By Hanson Han, Staff Writer
As a student-athlete myself, I know the struggles many of us have to face. We are forced to make hard decisions about how we manage our time. How much time should we allocate for school, athletics, sleep, and social life? There are simply not enough hours in a day to balance all of these activities.
Our school day usually begins at 7:00am. Then, we spend around 6 hours (8:30am to 2:30pm) in classes. After school, practice can range anywhere from 1.5 to 3 hours, depending on the sport. This gives us a minimum of 7.5 to 9 hours of school and practice. Keep in mind that these times do not even account for travel, or the hours spent working away at the mountain of homework given to us.
On top of that, the pressure applied to us couldn’t be more demanding. To fulfill our duties as students, colleges look for students with multiple AP classes and heavy course loads. And for athletes, they only recruit the best of the best. The combination of these two factors end up causing a lot of stress on us as teenagers to try and satisfy both ends of the equation. This isn’t even considering that despite the workload given to us, scientists still recommend for us to get at least 8 hours of sleep per day. And for us, the few hours left in a day are usually spent with our friends and family.
For me, cross country practice usually ends at around 5:30pm, and I end up getting home at around 6:00pm. I’m taking 4 AP classes (6 total courses), which leads to roughly 4 hours of homework every night. And when the weekend comes, things don’t improve. My weekend is spent taking SAT classes and participating in ping pong tournaments. This back-to-back timeline leaves me with little to no time to slow down, catch my breath, and relax.
For wide receiver Antonio Sacco (11), football practice usually ends at around 6:30pm. He is taking 1 AP class (6 total courses), which leads to roughly 2 hours of homework every night. If Antonio were to have more time, he would spend more time biking, painting, and gaming.
For tennis star Erika Kita (11), practice usually ends at around 6:30pm as well. She is taking 2 AP classes (7 total courses), which leads to roughly 2 hours of homework every night. If Erika were to have more time, she would spend more time on her passion for arts and crafts, making keychains and drawing. She would also spend more time practicing the drums and watching television.
For all three of us, we strive to meet the 8 hour sleep requirement, with the leftover time spent with friends and family, getting the most out of it, before setting our sights on college
The amount of pressure that is being applied to us student-athletes is too much for any teen to handle. Hopefully, the pressure will be lightened on us, but for now, we all need to persevere, and continue to do what we do best: Represent Mills High School to the best of our abilities.
