Nyla Ligon-Chambers also contributed to this article.
The pressure is on for Malden High School. Midterms have just come to an end and students are starting the third quarter heavy and loaded. New semester classes have begun, causing the stress to be even more inevitable. Student exhaustion and frustration has been surrounding the halls, especially among Malden High’s student athletes.
The demand for good grades and a high GPA is nerve-wracking. Every turn you take is a test in either one of your classes. Homework assignment after homework assignment gets piled up. Student athletes have double the work doing their best to balance both school and sports.
Although being an athlete can be amusing and filled with excitement, there are many cons that go along with being an athlete.
Senior Sorin Mamouzette, who does volleyball in the fall and basketball cheer in the winter, expressed how tiring it is to handle both volleyball and her academics during the season. “Volleyball is pretty late. I get home around 8 or 9 so I’ll definitely be really tired when I get home so I’m kind of just drowsy when I do my homework.”
Not only is it draining to balance both volleyball and school but also winter cheer. Sophomore Anneley Saint-Jste, who has participated in both fall and winter cheer goes through the hardships of having to push through her fatigue to stay focused in cheer while also maintaining good grades. “Sometimes it’s hard to manage school and cheer because you have to be at cheer early. When you’re tired you would not want to do your schoolwork and instead go to sleep.”
Junior Venusia Teklu agreed with Saint Juste and Mamouzette that it’s exhausting to keep up with school work and studying while focusing on fall and winter cheer as well. “It does overlap within school due to the fact that some games could be on Thursday, but you come home late and have to wake up early in the morning and come to school on Fridays, and just the fact that it takes away from homework and studying time.”
Facing the hardships that come with the sport, Teklu voiced, “If you’re somebody who’s really locked in academically and only cares about academics, I wouldn’t recommend that path.”
With all the factors that go along with being a student athlete, it is possible that it is worth the hard effort put in.
In MHS it is common for students to pick being an athlete over taking gym as a required elective. It’s better in saving time for students to have a more relaxed schedule and accomplish more. Teklu expressed, “I decided to do sports rather than gym, just because I wanted more space within my schedule so I could take more rigorous classes.”
Teklu expressed that even though the sports can be difficult to keep up with, the pleasure she finds within the sport keeps her motivated. “I will say it’s worth it due to the fact that you have more good experiences and more enjoyable experiences that you’ll remember forever in your high school life.”
Teklu also believes not only will it benefit her high school life but later down the road when she goes to college “due to the fact that it shows when you apply to colleges that you were doing good academically and you were doing sports, it just shows that you were able to handle two things at once.”
Sophomores Ayanna Mesidoor and Alyssa Lynch, who both do gymnastics, agreed that their time in the sport was fully worth it. “We’ve improved so much and we’ve gained skills.” Not only have they gained knowledge of the sport, but they also found comfort in the new people they met through gymnastics. “I feel like it’s just important to have people in your corner, and these people from this sport becoming your corner,” Lynch and Mesidor expressed.
Junior Frankie Marenghi-Pellino, who does field hockey, feels that the sport is something that she wants to pursue later on in her high school years so the sport is entirely worth the struggles that come with it. “It has exposed me to a lot of new opportunities. It really broke me out of my shell, and I’ve never really been in a shell, but I do feel awkward and embarrassed sometimes.” Marenghi-Pellino continued, “I think joining field hockey, especially during my sophomore year, basically knowing nothing, it really put me out there and kind of got me out of my comfort zone.”
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