Pat Eilers recalls sitting at a football game and standing at the crossroads. It was autumn of 1985, and Eilers, then the starting running back for Yale's freshman football team, was in the stands at New Haven's Yale Bowl. Down below on the field, the Elis' varsity was playing archnemesis Harvard. Says Eilers: "I remembered thinking, "They don't take football seriously enough here.'"

Football inconsequential? At Yale? This is the school that produced Walter Camp, who in the 1880s laid down the model upon which the sport is currently played. Yale hatched the football career of Amos Alonzo Stagg, the fifth all-time winningest coach in college-football history. It also produced two of the first three Heisman Trophy winners (Larry Kelley and Clint Frank). In New England, the Harvard-Yale tussle is referred to simply as "the game."

"I wanted to play at a higher level," explains Eilers, referring to Yale's status as a National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I-AA athletic institution, the second tier of intercollegiate football talent. "I'd rather look back in 20 years and remember that I took the chance."

So he transferred out of one of the most prestigious academic institutions in the country to walk on (i.e., play without a scholarship) at Notre Dame. We will spare you the details of Eilers' odyssey. Suffice it to say that in 1988, playing flanker, he scored the winning touchdown for the Fighting Irish against top-ranked University of Miami. Notre Dame won the national championship that season.

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"The bottom line in my decision," says Eilers (class of '90), who earned degrees in both biology and mechanical engineering and is now an investment professional for a private equity group in Chicago, "is that no one really knows you better than you know yourself."

Know thyself. While few student athletes face the enviable dilemma of attending one of the nation's top academic institutions vs. playing on a national-championship team, the quandary for thousands of high school seniors mulling college choices each spring is the same: How do you reconcile your academic and athletic goals?

"We see it every day," says Joan Lippman, associate director of undergraduate admissions at Stanford University, who also serves as the admissions department's liaison to the athletic department. "We hear from applicants who have the kind of mind, of intellect, that we would like here, but then they really want to play on the tennis team too."

That's fine if you are the next John McEnroe or Tim Mayotte.

"Sometimes it's just not possible that your best academic option and best athletic option overlap," says Lippman, whose institution is the hybrid paragon of academic and athletic excellence. "At a selective school like Stanford, a lot of former all-state high school athletes are going to have to be content playing intramurals. Some will decide not to come because of that."

What to do? Sure, academics usually come first. Still, it would be both rewarding and fun to extend your glory days on the friendly fields of strife. And don't employers and graduate schools value prospects who are student athletes? "For me," says Korey Coon (Illinois Wesleyan, '00), "I wouldn't have gone someplace where I couldn't play basketball."

As a 5-ft. 11-in. point guard at East Peoria High School, Coon understood that the major Division I basketball programs were not boxing one another out to tender him a scholarship offer. "It's everyone's dream to play D-I basketball," he says, "but I didn't need to go to a big school and sit on the bench."

Coon graduated from high school a straight-A student. He chose Illinois Wesleyan because it was close to home, had solid academics and "the basketball team had really good fan support." As a freshman, he led his school to the national championship in Division III (the NCAA's lowest classification, which does not offer athletic scholarships to its players).

Big fish, small pond? "Yeah, I suppose," says Coon, who graduated with a 4.0 GPA. Then he tells you about his final home game in an Illinois Wesleyan uniform. It was the evening when he set the school's career three-point scoring record, as well as an arena single-game scoring record (42 points) and afterward had youngsters surround him, asking for autographs.

"It was — I don't want to sound melodramatic — a magical night," he says haltingly. "Big fish, small pond? I have no regrets."

Whether you choose a Division I powerhouse or a smaller school, the athletic pond on most campuses is likely to be larger than you realize. Nor do you have to be at the top of the food chain to be in the swim of things. "We have 33 men's and women's intercollegiate varsity sports combined," says Stanford's Lippman. "But that's only skimming the surface."

At Stanford, as at most four-year institutions, club sports — teams that compete against other schools but do not have varsity or athletic-scholarship status — are a rapidly growing outlet for everyday jocks. More than 1,000 Stanford students participate in such intercollegiate club sports as men's and women's rugby, cycling, cricket and hockey. (One school's club sport may be another school's varsity powerhouse.)

"Then we get to intramurals," continues Lippman, "where we have literally thousands participating. Is it the same level of competition as varsity sports? Of course not. But you're still in the game."

"There is no single right way for everyone," says Cindy Vojtech (Fordham '00). Growing up in Garden Grove, Calif., Vojtech had never even heard of Fordham, which is located in the New York City borough of the Bronx. "I was searching for the opportunity to play college volleyball at a medium-size school and to work one day on Wall Street," Vojtech says. "Fordham met all those parameters."

A three-year captain of the volleyball team, Vojtech was valedictorian of her class at Fordham's College of Business Administration. In her senior year, she went out for the Rams' rowing team, a sport she had never even watched before college.

"I was definitely looking to get a strong education," she says. "No matter how strong the academic program, though, if being an athlete is part of your self-esteem, you won't be happy not playing a sport."

Vojtech recalls conversations with college classmates, erstwhile high school athletes who had "retired" from competitive sports. "They tell me there's a hole in their lives, an emptiness," she says.

Arguments can be made that playing a sport in college — whether at the varsity, club or intramural level — is a boon to your academic standing. It structures your day and compels you to develop efficient study habits. Certainly Coon and Vojtech can attest to that. So can Michael Smoron (Notre Dame '88). "Running cross country," says Smoron, "had a lot to do with my not selling cardboard for a living."

When Smoron matriculated at Notre Dame, he was sure his running career had ended at St. Viator, a prep school in suburban Chicago. During his freshman year, Smoron, a premed student, did not fare well academically. The dean of freshman-year studies, Emil Hofman, called Smoron into his office for a chat.

"Michael," said Hofman, "I really love the piano. I practiced all the time when I was young, but you know what? I just cannot play the piano. Do you know what I'm trying to say?"

Smoron dropped premed and resumed running. He ran recreationally at first, just for routine's sake. Gradually he discovered himself improving. By his senior year, he had not only made the school's cross-country team but was also occasionally beating All-Americans in meets. "It was a euphoric experience," recalls Smoron, now an attorney, "and the determination I had to make the cross-country team definitely carried over into my studying. I never thought I'd be able to do a sport at Notre Dame. Turns out I could."

Source: TIME/The Princeton Review's The Best College For You 2001