If you pay close attention to the crowd of students as they walk into school, the athletes are easy to pick out, as they are the students with two bags! One backpack and one sports bag, and sometimes they’re already holding their water bottle in preparation for their sport. As a student athlete myself, I can tell you that there is a time management challenge inherent in participating in a sport. Practicing after school, traveling to and from games, and meeting with coaches and teammates are all part of what we signed up for. So getting your work done during lunch, free periods, and bus rides is the norm. In fact student athletes usually get home after six o’clock, which means eating dinner while working on their iPads is part of a typical evening. After our work is finished we get ready to go to bed, and prepare our sports bag for the following day, making sure we have all our required equipment. Though time management of academics is difficult to handle mixed with sports, the upside is great and so worth it! For me, bonding with teammates ranging from 9th to 12th graders that I normally would not get the chance to know otherwise is what makes it all worthwhile.

I recently posed the following question to my fellow student athletes: What is the best part of being on an athletic school team and do you feel you have learned anything from the experience? Ana Konyk, a senior on the varsity soccer team, said, “The best part of being on a school team is playing a sport I love with people I might not normally spend time with. As a team, we grow as athletes and individuals.” Albert Rubin, a junior on the varsity soccer and varsity swim teams, said, “The best part is getting to know people who I don’t always hang out with like people in other grades. I’ve learned that once you know your teammates, accomplishing your team’s goal is easy.” They echoed my exact sentiments! BC student athletes enjoy the sport, yes, but even more so they enjoy pushing themselves as a team in order to achieve the shared goal of winning. There is nothing more exhilarating than playing for our home crowd and hearing the crowd cheer you on; it’s so exciting and makes every athlete step up his or her game. Although we know every game does not always end in a win, a team faces the adversities together and learns from defeat and gets stronger. Losing a few times also makes winning more empowering. Though players might be at different skill levels, working together and learning from one another makes the journey that much better. BC student athletes learn to work as one unit in order to be victorious. There is no “I” in team, and no matter how incredible one player is, it takes teamwork to make the dream work and win.

I asked many BC student athletes about their team experiences while writing this article, and though I randomly chose the ones above, the answers all had a common theme: playing sports is a lot of fun. But most importantly, crossing barriers, being inclusive, bonding with teammates, and pushing together towards a win was ultimately as, or even more, important than the final score.