Students of today have increasingly busy and stressful lives. This can be due to schoolwork, sports, or other clubs and activities. Coaches and teachers both want these students to get everything done in a timely manner. While these requests originally seem reasonable, there can be cause for concern.

The real problem here is that coaches and teachers want students to put one activity above the other. If a student needed to stay after school with a teacher, they might not be able to because of a coach “needing” them at practice that day. Aren’t they a student before an athlete? As time goes on I realize that this is being changed every day. Students need to be able to have the flexibility of keeping up with school and competing in sports, but the option to choose to better their grades before heading to practice.

Students are already held to a higher standard if they choose to pursue athletics. Athletes are even declared academically ineligible if they do not meet these standards. Grades are huge for college admissions and actually getting into college. Grades should be made a priority and not get in the way of anything else.  Coaches can sometimes contradict this by making athletes have to choose. High School is meant for learning, with extracurricular activities coming after.

Decisions of prioritizing school and athletics need to be made by students as well. Yes, teachers and coaches pull them in two different directions at times. But student athletes should be able to manage time effectively in order to compete on the field and perform in the classroom. Coaches need not impede on student’s progress, but this issue can go both ways, with students also not accomplishing necessary tasks.

Coaches should just stick to the standards currently set at Mill Valley. As long as academics are taken care of, students can compete in sports. This is not that hard of a concept to grasp, yet it continues to be a struggle. They both can be priorities, the order of which they are accomplished is the biggest issue.