The Stress and Expectations of Student Athletes By: Kristi Barnes

Character List Each character is the representation of an author from a source that was used. To portray the authors point of view, these characters are put into similar situations so that they may speak their minds and show their feelings on the situation. Chen the Cougar: is a senior this year who is trying to make captain of the track team. Chen is one of the most well know guys in the school and with an older brother who broke tons of track records, he has extra expectations to fulfill. Judge the Jaguar: is a sophomore who is at the school on scholarship. If his grades were to drop to a certain GPA, he could lose every last penny. Since Judge is on scholarship, he has an added motivation to do better on the track as well in the classroom. Kimball the Kangaroo: is one of those rare occurrences. Kimball may be a kangaroo, but she learned to run before she could hop. Kimball is a junior and finally coming out of her shell. Unfortunately, she is starting to hit that wall and needs to start making decisions that will help her in the future. Lu the Leopard: is a junior this year that just started running track last year. Other than being a newbie to the athletic world, he is also new to the whole school aspect. Lu had been home schooled the last few years. Balancing school work and track practice is going to be tough for him. Wilson the Wolf: is a senior who grew up as an army brat, moving from school to school, wherever her dad was needed. Since she has moved around so much, Wilson has had plenty of coaches who have trained and critiqued her to their standard. Barnes the Bronco: is a senior who has been going to the track practices for the past few weeks. With the dream of becoming an engineer, she had to retire her athletic career at a young age. Going and watching what couldve been, is a nice way for her to get her athletic fix. Every day after school, the track team has their normal practice for a few hours. However, on this day, the athletes needed to vent a little bit to one another. So while all the runners are finishing up and putting away all of their gear, a few of them get together and begin to chat.

Chen the Cougar: Man coach wants me to do the 200 meter and 400 meter sprints plus the 4 x 400 meter relay at the next meet. Lu the Leopard: Whoa. He is putting a lot of pressure on you this year. Chen the Cougar: I know. He expects so much of me. Kimball the Kangaroo: Are you trying to make captain this year? Lu the Leopard: What about a scholarship? Youre going to college next year, where are you looking at? Chen the Cougar: I know that it would be a privilege and a unique experience to become a collegiate student-athlete, but Im afraid that the other teammates and coaches are going to put too much pressure on winning (Chen). Wilson the Wolf: What about all your school work? Arent you taking a bunch of hard classes? Chen the Cougar: I know. I know. Its going to be extremely hard. I just dont know what to do. Lu the Leopard: Hey Chen, who is that up on the bleachers? Chen the Cougar: Oh thats Barnes, Barnes the Bronco. She is in one of my math classes. Really smart. The whole group then turns to look up at the bleacher. Chen waves Barnes to come down and talk with the crew. Barnes the Bronco: Hey guys, what are we talking about? Lu the Leopard: Just about how hard it is to be an athlete and do well in school. Barnes the Bronco: Oh yeah. Been there, done that. I had to give up on my athletic career. Chen the Cougar: What sport did you play? Barnes the Bronco: I was a volleyball player. Kimball the Kangaroo: Why did you ever stop? Barnes the Bronco: I decided to focus more on school. I want to become an engineer when I grow up, and there just wasnt enough room for me to include volleyball in that dream.

Judge the Jaguar: Yeah, sounds rough. Coaches and teachers put so much pressure on us just because we are athletes. They expect us to be able to produce A+ effort in both the classroom and on the track. Id be careful in your case, Chen, persistent levels of personal stress can lead to athletic burnout (Judge 1). Kimball the Kangaroo: I dont know. This could be a good thing. Participating in a sport tends to have positive improvements on your mental health (Kimball). Playing a sport is a choice, not an obligation so you just need to make sure you set your priorities straight from the start. School work should come first, and then track. Lu the Leopard: I know! That is totally true! I have three tests this week plus we have the big meet this weekend. Kimball the Kangaroo: How long is it really going to take you to study though? Cherry the Cheetah is having a party this weekend. Anybody who is anybody is going to be there. We are the main athletes of the school, we have to go! Wilson the Wolf: Oh darn! I have a huge exam to study for. Lu the Leopard: Come on man you can skip that. Im pushing my studying back, you can too. We can just pull an all-nighter. Its not like we havent done that before. This will be the party of the year. Wilson the Wolf: Nah I cant. My parents have been riding me hard about doing well this semester. I cant blow it now. Chen the Cougar: I know what youre talking about. My parents flipped when they saw the last test grade I brought home. They keep comparing me to my brother and telling me that if I dont start doing better, than I wont get into a good college. Judge the Jaguar: Dang man, thats harsh. Its like our parents only worry about school, our coaches on care about winning, our teachers care about both, and our friends only pay attention to us if we are winning and go to all the parties. Kimball the Kangaroo: Well, I mean we are the heart and soul of the school. We are the athletes. We make the party a party. Wilson the Wolf: How do you do this man? How are you able to handle all of this? Kimball the Kangaroo: You will never get away from the expectations. No matter what you do, there will always be people there to judge you and tell you what to do, but the stress, thats a different story. Stress is hard enough to deal with. Lu the Leopard: Yeah! I used to run to relieve stress and now running causes stress. I dont know how to get rid of all this. Being athletes, we face harsh demands every day,

such as continuous and exhausting practices, always traveling to meets and tournaments, injuries, the pressures to win, competition not only between other schools but between our own teammates, media pressures, and the risk of burning out (Lu). Chen the Cougar: Dude stress is a rough thing. It can cause some issues. My brother was so stressed out one time that he took a week off from practice. Coach benched him the next meet. Wilson the Wolf: But your brother was the best. What happened? Chen the Cougar: School work, practice, and home life just got to be too much for him. He needed a few days off. Judge the Jaguar: Man I need that. I wonder if Coach would give us a day off. Like just one. Or maybe he could just give us one easy and fun practice. You know like something to get our minds off of everything else. Kimball the Kangaroo: Thats a good joke. If Coach ever did that I think we would have to check his stress levels too because they would be going through the roof. Lu the Leopard: But why would he bench your brother? That is just absolutely crazy. I could never see a coach doing that. Chen the Cougar: I dont Know. Maybe coach just had something to prove himself, like he doesnt want the other athletes to think that hes a pushover and that anybody can miss practice if they want to. Wilson the Wolf: Yeah I guess I can see that. Coach just wants to assert himself. They say that athletes pick up their habits from their coaches; whether its behavior, performance, or expectations, a coach is the one that the athletes learn all that from (Wilson). Coach is just trying to make us into the best athletes and students that we can be so that we may be looked upon as role models. Kimball the Kangaroo: Wow, now that you mention that I can totally see it. Our team keeps getting better and better. People are starting to hear about us. We are getting articles in the paper now and other schools are inviting us to compete against them. Coach just wants to make sure that we look good as a team and make him look even better as a coach. Barnes the Bronco: Thats great for you guys, but you cant forget about your school work. I know you guys want to represent your school on the track, but you also need to represent them in the classroom too. Dont forget that your grades are what are going to help you get into a good college.

Wilson the Wolf: Its not like we are bad at school or anything, we just need better time management skills Judge the Jaguar: We just need more time in general. Wilson the Wolf: We are good with the whole having an end in mind and setting goal for ourselves, we get that from sports and our coaches, but what we need are ways to apply this to everyday life. Chen the Cougar: I agree. My goals always have something to do with sports and how I can better myself. I need to set goals that will help me in both school and the real world. Lu the Leopard: Well you already made captain so you achieved one goal. Chen the Cougar: Yeah, but now I just need to do well on this next exam and I would really like to get Homecoming King if I could. My parents said that if my grades drop, even just a little, they will pull me from the team. Kimball the Kangaroo: That is all possible if you have the determination to do it. Just make sure that you keep an end in mind. Make sure that there is a final goal. Chen the Cougar: I think I do, the hard part is dealing with all the stress. I need to prioritize my list of want tos into what I believe I can accomplish at the rate Im at . Wilson the Wolf: That sounds like a good plan to me. Judge the Jaguar: We are just going to have to make the best of what we have. Whether we like it or not, we are athletes and we will be held to higher expectations than the average student. Our parents, coaches, teachers, and peers know we can handle the pressure and stress; we just need to show them how to do it. Kimball the Kangaroo: So Im going to assume that we arent going to Cherry the Cheetahs party. Wilson the Wolf: I know Im not. Im going to hang back and study, start my prioritys list. Lu the Leopard: Me too. I mean there will be more parties. We can go to the next one, thats if we dont have too much work. Chen the Cougar: I mean it is just one party. Its not like the whole school is go ing to turn their backs on us. Plus going there will just give us a name. I dont think we need the partying reputation right now. Kimball the Kangaroo: Okay I agree with that.

Judge the Jaguar: I really dont care for all this stress and expectations stuff, but I sure do love being an athlete. All of them: Agreed.