Students balance double lives playing both school and club sports

Anna Baldwin
opinion editor

Being on a school sports team and a travel team creates a busy and stressful life for athletes. Some athletes go straight from a school practice to their travel team practice. This leaves little time for homework and friends.

School sports have practice every day after school. Casey Schuler, a junior who plays soccer here and for her travel team, EDP division 1 FC Bordeaux, has practice four days a week in addition to the school practices.

Miranda Wright, a junior who plays soccer here as well as her travel soccer team, Potomac ‘02 Blue, has practice two or three days a week that she goes to after school practice. Being on multiple teams creates a need for athletes to have good time management. “I handle being on both teams because I do all of my homework before my practices,” Wright said.

School soccer and travel soccer have their differences. “In travel soccer the team has more chemistry because we have been playing together for longer,” Wright said.
Playing for multiple teams allows athletes to improve and play a sport that they love more often. “I love travel soccer because it allows me to go out every weekend and just play soccer,” Schuler said.

School soccer creates a different feeling than travel soccer. “I love my teammates on Wootton soccer. We are like a family and I love having practice while playing against friends from other schools,” Schuler said.

School volleyball and travel volleyball also have different feelings from each other. “For Wootton volleyball you’re with people you see everyday and you know outside of volleyball while in club you met new people every year because you are on a new team every year so your experiences changes while on club,” junior Mainee Schleret said.

Being on a school team allows athletes to reach out to other people they might not have met otherwise. “The thing I love about Wootton soccer is the friendships. It lets me meet people from other grades and other friend groups, I also enjoy beating other schools such as Churchill,” Wright said.

Travel soccer requires athletes to play more often and to travel to see other competition farther away. “I love travel soccer because I love being able to play every weekend and travel around the East Coast to play and I love being with my team almost everyday,” Schuler said.

Since travel soccer is all year round, athletes create more chemistry when playing. “I love playing with my travel soccer team because we understand each other’s playing style,” Wright said.

Although travel soccer is a good way to play more, playing for high school is something special. When athletes play for their high school, they are not only playing for themselves, they are playing for the school community. “I love playing soccer for Wootton because the Wootton community is really supportive, which gives us more motivation to play better,” Sabrina Shah, a junior on soccer said.