Waking up for morning workouts, going to a seven hour day of school, having three hour practices and staying up late to maintain a high GPA is the life of a student athlete.

Playing a sport and being in high school is like a full time job for nine months out of the year. A trick to being a top-notch student-athlete is good organization and keeping track of assignments.

“Stay on top of homework. Try to get homework done at meets and matches whenever you have free time so you can rest when you get home,” said senior Lauren Kelly.

Keeping a weekly schedule that includes both academic assignments and sporting events can really improve a student-athletes time management.

“It can be hard to manage your time when you have to practice every day after school and have games twice a week. But being organized really helps, and I end up doing just my homework during little gaps in the day,” said sophomore Sara Croghan.

Finding people within a sport that are in the same class can also help a lot; it is like the same as having an after school peer tutor. But along with worrying about time management, student-athletes also have to worry about their physical and mental health.

“It can be difficult to be a student athlete to balance other aspects of life such as sleep and, of course, school. However, having a team of people who have the same experiences you do in terms of balancing life really helps a lot,” said Kelly.

Sleep especially can become difficult to come by when school starts to pick up pace with homework and quizzes being thrown left and right, along with intense workouts and matches. On average, teenagers are supposed to get between nine and nine and a half hours of sleep, but most teenagers actually get between seven and eight hours. Sometimes, teenagers can get even less if they are involved in multiple school activities.

Being a student-athlete is more than playing a sport and keeping up with homework; it is going in early to ask for help or staying after practice to iron out that serve. At the end of the season, looking back on the accomplishments with friends is what makes the hard work worth it.