High school is the time to have fun and branch out to try new things. Students across the nation are involved in a variety of extracurricular sports and activities, many of which are school activities. Students at the high school are often involved in many activities from season to season. However, it is rare to see students involved in multiple activities that take place in the same season.
“You kind of get to see both sides of sports and activities you do. You get to meet so many different people, so you get to have different experiences throughout the sports and it just changes your perspective on everything,” Isabelle Olcott, 10, said.
Olcott is just one athlete who is involved in multiple activities. Olcott is a
member of the band and the cheer team and participates in softball during the spring sports season. Olcott expressed how they love all of their activities and plan to continue them throughout their high school career, no matter how busy it gets.
Addison Bond, 11, has grown up participating in music and athletics. They are a member of band and jazz band along with the volleyball and basketball teams and are planning to expand their horizons when it comes to extracurriculars in their senior year. Bond has made musical strides along with their outstanding performance in their athletics.
“I definitely want to continue music in my life. I will probably do instrumental sports in college. I’m not doing volleyball next year, but I’m going to do the play, so it kind of trades off,” Bond said.
Bond explained the importance of their activities and how all of the extracurriculars have impacted their life in different ways. Many of these activities are shared with Bond’s family, bringing even more value to the activities.
Hayden Huddleston, 10, is a member of band, as well as the football, wrestling, and the powerlifting teams. Huddleston performs with the band minutes after being on the sideline with the football team. Huddleston decided to take on powerlifting during the wrestling season, and faced challenges along the way.
“Mid powerlifting and wrestling season, I had a ‘D’ in honors chemistry. It’s a hard class and I didn’t have very much time on my hands, and I struggled with one of the units. Luckily I got it up to an ‘A’ before the semester ended, but it was really stressful to have that low of a grade,” Huddleston said.
Huddleston’s experience in powerlifting and wrestling this season has led
them to have to make a tough decision between the two activities, as both at the same time was not sustainable and hurt their performance in both of the activities and academics.
Marisa January, 12, also participates in two sports in the same season, softball and track. After playing softball their freshman and sophomore years, January decided to find a way to participate in track as well. January explained that while there are moments where they thought about missing a game or practice.
“I think [participating in multiple sports] is definitely going to help me [in college] with my time management and everything. Since I have to balance so much right now, when I get to college it will hopefully be the same or even easier since I’m only doing one sport,” January said.
January participates in the 400 meter, 800 meter, and mile events. Despite only being in track for two seasons, January has found great success in the sport. January explained that it came easier to them than they expected. After seeing success in track, January put track as their “priority sport.” January has now committed to running track at the collegiate level at Washburn University.
