School and Sports - Where’s the balance?

If you ask 100 random students waking in the hallway, “are you on any AHS sports team?” most of them would say yes. More than 520 students participate in interscholastic sports at Albany High.

Most teams practice two to three hours a day, five to six times per week, which means school athletes have less time to do schoolwork.

In Sports in Society (sixth Edition), Jay J. Coakley wrote, “Studies have shown consistently that when compared with students who do not play varsity sports, high school athletes, as a group, generally have better grade point averages, more positive attitudes towards school, more interest in continuing their education after graduation, and a slightly better educational achievement rate.”

How do all our athletes manage to perform well in both sports and school? Should students be involved in school sports teams? If so, should they be excused from some of the schoolwork?

Karen Dehart, AHS history teacher said, “I’m in awe of those students who play sports and still do well in school, because I know it is very hard to balance their time between schoolwork and sports.”

Although teachers seem to understand the difficulties of time management for athletes, teachers don’t want to hear excuses from sports participants for their lack of performances at school.

Michelle Lau-Seim, AHS history teacher said, “Sports are extra activities athletes signed up for, in addition to school. If they can’t manage to perform well in school, while playing sports, I think they (the athletes) should consider whether they should be on a team or not, because in reality, as a student, school comes first before any other activities he or she decides to do.”

Lau-Seim pointed out that although sports can be much more enjoyable than academics, school is something that students should do well in if they want to be more successful.

Student athlete Junna Murakawa said, “I get really, really tired after the baseball practice, so sometimes I just want to forget about all the homework and tests I have to study for. Also, because I have to leave early for games sometimes, I miss part of the classes, which makes it harder for me to keep up with schoolwork.”

Although teachers know that there is not as much time for school athletes to do homework, they cannot do much more than letting athletes leave classes early for meets. Also, Albany High adapted the block-schedule system in part to give athletes more practice time to limit time away from class.

Luckily, most athletes are aware that school should come before sports teams, and therefore, they divide their time after school between practice and schoolwork. The best way for athletes to keep up with school while playing sports is to do all their homework and ask teachers for help if they don’t get what is going on in class.

As long as students are certain that they can manage daily practices, on top of schoolwork, students should certainly try to participate in any sports team they are interested in. Participating in sports gives students the opportunity to not only explore personal identities by working with other teammates, but also to discover their hidden skills.

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