Project based vs more academic engineering

[Sportsball]

In case anyone is like me and couldn’t find it at first, here’s the spin off thread:

Aspiring Athletes - HS Academic Preparation

So there’s another thread - a parent is trying to learn about Civil Engineering schools - whether they are theory or project based. But more importantly - they have a potential athlete - and they are trying to make some sort of decision now - at 14 - so presumably a 9th grader - even though college is 3 -4 years away. So I’m not understanding why the decision has to be made now - because - well, I’m not a parent in that situation. But in my simple mind, there is 2-3 years to make the decision. I assume - whatever the family decides will impact the academics of the next few years. By that, I mean, a future engineer might go heavy math and science. But if not an engineer, maybe they don’t. But then I think - even if you were going to end up a history major, you wouldn’t be hurt by the STEM heavy HS courseload - so keeping it gives you more optionality, which you might need if the athletic thing doesn’t work out for whatever reason - injury, ability, desire. I guess what I’m asking…