Students struggle to balance sports with school

By Denna Changizi,
BlueDevilHUB.com Editor–

Being a student athlete means sacrificing potential study time in order to fully participate in team activities.

As a member of the ski team, senior Jackson Lutzker devotes many hours to dryland practices and races. Due to the warmer Davis climate, ski team involves a lot of traveling. The team leaves early Saturday mornings to spend the day practicing in the Lake Tahoe snow.

“Being on ski team has definitely affected my grades. It’s hard to keep my grades up during the season because of how much school we miss,” Lutzker said.

In addition to Saturday practices, the team makes day trips for its races. This results in missing a full day of school along with minimal time to spend the day preparing for the following day.

As a returning player, Lutzker has grown accustomed to the hectic schedule and has learned to change his homework schedule. With no room for procrastination, Lutzker has learned to prioritize his more difficult classes to maintain his grades.

“Some days it is harder to make up than others but most of the time it is pretty difficult to make up the work,” Lutzker said.

However, Lutzker is just one of millions of students facing the difficulty of balancing sports and school. According to the National Federation of State High School Associations, about 7.8 million high school students participated in sports during the 2013-14 school year.

Similarly, field hockey player and senior Kailey Smith finds herself struggling to keep up with her school work when in season. While the majority of high schools have a football team, not every high school on the west coast has a field hockey team. The DHS varsity field hockey team is forced to spend hours in the car, traveling to other counties to compete in its league.

“I’d say we’re practicing every day except Sunday. It just depends. But, we’re definitely doing something almost every single day,” Smith said.

As a senior with no sixth period, Smith is required to go to practice early to help her coach set up. Although practice typically ends around 5:30 p.m., depending on the day, the team is required to go to Woodland to lift weights.

“I’d say by the time I get home and shower and stuff I have about five hours [to do my school work]. It just depends on the day because sometimes I have other stuff going on,” Smith said.

During her first year on the team, Smith grew overwhelmed with her workload and dropped out of her Algebra 2/Trigonometry course. Because the class was during sixth period, Smith was constantly leaving class early to attend games.

Smith believes that she would do better in school if she didn’t have so much focus on her sport. She frequently feels herself growing too tired to finish her homework, resulting in an early night’s rest.

“I really like field hockey so I put a lot of focus on it. It is really time-consuming,” Smith said.

Smith advises new high school athletes to stay ahead of their classes during sports season, making sure to communicate with their teachers about missed assignments and general class questions.

“I’d say use your planner so you can stay on top of stuff. […] It helped me later in the season, when I started getting the hang of it more, even if I didn’t have a class tomorrow, [I would do the assignment] because I knew I’d have a game on Wednesday and I’d be too tired to do it then,” Smith said.