not have to worry about being 'the football player.' I'm just another guy."

Article by Corey Long