Christien Sager’s Advice for College Student-Athletes: ‘Don’t Sleep’

I attended the Christien Sager school of thought when I was in college as well. For different reasons than he taught the class, probably, but the end result was the same. OSU’s basketball folks caught up with Sager recently (he’s living in Houston but moving to Los Angeles for Exxon/Mobil for work) and he was asked if he had any advice for college students.

I made straight A’s all throughout my time at Oklahoma State. And my advice for other student-athletes – don’t sleep! I averaged probably six hours of sleep each night, and I felt lucky if I got seven. And it wasn’t because I was up playing video games – I was always studying.

Sager might be the only reason OSU’s APR has risen in four consecutive years. But seriously, he had something really wise to say to folks playing college ball. This is something I never considered when I was a walk-on at OSU, but it’s true: Everybody there thinks they’re getting drafted. Everybody. Well, not the walk-ons but everybody else.

The only thing I would tell them is that basketball isn’t everything. I think a lot of players have dreams of making it to the NBA, and that’s great, but everyone should have a backup plan. They need to make sure they have a plan to be successful in something else.

As has been noted on thousands of annoying NCAA commercials, “most of us will go pro in something other than sports.”