“Put in the Effort and It’s Bound to Pay Off”: Maximizing Your Time as a Student-Athlete

by Row New York varsity rower Deborah Pantaleon

In just a couple of weeks, the seniors at RNY will be receiving little white envelopes that may or may not contain their futures. So, congratulations seniors! You have (somewhat) officially been released from the pressure of being high school student-athletes. Meanwhile, the rest of us had to crawl our way to the end of the first semester of school, and are just now realizing that it’s only going to get harder from here on out.

Racing season is just around the corner, and whether you’re a freshman, sophomore, junior, or even a senior, managing your time is about to get a whole lot harder. Winter season is almost over (thank God!), and both coaches and athletes are ready to hit the ground running. Better said, hit the water rowing. Our practices will inevitably get longer as the coaches try to maximize the time out on the water. So, what does that mean for us? It means we’ll have to learn how to maximize our time outside of practice because we’re student athletes, and as the name itself implies, school comes first.

And so, what are some ways we can do this?

For starters, get off your phones! I myself am guilty of spending just a bit too much time online, but it has to change. Truth is, we all love scrolling through Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and much more, but we must admit that those 45 minutes we like spend on Snapchat are not essential to our existence. This is not to say that you have to isolate yourself from the social media completely, but you can spend half of that time actually doing homework or reviewing vocab for the SATs.

Something else you can do to maximize your time is find ways to actually get homework done during race days. I know how hard it can be trying to get work done while at the racecourse, but that’s not the only time you have; we just got new coach buses to go to races. Take advantage of them! Now that we’re not all squeezed in vans together, it’s not a bad idea to practice your beloved math skills, or even just take out a book and read for a bit.

Lastly, try not to procrastinate too much every night. Coming home dead tired every day is not my favorite thing in the world – but I will say that it’s worth it. And just like you pushed yourself halfway through that 2k, you should also try to push yourself to actually get work done. You’re not getting to that finish line by just sitting in a boat and not pulling your weight; just like you’re not getting to graduation day by just sitting there and not doing your work. School will always be a drag in our minds. That’s because we’re teenagers. But just because we’re teenagers doesn’t mean that we have to be irresponsible and leave everything for the last minute. The only real advice that I can give on procrastination, and thank you Nike, is to just shut up and do it. Put in the effort and it’s bound to pay off.

Row New York doesn’t just pride itself on being a great rowing team. It also prides itself in having a great group of young adults who want to go (and will go) far in life. And so, just like we can find time to come to practice every day, we should also find ways to make sure that our academic lives are exactly where they should be. Just like your typical rower might say: you got through a 2k, you can get through anything, including this.

Tags