Many students across the country take advantage of the privilege of playing a sport for their school. In our school, 372 students played a school sport this fall. Even though many students play for their school, choosing between sports can be difficult for some people. Some people believe that playing sports gets in the way of the students academics, and some people have to decide between club and school sports.
Antonio Hutti is a sophomore that plays three sports, baseball, basketball, and football, and he does admit that sometimes sports get in the way of school.
“Sometimes my grades suffer because there just isn’t all that much time to do homework and study as long as I would like and need to make the grades that I want,” Hutti said.
Even though he can’t get the grades he wish he could get, he likes that the limited free time can keep him from doing stuff that he might regret.
“I feel like if I didn’t have the limited free time, I would do stuff that I’m not supposed to do, and could possibly hurt me down the road,” Hutti said.
Hutti plays school baseball in the spring and club ball in the summer. Club baseball has gained a lot of ground on school baseball recently. Some people prefer to play club because it’s sometimes better competition and you play a lot of tournaments. But Hutti likes school baseball better.
“I like playing school baseball because I get to play with people that I know from school, but I’ve never played with most of them,” Hutti said. “It’s also fun to represent the school you go to and if you’re good enough to play varsity, you can play for a state title. ”
Anthony Klein is also a sophomore who plays club and school baseball.
“I like playing school ball because I get to represent the school and you’re actually playing for something,” Klein said. “In club, you’re mostly playing for yourself.”
Klein also played football freshman year but decided to not play this year.
“I wanted to focus on improving my baseball skills, so I didn’t play,” Klein said.
Sophomore Luke Schaefer plays club baseball, but decided to run Track instead of playing school baseball.
“I decided to run track because I wanted to try a sport that I’ve never played before,” Schaefer said. “I also didn’t really like the freshman coach and I didn’t think he could help me become any better.”
He does not regret running track over playing baseball for school, but he does admit it was hard for him to get back into baseball shape.
“I don’t regret running track, but it was hard for me to get back into the baseball mindset,” Schaefer said. “My swing was kind of messed up for awhile at the beginning of the season, and I never really got on track at the plate, and I didn’t have the season I was hoping to have.”
Kale Slayton is a sophomore who played football his freshman year, but decided to stop playing.
“I quit football because I was putting in a lot of my time and effort to the sport,” Slayton said. “I didn’t get very much playing time and even though I attended all of the practices and games, I wasn’t rewarded for my efforts.”
Another reason Slayton decided not to play, was because he wanted to focus more on school and getting better grades.
“At this time last year, I had about a 1.9 GPA and was struggling to make good grades because I had to go to practice and games everyday after school,” Slayton said. “So far this semester, I have a 3.8 GPA.”