Academic and Athletic Untimely Schedules Beget Student Anxiety
By Sarah August ‘07 News Associate Editor
During the days immediately preceding and succeeding Thanksgiving vacation, Choate students were receiving the emails that could make or break their term. Yes, tryout results. Many Choaties spent the last week of the term battling it out on the rink or on the court with the hopes of gaining entry to their competitive team of choice. Many students made the team, but plenty did not. Perhaps you comforted a friend that who rejected from playing an interscholastic sport this winter, or even experienced the disappointment of being cut yourself. Interscholastic sports are competitive; with only so many spots available on each team, rejection and the feelings of frustration and displeasure that may result are an inherent part of tryouts. Athletic tryouts at Choate, however, are much more stressful and anxiety-inducing than they need be.
Much of the unnecessary angst of tryouts at Choate is a consequence of scheduling. Sports tryouts are held the week prior to exams. Need I say more? The busy days before vacation are already the most stressful of the term. With students already struggling to finish their homework and simultaneously study for end-of-term exams, pack up their things, and confirm their travel plans, tryouts are only another source of anxiety.
By scheduling sports tryouts the week before exams, the Choate administration puts students in a tricky situation: either sacrifice good studying time to try out for a sport, or opt out of a sport you’d really love to play because you want to do well on your exams. And students who chose to try out for interscholastic sports but were cut have forfeited hours that could have potentially been used to study. I have several friends who did not try out, or dropped out early, for fear of being cut and losing study time.
Then there are students who participated in interscholastic fall sports, such as volleyball and soccer, which had tournaments the last week of school. Any players on those teams hoping to play a competitive were immediately disadvantaged because they only got a day or two to try out—as opposed to other students having a week (if not more) to demonstrate their skills. Choate’s bad scheduling has probably lost it players that could have been an invaluable part of our teams.
The alternatives for students cut from sports teams are pretty limited. By the time a student knows that he or she will not be playing an interscholastic sport, only the least popular intramural sports have any space remaining. Kids who went out on a limb to try out for a competitive team find themselves stuck with an undesirable sport or activity for the entire term. What would motivate a student that has been cut to try out for an interscholastic sport ever again?
So what can the Choate administration do? Move the date of sports tryouts to the first week of the term. Athletic coaches may argue that changing the tryout schedule would give them insufficient time to prepare the team for the first contest of the season. This may be true, but should the outcome of the first game of the season take precedence over the welfare of students? Matches can be rescheduled. Most teams do not have a contest every single Wednesday or Saturday of the season, so why not move the first game to on of those free days? As for intramural sports, let kids trying out for an interscholastic sport also sign up for a safety intramural. Or hold intramural sign ups until after tryouts have been completed. A few changes to the schedule and process of tryout out signing up for sports could potentially take away a lot of the stress of the last week of school and make trying out, a normally taxing activity, a little more enjoyable.
