Jacqui Vergis
Staff Writer
In New Hope-Solebury High School many academically successful students participate in after school sports. Most students happen to face the day-to-day dilemma of not having an appropriate amount of time to complete their homework because of their busy schedules. The term “student-athlete” implies that one takes on their duties of a student before becoming an athlete. This leads to the constant concern that an athlete must maintain their grades if they intend to continue in any given school sport. This is a major problem because with sports comes priorities, commitment, and most of all, a need for time in addition to school.
In addition to this issue, no athlete looks forward to telling their coach about them being late to, or missing practices and games due to lack of time and an excessive amount of school work. Girls Volleyball coach Watson stated; “Being a teacher myself, I understand the need to occasionally miss a sporting event for school work.” Unfortunately not all coaches are as understanding as coach Watson in this regard, thus making day-to-day life challenging for athletes.
These complications create potential scenarios in which a student athlete has to choose which is more important, being loyal to a team, or being loyal to their academic requirements. Speaking for many other student-athletes and myself, I believe that there should be a change in school policies to help better the lives of the student-athletes representing our school district. If possible I would love to take this issue beyond the Lion’s Tale, and take the initiative to provide ways to better simplify the daily struggles of our school’s athletes. After discussing this common struggle with several teammates, the proposal of extra homework passes, test extensions, and a potential block scheduling all came into mind. In conclusion, this issue should be further reviewed with teachers, parents, coaches, and Mr. Malone due to the fact that student-athletes should be allowed the time and support to get the things done that need to be done to make their high school years a success.
