As a participant in football in the fall, wrestling in the winter and track in the spring, junior Keion Ashjaee-Marshall never really has an offseason the way many athletes do.
Most weekdays he is already up at 5:45 a.m. By dawn, he’s arrived at SHS for a round of morning weightlifting. In between classes, Ashjaee-Marshall sometimes talks to coaches; on his shorter Red Days, he squeezes in another lifting session before heading to afternoon practices, which happens throughout every season.
Ashjaee-Marshall aspires to play football beyond high school, and his schedule is the most intense during the football season. He watches 3-4 hours of footage each week for upcoming games; sometimes he spends around 12 hours a day on football. Though he uses weekends to recover and rest, he still strives to attend weekend practice and review his own team’s performances for areas of improvement.
When he’s not playing on the varsity team, Ashjaee-Marshall plays 7-on-7 football for West Coast Preps, which often travels as far as Sacramento for tournaments. Because of this, he continues to practice in the mornings and lift in the evenings.
As for wrestling, Ashjaee-Marshall started in middle school to help him with tackling form and physical strength, which can be applied to football. For him, wrestling feels very different from football, and the transition to wrestling requires a lot of additional conditioning — in his first week of practice, he said he lost 10 pounds.
“The toughest [part] is having to deal with the change and the transition going into each different sport,” Ashjaee-Marshall said. “Because regardless of what sport you do, your body and your mind are never going to be 100% for the rest of the season.”
Track was also a sport Ashjaee-Marshall joined to enhance his performance in football, with a specific focus on improving his speed. Since it isn’t his main sport, he’s bounced around a few different events since freshman year, including the 200m, 100m, long jump, throwing and currently, hurdles. The transition into track isn’t easy, either, as he only felt faster and stronger after the first week where he was sore all the time.
“The key [to balancing things] is to take your time at the start of the season to get your bearings and understand where you’re at mentally so you’re able to create the best schedule for yourself to succeed during the season,” Ashjaee-Marshall said. “At the start of the season you also have to realize it’s only going to get worse from there — your schedule, the competition, the pressure — so you really have to gauge where you’re at and create the best schedule for yourself.”
While playing sports year-round builds up his physical endurance, it also increases his risk of injury. With one year left in high school, Ashjaee-Marshall is still considering whether to play all three sports in his senior year.
“There is always that feeling towards the end of the season where you don’t really want to do [a sport] anymore, because it gets kind of tedious,” Ashjaee-Marshall said. “The main reason I do it is for football, because that’s my future.”
Whether or not he continues also depends on how soon he commits to a college for football. If he commits early in the fall, then he likely won’t continue wrestling or track, since he’ll be practicing football exclusively and working with assistant coach Darrell Adams.
Balancing sports with academics, Ashjaee-Marshall said he feels a lot of pressure to perform well academically. He said he’s grateful for his teachers, who have helped in understanding his schedule and working with him during tutorials or free periods. In particular, Ashjaee-Marshall mentioned how AP Computer Science teacher Thomas Wang helped him prepare for the AP exam.
Though it seems like every moment outside of school is spent playing sports, Ashjaee-Marshall wishes he would have joined more clubs. He found the Investment Club interesting, and now hopes to major in business in college.
“I feel like it’s fun having hobbies, sharing those highs to people, learning new things about [others] and seeing if it’s something that you really want to keep in your life,” Ashjaee-Marshall said.
Freshman Anson Hulme: football, basketball and volleyball
Inspired by his older brother, Class of ’23 alumnus Seth Hulme, Hulme first started playing football in 8th grade. This past fall, even as a relative newcomer to the sport, Hulme started as quarterback for the school’s varsity football team. For him, the time commitment involves two hours of practice after school and one hour of film study each weekday Saturday morning practice.
In the past winter season, Hulme also played on the JV basketball team. He first started playing for fun in 7th grade as a way of engaging socially with friends, and played for a club (National Junior Basketball) in the spring and summer of 8th grade.
In the spring, Hulme was part of the school’s varsity volleyball team. Hulme picked up volleyball in 7th grade since his cousins and older brother played it, though he feels he’s stronger in football and basketball by comparison.
As a freshman, Hulme isn’t certain if he’ll continue playing sports year-round the way he has done for the past two years, since he feels that the academic workload in high school has significantly increased since middle school. In the future, he said he’ll consider committing to a college for football.
“It’s obviously a big time commitment. Some people think it’s just crazy, but in reality, it’s not super hard,” he said. “It’s just fun, and I like playing outside.”
Hulme also said playing multiple games every week can take a toll mentally. Because of the time he spends in sports, he often feels fully immersed in games even after they’ve ended, which can feel frustrating.
“When you make a mistake, you get totally in your head. You can’t really sleep well at night — everything’s just going through your head like, What could I have done better? What strategy should I do next time?” Hulme said. “Or [I’ll think], I should have made that shot. I should have done this. I should have done that.”
Hulme said the stress of such a busy schedule can be challenging, making it difficult to maintain focus on tasks like homework — sometimes, when he feels overwhelmed, he’ll treat himself with a bowl of ice cream to reset his focus.
Ultimately, he plays simply because he’s passionate about all three sports. When asked if he’d recommend others to play sports in all three seasons, Hulme said, “It’s super fun, so I’d encourage it. It’s good for you, so why not?”
