When you think “High School”, what things come to mind? Sports are a one of, if not the largest part of high school, other than the academics of course. Many students coming into high school look forward to athletics, they get a chance to represent a team or program from their town or city. In the U.S., football games are a huge part of the high school experience, which is a part of the fall season. There are three seasons for school sports: Fall, Winter, and Spring. This means that students could play up to three sports per year.
Athletes have their own reasons for wanting to play a sport every season. Some say they want to stay fit for their main sport, and others want to challenge themselves. Student-Athlete Adrian Andrade, a senior who participates in three sports, said, “I do sports because ever since I was a kid, I always loved to run and stay active with my friends”. What makes this more difficult, is being a full time student as well. Using your time wisely and being great at time management is a major skill for student-athletes. Especially for those taking AP, Honors, and any challenging courses. For instance, a student-athlete playing soccer, has an away game against Sonora. They get back at 9pm and have school the next day. In this case, there is two types of people. Those who already got their homework done prior to the game and is responsible, or there is the person who stays up until 1 am trying to finish their homework and they feel terrible the next day.
Adrian also faces this difficult challenge. He continued, “The challenges that I usually face are having time to do school work afterwards and finding time to hangout with friends and have a social life. I am usually a very social person and I always want to hang out with my friends, but I don’t want to fall behind on school work either.” Time management is the number one difficulty that all student-athletes must overcome. Homework, sleep, practice/training, eating, etc., are all important and take time from the twenty-four hours of each day.
Sometimes, this can be overwhelming for people. And for others, they may have outside influences that they cannot control. Robert (Bobby) Nieto, a senior and former three sport athlete for Hughson High school, said, “… I was eager to try many new things and see what I liked. Managing my time was a challenge as a three-sport athlete, however I was able to do it and playing sports helped to relieve stress”, and he also stated, “I was not a three sport athlete this year because my parents didn’t want me to play soccer. They believed it to be a little too dangerous and they also wanted me to focus on my academics”. Unfortunately, not everyone can decide for themselves, whether or not they can play sports and participate in whatever they like. In schools, sports come second to learning, and are more or less a reward for keeping a 2.0 GPA or higher.
In the end, schools are known for both education levels and their level of competition in sports. No matter which way you think of it, even if you are unable to participate in sports, you can still try your best and represent your school through academics or clubs.