Sports and sevenths: Loss of playing time for students with full schedules an unfair reality

Sophomore Greg Yang was looking forward to swimming all year. However, his optimism was crushed when he was told that due to a scheduling conflict with his seventh-period class, he would not be able to practice with the team and compete this season.

But this is not the first of Yang’s seventh-period troubles. During the fall, Yang played on the water polo team, despite missing the first hour of practice every day. Even though Yang was able to practice with the team, his playing time was limited, at least a minor result from his frequent absences.

Yang is one of several students athletes whose performance has been adversely impacted by their course schedule. Having a seventh period makes it difficult for these athletes to dedicate themselves to their sport.

To resolve this conflict, the school has two options: Make it easier for students to change their schedule to meet their practice times or make sports teams schedule their practices at a time suitable to players.

Sports that practice during seventh period include both water polo teams, both swim teams, football and boys’ golf.

At the beginning of the year, Yang attempted to change his schedule so that he would have an unscheduled seventh period rather than an unscheduled first period, but was unable to switch it. The main problem with changing schedules is the difficulty that occurs once the school year has begun and class sizes have been established. This stems from the issue that students are not allowed to switch from a smaller class to a larger class.

Although increasing schedule flexibility offers an intriguing idea, it is simply too difficult for the school to make changes to multiple student schedules to accommodate practice times, and it is unfair to ruin the schedules of students who do not need schedule changes because a student athlete needs to take their spot in their class.

The need to balance the demands of both athletes and non-athletes makes schedule changes a difficult solution to the problem. A better approach is to talk with the coach and find an alternative option.

Different sports may have different solutions to missing practice times. Students swimming, for example, could join a DACA team to make up for the lost practice time.

Yang’s coach gave him the option of joining a DACA team for practices and swimming with the team during meets, but Yang was unable to commit due to other conflicts.

Students who work with their coaches are bound to find a solution to their problem because coaches respect players who are willing to dedicate themselves to practicing and helping the team, according to athletic director Peter Jordan.

One exception is water sports, which must schedule their practices around DACA Swim Club practice time. Because the school rents out the pool to DACA for most of the afternoon, water sports practice times must be earlier in the afternoon, forcing students like Yang into unfortunate situations.

As of now, it is very difficult to play certain sports when a student has a seventh period. In general, though, athletes should be able to take the class schedule they want and not suffer on the playing field because of it.