Being an athlete is challenging. If you think being at school from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. is hard, imagine having to be an athlete. Student athletes stay at school until as late as 6 p.m., then do homework or assignments in the late evening. Many Loy Norrix athletes have difficulty managing their time because they feel stressed and burnt out from sports.
After interviewing nine athletes, seven said that their sport made them feel stressed and that it was hard to manage their time and get enough sleep due to the amount of time and effort their sports take.
“It’s difficult because I don’t really get that much sleep, and it makes me very tired,” freshman basketball player Cameren Fuller said. “I don’t really have much time to myself, with sports and school and everything.”
While some athletes like Fuller sacrifice sleep to complete work, others let their grades drop.
“Sometimes you try to get stuff done and you can’t,” junior wrestler Wyatt Buddemeier said.
According to Kalamazoo Public Schools, all KPS athletes must maintain a 2.3 GPA while in season to be eligible for sports. Maintaining eligibility can be difficult due to the strain and time practice can put on an athlete. This could lead to athletes staying up late to do work, or just picking and choosing what to do and what not to do, creating stress among these student athletes.
Sophomore swimmer Shyanne Weston said that her sport can be extremely stressful.
“It adds on a lot of stress,” said Weston. “You have to swim every single day, and the only day off you have is Saturday. You even have morning practices before school, so it’s almost like you have no free time for yourself.”
In his article for Untapped, The Growing Challenge of Student-Athlete Stress, Brandon Slade found that 30% of student-athletes are overwhelmed and stressed by the pressure to do well in class. This stress can lead to burnout and mental health issues.
Time is also a big issue student athletes must deal with, as senior wrestler Will Dominianni has found.
“I try to consciously make the decision to put my personal interests aside, sometimes, in order to achieve my own goals,” Dominianni said.
Time management is key to being a successful athlete, and those who cannot manage their time well find themselves with many issues like late work and missing assignments. Both of these can make athletes ineligible to play.
Being an athlete is challenging, but the real struggle isn’t in the game but in the classroom. Either way, on the field or in class, students who can keep up their score and their grades are the real winners.
