Written By: Ally Taynton, Staff Writer
SCHEDULES: Many students at Poly do multiple sports, which on top of other school activities can lead to constant busy days.
At Poly there are many opportunities to participate in sports, but when combined with other school activities, there is suddenly no time left in the day. For example, many students are associated with ASB, Mock Trial, and other extracurriculars that involve time commitments. Many choose to do multiple sports as well, which introduces a number of schedule interferences that cause students to pick between the two. So, which one do they choose? Sports or their school activity? A deciding factor on which event a student will go to, is whether or not they want to do one of their sports in college. If students want to continue their sport at the collegiate level, they need to continue showing up to practices and games, which gives that sport the priority. However, if that student also participates in a school activity like ASB, and someday they want a leadership position, the student would also want to prioritize showing up to those events. The question is, why try to do both things? The students know what they are signing up for, so why ask for such a busy schedule?
Students like Charlotte Zunigha (9) who is in two sports at Poly, even in different seasons, can at times experience conflict between them. Charlotte plays tennis and soccer. Tennis is already underway as a fall sport, and soccer is a winter sport, so everything should work out, right? Well, Poly’s soccer practices have already begun, so she has had to miss out on tennis matches to get to soccer. Charlotte prefers soccer, so it is easier for her to miss tennis matches than it is to miss soccer practices. If she would rather show up to soccer, what is the point of doing tennis? Charlotte wants to “keep in shape” and she has many friends doing tennis too, so she is willing to have a busy schedule. On top of multiple sports, she is also in Mock Trial. With three different practices going on right now, being added to the already massive amount of schoolwork, Charlotte is “very very busy.” Thing is, she isn’t the only one. Her friend, Rowen Sullivan (9), also does tennis and Mock Trial, but instead of soccer she does water polo. They both leave from tennis matches to get to Mock Trial and even prepare for Mock Trial during the bus rides there and back. Rowen doesn’t think that she will do any of the sports in college, but she says “it puts me on a team, makes me friends, and keeps me busy.” Even though she knows that she won’t do any sports in college, it is still important to learn how to manage your time early.
If students want to do a sport, they need dedication. However, when students do more than one sport, they usually commit more to the one they prefer. For example, Olivia McPherson, a Sophomore, does golf at Poly and Jiu Jitsu outside of school. Olivia has a very busy schedule, with golf and Jiu-Jitsu practices every week. And when she has golf matches and Jiu-Jitsu tournaments Olivia says she prefers Golf and will put in more effort to show up for those events. She does both even though she likes Golf more, because “Jiu-Jitsu is fun.” Olivia knows that if she were to choose she would like to play Golf in college, but Jiu-Jitsu is just something she wants to do to have fun. There is a slightly different situation for Ezekiel Gutierrez (10), who plays baseball and football. Zeke loves both sports and wants to do both in college. However, if there was a baseball game at the same time as a football game, Zeke would choose “probably football.” During football season, to help prepare for baseball season, Zeke does “one practice a day”, usually throwing a baseball to keep his “arm loose.”. He is very committed to both his sports, which can cause conflict between them, but since they are in different seasons, he manages to do both. Since he can prepare for the one that is not in season while practicing in the one that is in season, he has “no doubt” that he’ll be able to manage his time in college.
The plus side of students challenging themselves to do multiple sports is learning time management. 100% of all the multisport athletes that I have interviewed think that they will be able to manage their time easily in college because they are challenging themselves now. So, would you want to challenge yourself and do multiple sports, or just breeze through high school?