Waking up in the morning, Lily has to pack stuff for golf and school. Taking teaching assistant in the first period, AP government, journalism, AP computer programming, psychology, and lastly advanced agriscience.
After school, she goes to practice. Then, she heads home, does homework, eats, gets things ready for tomorrow, and sleeps. This cycle repeats every day. Besides, when she has to miss at least one day per week for tournaments, then she has to make up the whole school day. This schedule is exhausting for athletes. The experience differs slightly for every sport but the common question is, is the struggle worth it?
Seniors Cal Tucker and Neiko Bryson, two football players, are taking classes that they know they can manage so they end up not getting overwhelmed by both school work and practice after school. Izaiah Grosveld and Daniel Davidson experienced the same feelings about their school workload and having to attend practice while keeping their grades up.
Bella DeCarli, a sophomore who runs Track and Field during the spring, expressed different feelings due to her taking more challenging classes.
“[It’s] not an easy thing to do but, it takes a lot of commitment and dedication to be able to love what you do,” DeCarli said. “I do stress a lot because I have practice after school for two hours and then have to do homework which can get overwhelming.” Luke Lemke, a junior who plays football and basketball, feels similar to DeCarli. “If I don’t do my homework, then I feel stressed,” Lemke said.
School is already a major cause of stress but no one talks about how stressful the sport is itself. Pearl Smith, a junior who plays volleyball also has something to add.
“The sport is only stressful if you put a lot of pressure on yourself to succeed so yeah, it’s pretty stressful,” Smith said.
All sports, not just volleyball, require athletes to keep a strong mindset while in the game. Not only do you have to be physically talented at the sport, but you also have to be able to shake off mistakes.
The majority of the student-athletes I spoke with want to continue playing sports after high school. The only person who seemed like they were not going to continue was junior Aliyah Aaron.
“I’ve got bigger goals, and I think I’d need more time,” Aaron said. But all the others are striving to do better, to make it to the next level after graduating here at Arcata High. But overall, most athletes would say that it depends on what you take on top of doing sports. Those who do struggle with school would say yes, it’s worth being a student-athlete.
