College sports are something many enjoy, but only two percent of high schoolers go on to actually participate in them in college.  It is easy to forget that behind the game, there are actual people involved, who are struggling to perfect the art of balance. 

College athletes are forced into a demanding schedule that requires them to devote hours on end to both maintaining grades and demonstrating high performance on the field. 

“I wake up everyday before 8 a.m.” says Maggie Lonsinger,  VHS alumna and junior lacrosse player at UConn, “and I don’t get back to my dorm room until the sun goes down.” 

Maggie explained how she lives with two girls that are not athletes at UCONN, and their schedules allow for them to stop back at their apartment for a few hours at a time to get work done and rest. This probably doesn’t seem like a luxury or a big deal, but to collegiate athletes it is. 

Student athletes are expected to go from practice to weight room sessions while still finding the time to finish all of their assignments for their numerous classes.  Their participation is not confined to the season of their sport either. 

“Time management,” Maggie stresses, “is by far the key to this schedule, and I am happy to have learned it now rather than have to figure it out in the real world.” 

The real world she refers to is the working life after graduating. Maggie feels that those who are not given a larger workload in college might struggle adapting to more stressful situations, so she thinks being a collegiate athlete gives her a good head start for her future. 

Jack Lonsinger, a VHS alumnus and sophomore lacrosse player at Bryant University, testifies to the challenge of the scheduling aspect and the challenge of keeping the two portions of his life, sports and academics, separate.

“You have to learn to keep the sports on the field and the academics in the classroom,” Jack declared. “When you start mixing up the two it often leads to failure on one or both ends.”

Maggie talked about how school drama only hurts how you play, and how upcoming games can hold you back from storing the new information from class. But she again related it to after-college pursuits, saying she believes it  is a very important skill to be able to clear your mind after leaving your place of work and aim your focus elsewhere.  

The next time you are enjoying a huge rivalry college game after a wild tailgate, make sure to keep in mind how hard the athletes actually worked to step foot on that field.