Straight A’s, practice every night, late nights studying and long drives home.
Some put too much on their plate, and it can kill them mentally.
Finding a healthy balance with both is important for students to succeed.
Be the student before the athlete.
Teachers stress this so much. They understand being a student-athlete can be a struggle at times. Whether playing one sport a year or playing multiple at a time, it can be stressful.
Getting home from a game and wanting to pass out is the first resort. However, this is not often possible due to homework.
The sacrifices people make for something they love doing can often be extreme. The physical pain, exhaustion, and time put into it is killer.
Athletes often use extra time for improvement. The other time they have is for practice, games and sleep.
With sports comes a mental game and strain; losing can hurt an athlete’s ego and attitude. Some use it for motivation, others sulk in it. Balancing everything can be stressful.
It can bring down mental health, and it can be hard to gain it back. The exhaustion can be a killer, and it can cause breakdowns.
As an athlete, a consistent sleep schedule is hard to come by due to a fluctuating schedule. It is hard to work up the strength to get out of bed at times.
Weekdays tend to be busy for athletes, but weekends become chaotic.
Getting two days to recover, which means any other activities have to be crammed into as little time as possible.
But, sometimes, the weekends consist of sports too.
Tournaments and scrimmages often take place on a Saturday. Athletes might as well kiss their relaxation goodbye because now they are even more exhausted and have to spend another day out of their week dedicated to their sport.
Not only is it hard to find a balance in time, but it is also rough to find a balance in health.
Putting that much strain on the body is not healthy, and athletes are told to always eat healthy and stay away from sugar in order to perform at their best.
We are teenagers. We are not perfect. And we are young.
Teenagers should be able to eat what they want, of course, with consideration. After practice, if a student wants to eat Taco Bell, let them. It is hard enough with the stress of school and sports, along with the rare free time available.
Teenagers take what others think and say very seriously. If someone tells them they should not be eating something for whatever reason, it can leave the athlete thinking about it for days.
This can create an increase in mental health issues and eating disorders.
However, each athlete has their own reason for participating in sports. There can be many great aspects to participating in a team.
“A pro is definitely being able to leave class early,” Griffin Tamagni said.
For some, it is, but for others, all it does is add to the stress due to extra homework.
With this stress, it is important to have strategies that help navigate all the assignments and balance everything without causing too much chaos.
“I do my homework right away,” Leeann Lohf said.
