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All year athletes attempt to balance their lives

By Julia Adams — Imagine 28 hours a week, staying up an extra two hours every night to get all your homework done and having little to no free time on the weekends.

This is the life multiple sport athletes know and love.

Junior Evan Maley plays basketball, baseball and football. Maley has been playing basketball and baseball since he was 4, and tried playing football this year.

He could not imagine being able to pick between these, but sometimes it seems Maley may have to. Going from football to baseball to basketball all in one night can take a toll on a student athlete.

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“It has gotten harder to manage playing three sports over the years, the seasons have gotten longer, practices have gotten harder and the competition has gotten more fierce,” Maley said.

He admits his hectic sports schedule affects his sleep schedule and his grades.

“After a couple hours of a tough practice and after a long school day, all I want to do is go home and sleep, but I have to stay up an extra two hours a night to get my homework done,” Maley said.

Freshmen sisters Grace and Hannah Werren can relate to Maley’s overwhelmed feelings and balancing school and sports. Hannah plays soccer, basketball, runs cross country and track. Grace plays soccer, runs cross country and track as well.

“I have to stay up and work extra hard to get good grades,” Grace said.

Another difficulty these athletes have to face is having equal practice time with their sports. The Werren sisters both play varsity soccer and run varsity cross country. These sports are in the same season. This makes it hard for the girls to spend an equal amount of time practicing for both sports, and the coaches are adamant about having them there, because the girls are such big parts of the teams.

Grace said they sat down with their coaches and made a set schedule, of when they were going to be where.

“It’s tough, but you have to find ways to compromise and work around the other sports schedules to make the coaches and team happy,” Hannah said.

The girls spent 28 hours a week on average at games and practices. While being in school for 35 hours a week. The girls are in all honors classes and spend 10 hours a week after practice doing school work.

The Werren sisters had a big jump going from middle school sports to being freshmen playing varsity.

“It was a huge adjustment, there’s so much more work you have to put in, bigger competition between not just other schools, but competing for spots on the team,” Grace said.

The Werrens say they will have to pick between their multiple sport lifestyle in the future, but not now.

These athletes play year round, no breaks, from one sport to another. Maley played his last football game on a Friday and had basketball tryouts that Saturday.

“I’m exhausted but ready for the basketball season to start,” Maley said.

Both Maley and the Werren’s are accustom to the non-stop lifestyle of being a student athlete.

As hard as the balance between school and sports can be for athletes, they would not trade it for the world.

[Updated Aug. 7, 2017: This article has been reformatted for consistency.]

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All year athletes attempt to balance their lives