Archie Williams is home to 36 sports teams and more than 750 athletes, not including the many students participating in non-school-affiliated athletics. This means that over 60 percent of the Archie Williams student body is balancing academics and athletics, sacrificing time, physical, and mental health in pursuit of their passions. However, student athletes face early release, long days, and physical and emotional exhaustion that can lead to difficulty completing schoolwork. 

Where many students who aren’t athletes can utilize their time outside of school for homework, rest, and socialization, athletes must sacrifice those hours for training or games. This can lead to time constraints when completing schoolwork, contributing to stress and often a loss of sleep.

Archie Williams senior Will Mulliken runs on the Archie Williams track and field and cross-country teams. He finds that athletics take up a lot of his time, disrupting his ability to do his homework in a timely manner to get to sleep. 

“I’ve definitely found that I’ll have to do homework a little bit later than I’d hoped into the night, and it can mess with your sleep,” Will said.

While it is recommended for high school students to get eight to ten hours of sleep, student-athletes tend to fall below this recommendation, with 79 percent of student-athletes getting below eight hours. Athletes who go from school to practice to homework often find this balance difficult to maintain, causing them to struggle in their academics.

Alexandra Berry, a sophomore at Archie Williams who is on the soccer, cross country, and track teams, also finds that managing school and sports can be stressful. 

“It can be challenging when you’re trying to be a student-athlete, not an athlete student. It’s hard to balance school and athletics because they’re two major things in a lot of people’s lives,” Alexandra said. “So, trying to find the balance between doing your athletics and your school is really important.”

Not only can it be difficult to manage athletics and academics, but students also experience pressure from athletic standards in any sport. External pressures can come from comparison with teammates, professional athletes that student-athletes may look up to, or coaching. These expectations often become internalized, leading to self-motivated stress and pressure.

“I think athletic expectations can be really mentally draining because you’re putting so much pressure on yourself to perform well and especially if you’re on a team and you don’t perform as well as you want, you’re scared [because] it can affect other people or [you think that] you’re a burden to your team,” Alexandra said.

One manifestation of athletic pressure is in performance anxiety, typically before a game, race, or show. Performance anxiety is common among both athletes and non-athletes, often triggering nervousness in situations ranging from playing sports to something as routine as parallel parking. Anxiety that athletes may feel before an event can be amplified from an emotional dedication to their sports.

The anxiety can manifest in many physical forms, such as sweating, shaking, and nausea. Elsa Wahlstrom, a junior at Archie Williams and a dancer with Stapleton School of the Performing Arts, recognizes that performance anxiety can look different in each individual.

“When I get pre-performance anxiety, it’s like a nervous ball of energy. My hands get really tingly and then it feels like I’m losing control over my limbs, but then it kind of goes away once I get on stage,” Elsa said. “[Sometimes] I start panicking right before I go on stage because I’m like, ‘oh my God, I’m gonna get on stage and I’m gonna fall.’”

Paula Thompson, Professor of Kinesiology at California State University, Northridge, Clinical Psychologist, and Certified Sports Psychologist, has studied and taught about the impact of this pressure, which can be devastating in athletes’ lives and careers when pushed too far.

“If you set unrealistic goals for yourself, then you can get depressed. If you overtrain and there are a lot of external and internal pressures to succeed, over time, the risk of burnout increases, and many, many talented people will burn out and just pull out of the sport,” Thompson said.

Those surrounded by these pressures are more susceptible to unhealthy relationships with their athletic success and motivation. Perfectionism is a physical manifestation of pressure and overworking and a significant component of internal pressures, which can be detrimental to athletes’ mental and physical well-being. Athletic expectations vary between sports, affecting how students view their athletic performance. As a runner, the time-based nature of Will’s sport is an example of evident expectations that have dictated his experience in training.

“Running is very results-based; you’re training to get a faster time, and everything is kind of rated, and in that sense, you can literally see if you did well or not,” Will said. “There have been times when I’ve had a bad race, and things feel pointless; I just lose motivation to do my homework. My entire mood is dictated by my bad race, which is not good at all, and it’s something I’ve had to work on, and still can work on.”

Feeling extreme pressure from athletic expectations is detrimental, both mentally and physically. Athletes can misrepresent their drive for athletic success through negative body image; instead of balanced and sustainable training, athletes may focus excessively on how their body looks to improve their performance. According to the National Library of Medicine, there’s a “general characteristic of an athlete” in many sports that pushes a stereotype of what an athlete should look like. 

“There’s the stereotype that cross country runners are really skinny, which I do realize, but I try to just not pay much attention to that, and I race a lot of different people that look totally different,” Will said. 

Stereotypes like this exist in many sports and create an ideal body type for success within that sport. A study done by the National Library of Medicine reports that there’s a higher body image dissatisfaction for athletes, connected to a higher risk of disordered eating, to adhere to the ideal body of the sport.

“I’ve seen people try to not eat enough or eat less food to lose weight because it seems like if you’re lighter, you’re gonna be able to run faster. But I think that’s a very big mistake,” Will said.

Although athletes can develop eating disorders in order to fit the stereotypes of the sport and achieve greater athletic success, this comes at the physical detriment of the athlete. Thompson says that negative body image and disordered eating are some of the worst potential consequences of athletics.

“[It’s harmful] if you’re using [sports] as weight control. Then you’re over-exercising or not listening [to your body] when you’re injured, and then you further injure yourself or make something become a chronic injury,” Thompson said. 

Injuries are also very prominent among student-athletes, and can have a profound impact on their well-being. When students are serious athletes, their sport can occupy a significant part of their lives. When an injury hinders their performance, it not only impacts their athletic success but also affects their mental health. 

“The hardest part of running is [being injured] and not being able to run because it feels like you’re going backward… You have to be able to take it, move on, and realize that you’ll grow out of it,” Will said.

Injuries are a physical barrier preventing athletes from returning to their sport. Exercising on an injury can lead to chronic issues that compromise athletic performance and daily physical activity. However, many athletes aspire to return to their sport prematurely or experience high expectations that push them towards overworking, often at the expense of their health. 

“You feel pressure to get better and get back to dancing because you want [to be able to dance]. You don’t want to seem like you have a weakness… so you’re constantly having to prove yourself when you come back from an injury,” Elsa said.

With years-long exposure to high pressure and anxiety in sports and their effect on student athletes’ daily lives, these stressors can build up to an experience called burnout. It is often defined by the physical and psychological exhaustion that turns a once enjoyable activity into a source of pervasive stress. 

“When burnout starts happening, you start to lose your interest, you start to feel depersonalized, which is when you feel like you’re outside of yourself, watching yourself go through the motions, you feel like you don’t have a purpose or meaning,” Thompson said. “Burnout happens when you haven’t had adequate rest, [or] when your self-care is not adequate enough.”

Burnout can make student-athletes lose motivation to continue playing their sport. This loss of motivation can not only affect their athletics, but also their academic performance and overall well-being. Without proper rest, the mental toll of burnout can be overwhelming for student-athletes. 

“Burnout is a major part of playing high school sports. When you’ve been go-go-going all the time, it can be really hard to stay motivated,” Alexandra said. “I think taking a break can be really helpful.”

However, because sports can be so demanding, athletes develop important skills in coping with high-stress situations, managing their time effectively, and cultivating a strong work ethic. According to Thompson, participating in sports has a scientific benefit, providing social support and connection. She says exercise releases serotonin, and that it can improve one’s mood when done every day, comparing movement to taking an antidepressant.

“It’s a commitment and it’s a sacrifice, but it’s definitely the best sacrifice I’ve made,” Will said.