I went to a school with a Division I-A football team. (And Army stole our coach...) (And Vanderbilt stole our basketball coach...)
Our football team was half-and-half. Some were there to get an education for free, realizing they didn't have a snowball's chance in hell of getting into the NFL. Some had delusions of grandeur, and partied, screwed, played football--did just about everything but study. There was an incident sophomore year where a good portion of the football team was expelled after they broke into a frat house and started beating people with baseball bats. Surprisingly
, our team started doing really well after those players were booted.
Basketball is another matter. All of those guys are posers with NBA aspirations and think they $h!t gold...
If you look at most women's sports and the secondary male sports, most of those people are students first and athletes second.