That depends on the student. Getting straight A's in high school and college is "relatively' easy for a subset of students as well. But not for the bulk of the student body (getting A's or lettering in three sports).
You are logical MedDB. We agree.
I see where you are going with this aglages and we also agree. In many situations, the difference of a D1 athlete versus a very good high school athlete is normally a God given talent. Let's credit it to the gene pool. Same-same for academics. Some just have it. No matter how much another fellow SA student pours it on, others simply do not have the same brainpower. Good luck for the average SA student trying to compete with our newly minted Rhodes Scholar.
My DS could have dropped out of high school and focused on hockey 24-7. He wasn't going to be a D1 hockey player. But rest assured he went to a number of summer camps, spent hundreds of hours working his hardest on muscle memory (stick handling), thousands of pucks we shoot into a net in the garage, countless hours of conditioning, weight lifting, midnight practices, etc. Same-same for the entire hockey team. It's dog-eat-dog. The end game was he played 3rd line varsity as a senior while others played were recruited on the same team. It wasn't for a lack of trying or that someone worked harder. With that said, he won the lottery in other categories in life. That's how it works.
I only mention it because to
automatically assume there is another level of dedication that happens because someone is a D1 athlete isn't often true. Nor is it that a dedication to academics is necessary to yield superior brain power. Or putting it another way, it doesn't necessarily mean the B+ student didn't try hard enough.