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Sports Overload
"I didn’t want to practice five days a week and I definitely didn’t want to run until I threw up."
By Alex D’Agostino
During junior year of high school, I decided to quit the soccer team, even though I had been playing the sport for ten years. My decision to quit wasn’t because I wasn’t good enough to make the varsity team; it was because I got tired of the overly-competitive nature of varsity sports.
When I started playing soccer it was always fun. At practice everyone would joke around more than we actually practiced. As I became older, people around me started to take the game more seriously. Players would try to hurt one another, and sometimes fights would break out.
In 8th grade we played a game where my team got in two fights, and the game ended with another fight. Even though I was part of it, I thought that everyone was taking soccer too seriously, even me.
When I showed up for tryouts in 11th grade I was surprised at how hard they were making us work. One of the coaches made the players run wind-sprints until two kids threw up. I didn’t want to practice five days a week and I definitely didn’t want to run until I threw up.
Even though sports can be beneficial to students and are an integral part of the high school experience for some kids, sometimes varsity sports can be harmful. Some athletes take their sports too seriously and let them dominate their lives. Sports are meant to be an addition to school, not a replacement for it.
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