By: Belle Gendron
The life of a high school athlete is challenging. Finding time to do even the basics of life is a part of the daily struggle that scholar athletes face. Many students who participate in sports have above average grades, some even achieving over a 4.0. Typically, students that play sports often play in multiple seasons. This happens with cross country runners with track or football players with baseball, and water polo players with swimming.
Student athletes who only play one sport can face the same struggles as these double, or even triple sport athletes. Practicing all year round for one sport can put the same pressures on a student like Alex Roberts. During the off season Alex says she doesn’t “think any season should be an ‘off season’. The off season for athletes holding incredibly quick records includes lots of staying in shape and lots of keeping up with workouts that coaches supply.
A junior, Sofia Rasner ‘21, has been on varsity water polo and varsity swim for her past few years at Redwood. She is able to maintain a 4.20 GPA while committing countless hours to training. Rasner has been playing water polo for a long time, saying “I joined when I was in eighth grade and I got on varsity towards the end of the season of freshman year.” She went to valley with the team and received a valley ring.
Rasner has always been high achieving, and her motivation is “college, relieving stress of not having bad grades,” and she spends just as much time studying as she does training. As a swimmer and water polo player, Rasner devotes focus to these sports, depending on the season, but she also devotes time to studying. Especially Junior year, regarded as one of the most challenging years of high school, due to the work load.
“if you want to play water polo you have to have good grades.”
Sofia Rasner 21′
Athletes devote a lot of their time going to practices. There are some athletes who participate in extremely different types of sports. A varsity football player and swimmer, Aaron Garcia ‘20, transitioned from playing football hours and hours on end in the heat of the summer to swimming in the Visalia winter, with Mr. Fuller and Mr. Buenafe, preparing for swim season.
Swimming is a very individual sport, where you only have to rely on you and your own ability to win your race. Football requires teamwork and effort from all participants. Garcia mentions while the sports are different, they both require “meticulous technique” and there is little room for error when competing and playing.
This is a reality for many of the athletes that walk the halls of Redwood. They go from one sport to another with very few weeks for rest. Redwood girls varsity swim coach, Walter Bricker, works the swimmers hard in order to prepare for WYL. Many of his swimmers are water polo players but Bricker had the lane lines in and the backstroke flags up the week of November 11, which was barely a week removed from which water polo players had finished their season. Coaches find ways to adjust.
There will always be struggles for multi-sport athletes who are as dedicated to their school work as they are their sport. The love for the game triumphs the small pains that come with aiming high and maintaining good grades.
Belle Gendron
Tags: athletics, Focus, hardworking
