Max Gerke ‘24 is a student athlete who swims and plays tennis. “They [tennis andswimming] are very time-consuming because I play outside of school and year-round,” Gerke said.He swims in the mornings twice a week and then right after school again. His tennis schedule includes playing at night three times a week. In February, he has a tournament or meet every weekend, while in September he has none. When he has practice, he gets home at 8:00 pm, which leaves him a total of an hour and a half to finish his remaining tasks for the day. An hour and a half for the remaining tasks don’t seem like a lot of time, but he still makes sure he goes to bed by 10pm. Being a student athlete obviously comes with stress. Everyone experiences different levels. As for Gerke, he said, “Sometimes I experience a lot of stress. I have to perform well and I have to dowell in school. So, when I miss school for a sporting event, it can get very stressful when I have lots of makeup work to do.” A simple solution to get more schoolwork done seems to be to quitsports or skip practices, but Gerke said, “I think I am at too high of a level to just quit and disappoint my teams.” Instead of missing practices or quitting, he makes it a priority at home to finish his schoolwork. Gerke seems to be handling all this work well by prioritizing what’simportant.
Paige Albright ‘23 is on both the dance team and the track and field team. Dance takes up the majority of her time. During dance team season (from July to February), Albright sometimes spends a combined 22 hours a week dancing for West and her club team. Her last dance class each day usually ends at 9:30 pm, which leaves her going to sleep at midnight or later. She’s had to get used to doing her homework throughout the school day in classes and during her breaks between activities later in the day. “School stress weighs on me constantly and doesn’t let me sleep,” Albright said. Although dancing and track and field are stressful, especially with the year-round training that Albright participates in, she said, “Sports give me a place to breathe, to take my mind off school; having something like that keeps me really grounded and [allows me to] enjoy my high school time, even though it is super busy.”
Caroline Mascardo ‘22 is a part of the West High girl’s tennis team. Tennis is a time consuming sport because of the two hour practices, as well as the meets. Mascardo is also involved in different clubs in the school like Student Senate, Model UN, Musical Charity, the WSS Newspaper, and Orchestra. “Finishing up activities allows some time in my schedule to include tennis,” said Mascardo, “but it is definitely a concern because of losing hours daily.” This is in disregard of the amount of homework she has. “It pains me to say that I feel like every waking hour has something to do with homework,” Mascardo said. In regards to quitting tennis because of school work, Mascardo said, “It definitely crossed my mind because of this year’s load.” Two things that have helped Mascardo in managing her time better are doing study sessions with friends and creating a weekly to-do list. For upcoming athletes, Mascardo said, “Be patient with yourself and expect to make a lot of mistakes along the way. It took me a while to realize that there is no ‘end goal’ with playing sports.”
