Staying up past midnight many nights doing homework and being on the varsity golf team, junior Amy Hong decided to drop her honors Spanish class.

Hong describes managing her school and sports schedules as a “domino effect,” meaning they have a direct impact on each other. She has been on the team since her freshman year and has experienced how completing schoolwork, going to practices and getting enough sleep have all affected each other.

Mike Schroeder, varsity girls golf coach, said he recalls that this summer Hong missed only one day of golf to attend Lollapalooza.

Hong said she played the most she has ever played this summer.  She said she worked hard all summer and hopes she will qualify for the state tournament this season.

Now that summer is over, Hong said she practices golf about two hours a day with her team and she plays more by herself after practice. In addition, she estimates she has three hours of homework each night.

This year, Hong decided not to take honors Spanish because as a sophomore she had to leave her 8-9 Spanish class early for tournaments. Hong said that missing the class was really hard and she could not keep up with the workload.

Hong said her academics were also affecting her athletics. One week in September she was very busy and had to stay up late to study for multiple exams. Hong said this lack of sleep affected her golf scores.

“I felt like I needed to hit more and I felt like I needed to practice more and that just meant more time being spent on golf,” said Hong. “And I also had a lot of work to do, so it was really hard thinking… ‘Should I go home and study, or should I practice more because I’m not doing very well?’”

Guidance counselor Craig Niemiec said managing a schedule like Hong’s is a juggling act.

“I think it’s a daily challenge [for student athletes], balancing their time with homework, their time with practice, their time with family commitments, their time with friends [and] their social commitments,” Niemiec said.

Both Hong and Niemiec agree that school comes first. Hong goes to school early sometimes to see teachers and get extra help. Hong said this just played even more into the “domino effect” of how having golf practice after school results in less time to do schoolwork, which then results in less sleep, and then going in for early extra help means even less sleep.

When asked what her strategy was for managing this schedule Hong said, “Not to procrastinate…even though you have two days to do it, if you have time, why not just do it early? That helps so much and it gets a lot off my mind.”