High school is already stressful enough trying to keep up with schoolwork, sleep, and maintaining a social life. But many students spend much of their time after school participating in clubs and sports as well.
Fall, winter, and spring seasons have an abundance of different sports to offer. From football in the fall to baseball in the spring, there are plenty of sports for athletes to get involved in.
Many high school athletes don’t limit themselves to one sport and participate in multiple sports over the course of one school year.
Most athletes that are involved in various sports find that playing one sport helps them train and improve in others.
“Swimming trains my body for running, it really helps with my cardiovascular strength. They’re all really difficult mind sports, even though your body is telling you to stop you can do more,” said senior Jonathan Andres, who swims and runs on the WS Cross Country and Track and Field teams.
Many sports have very similar structures and it is easy to see how playing one can help an athlete get better at another.
“[I love the] competition, I like to win. Most of the sports I play are contact sports and the technique is the same,” said senior Sean Rondeau, a WS Varsity Football player and West End Rugby player.
A lot of the skills that athletes develop in one sport might not be exactly the same. Rugby and football both involve tackling, passing, and catching, but how the player executes the action in each sport is very different.
“Both sports involve tackling, but you’ve got to have different velocity,” said Rondeau.
In addition to helping with other sports, participating in athletics can help athletes learn life lessons and life skills like teamwork.
Participating in sports helps athletes meet new people and teaches them how to work together with different people.
“The camaraderie is amazing. I started sophomore year because I thought [track] wasn’t the [most popular] sport. I was interested in basketball, but I gave it a shot. There are a lot of amazing people that do track,” said Andres.
Everybody has different skills and sports helps to bring out the best of people and work together as a team to perform well.
“There are people that are great at distance running and there are people that are good at sprinting, but there are very few who are good at both. It helps you realize that there are different types of people,” said Andres.