STUDENT athletes at Granger High have accomplished some of their long-term goals. Within their high school years, every student has the option whether or not they want to participate in an extracurricular activity. Most students don’t fully understand how difficult it is to balance school and sports. “Growing up my mom always made sure that I put school before sports. It was always God first, school second, and then sports,” Tavite Tonga (12) said.

It’s not always easy to make time for school work if students always have practice. When you play a sport showing up to practice is very important. “Practice didn’t just determine whether or not if I was going to play in that weeks game. It was also a good way to help me improve on certain skills and techniques,” Tonga said.

Practice can get in the way with students’ school work, it might even take up too much of their time. After practice, most students get tired and don’t feel like getting anything done. “After practice I’m usually so tired because it would always take so long and it was very hard to get my homework done,” Lily Yu (12) said.

Playing a sport takes a lot of hard work and students have made plenty of sacrifices to participate in the spots that they enjoy. “I always liked to hang out with my friends and I couldn’t really do that because I always had practice or I had a football game,” Mason Fue (12) said.

There was always more than one sport going on at the same time and for some students that was a challenge. “I really liked playing tennis but I knew I wanted to play volleyball and that was a big decision for me,” Yu said.

As these students at Granger High began to realize it’s not that easy being a student athlete, some students made the decision to just drop the sport and put all their focus on bettering their education. “Playing rugby and trying to keep up with all my school work was kind of hard so I just wanted to stop playing rugby and really pay attention to school,” Anthony Fiaputa (12) said.

Playing different sports that are enjoyed by different students from Granger is great thing. “Playing football has really helped me and bettered me to become who I am today. I’m really glad I took the chance to play football,” Fue said. Some students really like being student athletes. “I can honestly say that playing volleyball was one of the best experiences of my high school life,” Yu said.

There are many good things that come out of playing a sport and getting good grades. “Playing football I was able to get a scholarship and make my family really proud,” Tiger Mulitalo (12) said.

It can be a wonderful experience to play a sport and keeping up with grades. Knowing what it takes to be a successful student athlete is very crucial. Every student at Granger High has the opportunity to be a great student athlete. Just know that it will take a lot of time and hard work.