| The individuals'pursuit of a free and all-round development is an ultimate goal of the human society. The effort to facilitate the athletes'all-round development is not only a common issue faced up by each country in the world in its undertakings to develop high-level performance, but also an urgent problem the Chinese sport community endeavours to solve. In this context, how to integrate athletes' academic achievement with their success in sport career, which has been studied and practiced in China, embodies specifically the measures the sport community in China adopts to cultivate its athletes for their all-round development.The integration of athletic training with academic education means an effort to ensure student-athletes to maintain a reasonable balance both in their sport performance and school education so as to cultivate them into the socially accepted persons whose cultural level is as high as the general student body of the same age group. For many years, the United States as an education and sport power has accumulated a lot of valuable experience in this aspect.By using the methods including the literature review, questionnaire, observation and qualitative research, this study firstly analysed the complete growth process of American student-athletes in elementary schools, middle schools and universities to identify the status quo of how the American student-athletes'education is integrated with their athletic training programs. Then, from the perspectives of American history, education, science, law, economy, value system and media, the study went on to explore the impacts of various factors contributing to the successful integration of student-athletes'academic pursuit with their sport development. The ultimate purpose of this study was to gain a full understanding of the basic conditions prevailing in the United States for the integration of student-athletes'education with their athletic training and generalize successful experience from Americans practice in this aspect, with an anticipation to draw useful references to China for its efforts to produce well-educated athletes.The author of this study lived in the United States for eight years. During this period of time, the author developed an effective network with sport authorities of high level in the country. Moreover, the author pursued an education at a prestigious sport institute of higher learning in China and had been trained at a provincial volleyball team for a few years. Also, the author worked as a faculty at a college of high level performance for seven years. All experience as such guaranteed a smooth completion of this study.The conclusions of this study are as follows:1. The growth patterns of the elementary school student-athletes have no significant difference from the rest of the general student body. When engaged in the sport training, the parents of the student-athletes played an important role by sending their children to sport clubs for an out-of-school training programs, on their own costs. The most popular sports played at the elementary school level are soccer, basketball, baseball and football. The motivations the parents have to have their children be engaged in sport training are found to be for fun, health and confidence building-up. About20%of elementary school students participate in out-of-school sport activities. And the school authorities mostly provide spiritual prize to those student-athletes who achieve good results in their sports.2. Student-athletes started their systematic training programs on the school teams when they moved to the middle school level. There is no national championship organized for the middle school student-athletes in the United States. As the highest authority and governing body of the middle school sport programs, the National Federation of State High School Associations sets forth regulations to protect and promote the middle school student-athletes'rights for their academic progress and sport pursuits. The competitive sport in the middle school setting in the US has been recognized as a crucial component contributing to the comprehensive quality education of the middle school students. It is also boosted as an effective means to facilitate the student-athletes'pursuit for academic progress and a healthy lifestyle. About50%of the middle school students participate in the sport activities of various kinds. Their motivation for sport participation has been found to be for fun, health and winning of grant-in-aids (scholarship) from the universities they will apply to.3. At the university level, the time the student-athletes devoted to their sport training and competition is significantly increased, while the frequency of class missing is also correspondently increased. However, due to the strict policies set forth by the National Collegiate Athletic Association on student-athletes'academic development, the student-athletes'academic progress rate and graduation rate are found to be higher than the general student body; and thanks to the advanced scientific conceptions and methods applied to their training programs, the student-athletes at this level not only become the nation's reserved power of the Olympic talents and the participants of the Olympic Games, but also the highlights of campus life.4. The important inspirations drawn from the growth pattern of the American student-athletes are:(1) high-level performance in the university settings in the US is a component part of higher education. The student-athletes cannot engage themselves in the athletic training unless they meet the requirements the school authority sets forth for the general student body. And (2) the regulations to protect reasonable exercise duration/session avoid the possible injuries and excessive training and provide a guarantee both in time and energy for the athletes to attend the schools. The enforcement of laws and regulations on student-athletes'education, the effective supervision and implementation of the relevant regulations, and the adoption of the scientific training conceptions and methods are the pre-conditions to help student-athletes to meet the requirements and regulations.5. Since the beginning of last century, the non-professional competitive sport in the US has evolved into a system of sound operation. The system is resulted not only from the guarantees of various developments such as laws, economy, education and science, but also from the impacts of American's value system, philosophical thoughts, lessons drawn from the war, the goodness of the race, as well as the involvement of the media unique to the American society. In this sense, to develop a Chinese version applicable for the athletes to integrate their academic pursuit with sport performance, we must firstly base our efforts on the factual situations of our country and selectively draw the successful experience from the US.
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