Student athletes come in many different forms, play many different sports, and have many different lifestyles and schedules. How difficult is it balancing school, your social life, and your sport in high school?

Life as a student athlete can be a very stressful process. There are early and late practices, homework, and late games.

Senior football player, and track athlete Davon Desmond told us how hard it is to be a student athlete. “It is hard to be a student athlete. We have to maintain grades, try to contact coaches, and other stuff as well.” For someone doing multiple sports, that means they are almost always in a sports season at the school, which makes it even harder.”

Jason Appiah used to play sports. After he decided to stop playing, life definitely became easier for him. “After I stopped playing sports, life became easy. All I had to focus on was my grades,” Appiah said.

Senior volleyball player, as well as student body president Allison Powell knows as well as anyone about balancing sports with everything else. “At least for me my days were really long because during volleyball season I was also working on Homecoming decorations so I would typically be at school for over 12 hours. I would get to school around 8am and then work on homecoming decorations from 2-5:30 and then practice from 5:30-7:30 and then go back and work on more decorations from 7:30-8 or 9 and sometimes we would be there until 10.” Balancing volleyball, class, and being the student body president is truly an impressive feat, which Powell pulled off very well.

There are many other examples of student athlete schedules, but these athletes give an insight on how busy those schedules can be, and how difficult it can be to be a student athlete. We just wanted to show a little light on how hard a lot of these student athletes have to work to succeed in their sport and the classroom.