Most people think that when you choose to go to Community High School, you choose not to play sports. Unless ultimate frisbee is your pastime, you’re out of luck. Right? Wrong. People who choose to go to Community can still play their sport for their district school. From lacrosse to swimming, there are many athletes that represent Community in the classroom, and either Pioneer, Skyline, or Huron on the field.

Community High athletes face various struggles when trying to play sports, get good grades, and maintain social status among peers. There is the obvious difficulty of the sport itself, in and out of its season. Jesse Rubin is a sophomore who swims for Pioneer. When asked about how many hours of practice he puts in a week, he replied with, “During the club season.. .about ten. During the high school season between twenty and thirty”. Imagine trying to do a weeks worth of homework with 30 fewer hours!

When asked about how he gets to practice after school, Jesse said, “Well last year, a senior by the name of Daniel Goldstein drove me, but this year, for the first month my parents will have to drive me, but I’m getting my license in January so I will be able to drive myself.” Marcello Salas, a Pioneer tennis player, takes the 2:10 shuttle bus to practice, and Jake Ressler, a Huron Lax Bro, says, “My mum takes me”.

Obviously, students parents support them, but what about their peers? Support from friends is a big part of anything, especially something as time-consuming as sports. What students have said though, would show that they may not be getting it. When seeking support from friends about sports, Jesse says that some people make “very rude comments about swimming, and the locker room lifestyle”. Marcello says that he doesn’t ask friends to come to his tennis matches to show support, but the whole tennis team is support enough. When Jake was asked if his friends support him, he replied with a simple “nope!”

Teammates can play an equally integral part in a student athlete’s support circle, and the perception of Community High, and that reflection on the student seems to be poor. Jesse said that “Some kids think that community is not exactly a good school; mostly they just think it’s a bunch of kids, who do art, and so there are a lot of jokes about it but I don’t really mind it.” Marcello had a similar response from teammates about Community, saying “they just say “oh yeah the school where everyone smokes” and “you’re stupid ‘cause you go to community””.

Although students face many hardships, socially, academically, and physically when it comes to sports, students tend to stick with them, and plan to play all four years of high school.

By: Gabe Kardia