Published: 3 April 2017
St Kitts and Nevis (WINN): Track & Field has countless opportunities for students to secure a promising future, but they can easily lose these opportunities if academics are not prioritized.
This is according to Virgil Hodge, Assistant Coach of the Washington Archibald High School track & field team.
Ms. Hodge is speaking from experience as a former student athlete, Olympian and current national record-holder in 100m and 200m categories.
“My advice to them is stay in school, get an education. Once you are not doing well in school you are going to be ineligible and you can’t compete if you are ineligible in college [or] university and be disciplined, you have to be disciplined to the sport, you have to be disciplined to your academics.”
A student athlete and a coach speaking to WINN FM at the 41st edition of the TDC Inter-School Championship discussed the difficulties of balancing schoolwork with athletic training.
“The demands of athletics in terms of training, sometimes can take them away from their schoolwork, so I think it’s difficult from them to know when to put aside the sports and focus on their schoolwork or vice versa” said the coach.
“Yes, because at times I am kind of tired, but I still have to push myself because then at the end of it all, I’ll excel, because I want to go to a university.”
A coach from Sandy Point High School’s Track & Field team said that schools try their best to ensure that student athletes are properly managing both their academic and athletic responsibilities.
“At this present moment there is a balance, we ensure outright that athletics and education is balanced out so we don’t necessarily have a problem with that we just ensure that it’s really balanced out.”
The Charles E. Mills Secondary School retained their status as the defending champions of the TDC Inter-School Championships for the fourth consecutive time, winning 31 gold medals, 25 silver medals, and 12 bronze medals.
