Balancing schoolwork and sports can be very difficult for many student athletes, but missing school for those sports makes it even harder. Those who participate in boys’ and girls’ golf or track and field miss school quite often during the spring season.

The boys’ and girls’ golf teams miss the most school on a weekly basis out of any athletic team at BSM. “During the golf season, I miss about three days per week. Some matches are invites so I’m gone for the whole day, but for a regular nine hole match we leave during 5th hour,” senior girls’ golf captain Gracey Scott said. Track and Field athletes also miss lots of school at the end of the day due to track meets throughout the season. “I miss seventh and eighth hour twice a week depending on how far away the meet is,” senior track and field captain Eric Wilson said.

Even though missing school sounds like a fun affair, it comes with a lot of difficulties. “The hardest part is keeping up with what I miss in class and making up the in-class work and the homework. Communicating with teachers is very important because I’ll be missing three of their classes per week. Time management is very important during the season,” Scott said. After missing around twelve classes a week, it can really start to impact the amount of work a student needs to catch up on.

These students try to make up the work that they miss in a variety of different ways. “After I miss school for track or sometimes the day before, I definitely go into school in the morning to talk to teachers and get help on whatever I missed,” Wilson said. There are always ways to get extra help from teachers when a student misses school due to sports. “Talking to your teachers in advance is very important. If they give you the work you’ll miss beforehand, you can get a start on completing it. Also, talking with them about the season in general helps, so they know ahead of time you’re going to be missing their classes a lot,” Scott said.

At the end of the day, being a student athlete is a hard and complicated task to handle for thousands of high schoolers around the country, but when these students miss school once, twice, or even three times per week to compete in their respective sport, it makes it even harder for them to stay on top of their schoolwork and fully participate in that sport.