Despite the fact that a quarter of the student body plays a Division I sport, many may not know what an average day looks like for student-athletes. Playing a sport takes up hours of the average student-athlete’s day, making it seem like there is no time to do anything. The answer to this problem is time management.
There is definitely more free time on off-days compared to competition days, according to sophomore cross country runner Liz Borah.
“I’m always done before noon with my classes, which is nice,” Borah said. “After that, I’ll go to lunch with the track team at Marquis and then just chill after and get homework done.”
She added that she may “even get a nap in if [she] has time.”
Practice for cross country is always at 4 p.m., giving Borah time to plan everything around it. Afterwards, the team eats at Upper Farinon. Borah says she gets most of her work done before bed.
“My friends and I will either go the library, Acopian or RISC and just get our work done,” Borah said.
Game days, on the other hand, leave little free time. Junior Griffin Huff, goalkeeper for the men’s soccer team, said that almost every aspect of his day is planned out.
“I’ll wake up around nine and then go to breakfast with the team around 9:30,” Huff said. “After, we’ll go down to the turf on campus and do ball-related activities to get sweating.”
Then Huff heads to class, but the team reconvenes for lunch.
Both breakfast and lunch are carbohydrate-heavy. Huff said that the athletic department’s sports nutritionist “walked us through what pre-game and post-game meals should look like. Breakfast will be heavy carbs … protein, and then the same with lunch.”
Later in the day, the team arrives at Metzgar Fields for its 5:30 pre-game warmup, which consists of stretching, drills and seeing the trainer. Post-game, the team will do a cool-down jog, wave to the fans who came, and then get talked to by the coaches. The players are then free to return to campus and begin to prepare for the next opponent.
With these busy schedules, it may become easy for some athletes to run out of time to get all their work done. However, Borah and Huff believe that sports actually help them with their time management.
“For me, I find that having a sport helps me hold myself accountable for making sure I get everything done,” Borah said. “I’m like, ‘Okay, I practice this time, I need to do some of my work now and some of it after.’”
With games, most athletes have to plan their schedules one to two weeks in advance.
“I try to set up my week so that [game] day is light,” Huff said.
Last week, he did most of his work Monday and Tuesday to prepare for the game against Army on Wednesday.
With classes on game days, Huff said he can’t completely zone in on the game.
“It’s definitely the hardest balancing act of trying not to think about [the game] too much but also trying to be prepared for it,” Huff said.
While learning how to balance classwork and athletics can be difficult, Borah mentioned that athletics keep her on track.
“I feel like if I wasn’t running it would be way worse,” Borah said.
