Football players across the country are looked at as lucky — that they get anything they want and have everything they need.

Well that is not necessarily the case here at FAU.

Lucky is a weird word. If you mean lucky because they get to play sports, something they love to do, then you would be right. If you mean lucky because they have everything they want you would be wrong.

Football players at FAU have just finished with fall practice to prepare for the football season and here is what they had to go through:

For three weeks they have opposite days of one practice or three practices per day. Add team and position meetings and film study, and the football players have to eat, drink and sleep football during this time, often becoming too tired to want to do anything at the end of the night.

A typical day for an FAU player is mandatory breakfast at 6:15 for 20 minutes and going to the field house to be taped up for practice at 8:00 a.m. Practice lasts for an hour and a half, and the players get an hour off before their second hour-and-a-half practice. Finally they get a break. Players have an hour off before lunch, then they eat, and then they report for meetings. Finally they have an afternoon practice from 4-6:30.

So what do these guys do to relax afterward?

Well, let’s start by pointing out that they do not have luxurious accommodations. They stay in the dorms that are vacated for summer. Their meals are in the same cafeteria that every student eats in.

At night the players turn into normal students. Jared Allen likes to be able just to turn on the TV and relax. Anthony Jackson has told me that there is a fierce video football competition going on at night. For all you that live in the dorms, you know what it is like when the guys get together to play video games. Well it happens in the football dorms too.

Finally, players might get privileges in the classroom but it is not like you would think. A professor needs to have good understanding, especially this year, because the team’s first game is August 28. That means they players leave the 27th to fly to Tennessee and return early Friday morning.

If you check your schedules, that means each player will miss the third, fourth, and fifth days of school. The first week of classes is hard enough without missing half of the week.

That would explain why Jared Allen says his best semester is the Spring.

So, as you can see, the football players have things just as tough as they might have it easy. The bottom line is that, ultimately, they are just students that want to have a good time like the rest of you.