Student athlete

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Student athlete (or student–athlete) is a term used principally in universities in the United States and Canada to describe students enrolled at postsecondary educational institutions, principally colleges and universities, but also at secondary schools, who participate in organized competitive sports sponsored by that educational institution or school. The term is also interchangeable with the synonymous term “varsity athlete”.

The term student-athlete was coined by Walter Byers, the first executive director of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). It arose in response to a 1957 worker's compensation case filed by Billie Dwade Dennison, the widow of Ray Dennison, who died while playing football for Fort Lewis A&M (since renamed to Fort Lewis College). As Byers writes in his memoir, the word was designed to avoid the "dreaded notion that NCAA athletes could be identified as employees by state industrial commissions and the courts. We crafted the term student-athlete and soon it was embedded in all NCAA rules and interpretations as a mandated substitue for such words as players and athletes."^[1]