Rules of the game | Unpaid professionals | Stretched thin | Time, money and resources | Choosing a major

School is important to Marcus Morris. He says he wants to stay at the University for four years and graduate with his peers — an idea that’s become somewhat of an anomaly for elite athletes. School is important to his mom, too, who has moved to Lawrence to help keep him and his teammate and twin brother, Markieff, focused on academics.

But it’s basketball that pays the bills. Basketball is the reason he has a full-ride scholarship and free housing, and basketball is the reason people know his name before he introduces himself. Basketball is the reason his college experience will never mirror those of the 6,000 students he would graduate with.

Morris and about 520 other student athletes are unique on campus. Different. Not simply because they are talented athletically, but because of the way that talent is regarded and valued. They are the only group on campus with an entire corporation that organizes, supports and funds all of their activities — including academics.

In the midst of midterms and group presentations, student athletes are expected to attend practices, go to team meetings and participate in workouts. They are jetted around the country, compete at a level that is demanding both physically and mentally, sit through interviews with ESPN, sign autographs and, when it’s all over, they return home and go to class the next day to try to regain control of their lives as students.

“You really don’t do your work going there,” Morris said of away games. “You just let it pile up, and then when it’s over you gotta come back to doing all this makeup work and try to get back on the teacher’s good side because you missed so many days of class.”

For about two minutes every day, the chaos is enough to make Morris wish he didn’t play basketball. For two minutes every day, he says, he wishes he were more like the other 30,000 students at the University.

Athletes face a constant struggle to balance intense pressure to win on the court and succeed in the classroom. Often that pressure results in a difficult choice between sports and academics.

Rules of the game | Unpaid professionals | Stretched thin | Time, money and resources | Choosing a major

— Edited by Sarah Kelly