Stress is something everyone has to face throughout their life. But are student athletes facing more stress than other people or is it something they can control with a change in schedule? Is it something they can fix with the right help or do they just have to learn to deal with it?

Athletes have been under a lot of pressure from the start but why is it that now all of a sudden there seems to be a major rise in stress as well as people quitting their sport? How can we prevent these issues?

One of the big issues that has been brought up is the lack of time student athletes are given to complete things such as homework and training for their sport as well as the time that is needed for personal care. In the normal day in a student athlete’s life, they have practices that can span from anywhere between 1 hour to 4 hours. On top of that they still have to complete homework in the same amount of time everyone else is given.

This becomes an issue since there is only so much time in a day. This leaves student athletes with the decision between completing their homework or doing other important things such as eating and getting a good amount of sleep. Most of the athletes in this situation end up giving up their sleep for homework which leaves them tired the next day.

“My school work really piles up from all my classes because of all the homework I have to do with minimal time,” said sophomore Kanani Yerena. This constant cycle of being sleep deprived and overworked can lead to further issues such as mental health struggles and can also lead to student athletes having poor relationships with loved ones due to the lack of time they have to spend with them as well as the bad mood they’re in at times.

When athletes are in season, this feeling of constant stress can skyrocket due to strict diets before games or competitions and extra training in order to prepare. There is also often the stress of needing to be “perfect” for coaches and teammates which leads athletes to feel like every little mistake is a huge deal. This causes them to overwork themselves even more.

“During the season I do feel like there’s extra pressure because I feel like I can’t let my team or my coach down and like I always have to be doing my best at all times” said freshman, Emi Tanaka.

This leaves athletes feeling like there is always a way they can be better and this ends with them getting in their head and becoming an incredibly harsh critic of themselves.

All of this stress and the need to be perfect often distract athletes from the reason they are playing their sport and takes out all of the fun they used to experience and replaces it with worry. Because of this the number of athletes that quit every season has jumped dramatically and shows that something needs to be done about the issue.

“What I think could help the amount of athletes that quit is finding the reason they play that sport”, said Chloe Hoang-Tieu.

Student athletes are being overworked and over pressured and are being told that what they are experiencing is normal and is what everyone else is going through but the truth is it isn’t what everyone else is going through.

Everyone’s experience is unique to them which is why, at the end of the day, athletes need to be provided with different accommodations that make it just a little easier for them to balance the many different things they have to accomplish in a day. Some ways this could be done is teachers having more forgiving deadlines or being aware of how much more they are assigning their students.