WOODBURY–With most of the fall sports wrapping up, that means the winter season is right around the corner. This brings many new sports–boys and girls basketball, boys and girls swim and dive, boys and girls indoor track, as well as boys hockey and wrestling. A few of these sports teams have their games or meets off site, including hockey, indoor track and swim and dive. Due to being off site, many of their events don’t start till extremely late.

“Many of our games and practices don’t start until 8:45 and go till 10:15, with some games lasting even longer,” says senior hockey captain Henry Keil. “There are times when the bus doesn’t get back to Shepaug until 11:30 or later.” 

It isn’t just hockey that goes late, though. 

“Our meets start around 4:30, but because there’s very few schools with an indoor track, a bunch of schools go to every meet causing them to last until sometimes after 10,” says senior indoor track captain Sophia Garguilo. “These meets aren’t close either, with a lot of our meets being at Hill House [High School], causing us to not get home until after midnight sometimes.” 

Getting home this late from a game or meet certainly affects the athletes the next day. 

“I’m just exhausted throughout the day,” says Henry Keil, “and I feel that my schoolwork does take a hit since I can’t focus.” 

Keil is not the only one either. 

“I just don’t want to be there the next day, especially in the morning,” says Garguilo. “I’m definitely more tired throughout the day and don’t do as well on my work as I normally do.” 

As a hockey player my self, I am exhausted the day after an 8:30 game in Milford when we don’t get back to Shepaug until well after 11:30. Since I’m an out of district student, it’s another 30 minutes home for me from Shepaug, meaning I’m not home until after midnight and then have to be up in 6 hours to make it to school on time. 

As a student who takes challenging courses, including multiple APs, I feel my work is not up to my normal standards,  especially in morning classes.

There is a solution to this, which has been proven to work in surrounding schools, including Watertown High School and Pomperaug High School. Any sports bus that arrives back to the school from an event after 11pm is allowed to miss first period for the next day of school, and it counts as an excused absence. I think this could work very well for multiple reasons. First of which, it will give students at least an extra hour of sleep. 

“I agree, an extra hour of sleep would greatly benefit me, and it would cut down on athletes who skip the whole day after a game,” says Garguilo. This is another reason why it would be smart for the school to implement. Athletes wouldn’t skip the whole day if they had an excused absence for one period.

“I think it would benefit my school work greatly,” says Keil, “and since I wouldn’t be missing the whole day, I would still be eligible for practice that night.” 

Obviously, there would be some questions from administration–the biggest being “why?” Why would we give this to student athletes when they are the ones who chose to play the sport; it’s not a requirement at the school. I believe that this argument is just flat out wrong. Student athletes compete for their school, to be a part of the school community and this wouldn’t be giving them an unfair advantage, but instead giving them the best chance to succeed in their school work as well as their athletic careers.