You read it in these pages all the time.

A high school athlete signs a letter of intent for football, soccer, swimming, basketball, lacrosse, whatever the sport might be.

What gets lost is the financial benefit some of these scholarships can be worth to these kids and their families.

Knoch High School recently had three of its athletes receive full scholarships to compete in their respective sports at major colleges.

Gabi Lassinger is headed to Lafayette College in Easton, Pa., for women’s soccer.

Celina Sanks will soon be on her way to Eastern Kentucky University to play volleyball.

Connor Shinsky will be going to Kent State University to play football.

The value of those three scholarships combined?

$444,000.

That’s $444,000 those three kids will not have to take out and pay back in student loans, or that’s money their parents won’t have to worry about coming up with for their children’s educations.

Obviously, these three fall into the exception, not the norm, category.

But anytime any kid can receive even a partial scholarship to go to school anywhere and continue playing the sport he or she loves ... well, that’s a pretty good deal.

And the possibilities are endless these days, extending far from the mainstream sports.

Young athletes from Butler County have received scholarships in female wrestling, bowling, even collegiate rodeo in recent years.

Even better news is that most scholarships given out in this day and age are going to quality students as well. Academic ineligibility is a scary phrase to college coaches in any sport and it’s something most of them have learned how to avoid.

Recruit kids who are serious about school.

All three of the Knoch kids listed above certainly are.

Yes, stories are still out there about Division I football players who rarely, if ever, attend class and your high-profile Division I college basketball player still opts for the NBA after a year or two.

But for every one story of an athlete going to college “just to play football,” there are numerous untold stories of those who go on to get their degrees.

According to a recent study, Penn State graduates 91 percent of its football players. West Virginia graduates 79 percent. Both rank among the top 25 schools in the nation that way.

Miami (Fla.) graduates 94 percent of its football players. Northwestern and Notre Dame lead the country at 97 percent.

Only five Division I football programs graduate fewer than 50 percent of their players: San Jose State, California, Oklahoma, Central Michigan and Florida International.

Sports can certainly be one’s gateway to education.

Just ask Lassinger, Sanks and Shinsky.

They — and others in the county like them — won’t be paying for their college educations.

But they’ve earned them.

John Enrietto is sports editor of the Butler Eagle