Anyone can play sports

I believe anyone should have the chance to play sports. No matter what your talent is, there should never be a restriction on playing a sport. Sports are activities that bring different kinds of people together to start friendships. It’s not all about the talents you have or the winning of the games, it’s about getting people involved in something that is good for the body and social life. Yes, there are times and a level where it’s competitive and where it’s not all about friendship, but that is not always true.

In high school there is a level that is called Varsity. The Varsity level is for the athletes that are advanced in their skills are competitive at the sport they play. These girls are more likely to have been playing the sport since they were little. These girls don't have to be taught how to play, they already know how to, it’s just coaching them to become better players at that particular sport. To play at this level you have to know what you are doing, and you can't be out for the sport for fun or to hangout and meet new friends.

Any other level at a high school, people can play and go out for the sport. Doesn't matter what your talents are or the reasoning why you are going out, you just can be going out to meet people. I believe that sports should start to encourage kids with special needs to go out for certain sports and be involved with kids that they see throughout the school day. This could make them feel more appreciated and feel like they are a part of something like every other regular kid. I think this would extremely cool and would have a huge impact on the high school overall. It would show that we are more than just a winning or athletic school, but that we are a part of something bigger than that.

Sports are fun whether you are good at them or not. I think practices are even more fun if you aren’t super serious about the game because you aren’t the best or haven’t been playing since you were five, because you get to hang out with people you probably don’t normally hangout with. After a long day of school, practice can actually just be a kind of stress reliever and a good way to burn off some energy!

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Pep Assemblies

Pep assemblies at Kennedy High School are not like pep assemblies at different schools. We have the whole school screaming and yelling and participating, but for what? A point in the spirit stick competition! Three times a year we have pep assemblies, fall, winter, and spring. Each assembly essentially recognizes the precious season’s sports and their accomplishments.

Each class has their designated section of the gym that they sit in for every assembly. The freshman and sophomores sit on one side and the juniors and seniors on the other side. Your whole class sits in their section and participates to try and win a point for your grade. There are many ways to win points. There are the usual competitions like the class with the most spirit or school colors and the class that does their assigned cheer the loudest. These competitions start off the spirit stick competition. Next there are different ways you can win points, the administration chooses different competition that we have no idea of until Mr. Stecker announces it at the time of that competition. We have no control or preparation time for these. They could be anything from Tallest/Shortest person from each class or someone with the highest score on Candy crush. As soon as Mr. Stecker says the category, each class chooses one person to represent their grade in the middle of the gym. There is a panel of judges (3 teachers) who will chose the winner and award that grade a point! Usually there are 6 or 7 competitions where each class tries to win and there are a few relays in which each class chooses 4 representatives they think will win the competition, keep in mind they don’t know what they are going to be doing until they are standing in the middle of the gym in front of the whole school.

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Stress of athletics

There are many stresses and things that could go wrong being an athlete.

The biggest thing for me is the time management. I have practices most of the days of the week along with the homework and family priorities on top of that. I often find myself very busy with little free time to relax or do activities. All of this “go, go, go” gets very tiring and soft of annoying because you feel like you don’t ever have time to relax.

Another stressful thing about playing a sport is when you get frustrated and you feel like nothing is going right. Sometimes, when you are working at things and trying to get better, you feel like you're getting worse instead of you get better. There are a lot of failures before success, but eventually you get it. Also, people get frustrated when they are not doing so well in practice or in a game. In track this is easy to do, and because so much of the game is mental, one mistake could affect your running and it makes you mad because you know you could have done better. We just have to remember that it is okay to make mistakes and that you learn from them. 

Another problem with some athletes is getting tired of your sport. If someone is constantly practicing and playing with no breaks, they might get burnt out and not enjoy playing or not want to play anymore. This is probably more likely to happen if the practices seem repetitive, like they're doing the same things all the time in practice. Some people will get burnt out, but some who really enjoy the game won't. It just depends on the person. Some ways to prevent this from happening is to take a break from it, or in your free time do things non sports related, so you're not always thinking about it and you're not always with the same people all the time. Sometimes it's not always the sport you get tired of, but the people. 

In sports, it's important to have good team chemistry. It is important for the team to get along so they can play well together, and when they don't it can be frustrating. That is another tough thing about playing sports; getting along with your teammates and how to deal with it if you don't. When people don't get along or if players have bad attitudes it can affect the whole team, even if it is just a couple people from the team because it can make the game not fun to play. 

All these things are very hard to deal with, but as athletes we have to push through it because that is what happens in sports, and if you love the sport enough it won't matter what you have to deal with to play it.

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Class Registration

It’s that time of year where you starting signing up for the classes you want to next in the upcoming year. Keep in mind that it is January and we’re only half way done with the year. I don’t know what classes I don’t know what classes I want to take, I’m not even done with my classes for the current year! But I understand that assigning kids to different classes and teachers is a very long process so they want us to register very early.

There are certain requirements you have to meet in order to graduate at the end of your senior year. You need to complete the following:

·         4 years of language arts

·         3 years of math

·         3 years of science

·         3 years of social studies (including government and economics)

·         2 years of a foreign language

You also have to take a certain amount of “elective” classes to get the need number of credits to graduate. Electives include: foreign language, business classes, other core subject classes, etc..

Most people take all 4 core classes for all four years of high school, but others do not. For example, I want to pursue business in college, so I am not taking a science class my senior year. I don’t need another science class because my major doesn’t require it and because I have already completed the 3 years of science that I need to graduate.

Your junior and senior year, you have the option of doing Kirkwood classes. There are different courses that are available to high school students to take during the school day, at Kirkwood, the can earn you a specific number of college credits. This is a great opportunity for everyone and I would really consider taking one of these classes because it can get required classes out of the way for you in college and it’s FREE!!! Taking Kirkwood classes doesn’t mean that you have to attend Kirkwood after high school, most of the credits for these classes will transfer over to whatever college you decide to go to.

If Kirkwood doesn’t sound interesting to you because you are unsure of what you want to do in college or they don’t offer any classes that you think you may need, I would strongly encourage you to look into the AP classes that we offer right here at Kennedy. They are college level classes and can also earn you college credit if you chose to take the AP test at the end of the year.

These are both great opportunities for high school students and we should take advantage of these while we can.

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Netflix

I don’t remember the last time that I watched actual TV. Whenever I have time to watch something, I always watch Netflix. I think this is the same for probably 80% of teenage kids. Netflix has become so popular of teenagers in high school and college.

Netflix is about $8.00 a month, so it is very affordable. There is a huge variety of shows and movies you can watch. Ever few months or so, Netflix puts out different shows/movies, for more options. Whether you want to watch a comedy show, a reality show, horror, mystery, or an action show, I promise there is something for you to watch.

Netflix is great because once you find a show you really like, you can watch as many episodes as you want at one time. You don’t have to wait a whole week for the next episode to come out, you can sit down and “binge-watch” any show you want. Parents probably don’t love this idea of staying in bed all day and watching TV, but kids love it. There are so many great shows to watch and if you aren’t sure where to start, ask around! So many people can give you options of shows they liked and can suggest shows that they think you might like as well.

There are many shows that are a common interest amongst kids our age. One Tree Hill is a widely popular show between boys and girls. There are 9 seasons of the show and they get better as they go. You get to experience the lives of two teenage basketball playing brothers and their friends go through high school and even their lives after high school. I think One Tree Hill is so popular amongst teenagers, because it is very relatable with the characters being around our age.

For girls, 90210 and Gossip Girl are very popular! These are both sort of drama shows, again with teenagers going through high school and their friends. As you watch these shows, you get to know the characters are you feel like you are a part of their lives for the 7-9 seasons of the show.

For guys, Supernatural and Prison Break are fairly popular. I have watched both of these shows and they are both very good! I got really into both of the shows and I would sit down for hours and watch episode after episode.

The four shows that I talked about are my four favorite ones that I have watched, I’ve even watched them all more than once. If you haven’t seen any or some of these shows, I highly recommended you look them up and give them a try!

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"Behind the Scenes"

I know this is going to sound cliché, but treat people how you want to be treated.

A lot of the time we don’t realize the effects that our words have on other people. We say things we don’t mean to be taken personally or we say we’re joking, but sometimes those people really do that our words to heart. Sometimes we say things and it hurts someone, but we don’t realize it because we wouldn’t have taken it personally so we didn’t rethink it before we said it.

The people who often take things to heart are the ones with things going on “behind the scenes”. Think about the things in your life, you probably have something going on that no one knows about and there are probably things you don’t really want other people to know. These things may be sad or depressing things, or they might not be that dramatic. Some people however have more dramatic things going on in their personal life, whether they are fighting depression or don’t have the greatest living situations. These are things that most people don’t just share with anyone, they usually don’t like to talk about these things and avoid the topic as much as possible. It’s none of your business to ask people about this stuff, especially if you heard a rumor about it or you over heard something. Don’t be rude, you don’t need to ask them about it, if they wanted to talk to you about it, they would, but don’t force them to talk about it. If someone trusts you enough to tell you about their personal things, listen to them, sometimes that’s all they need. There is no need to go around and spread around their personal things they just told you, obviously they trusted you when they told you.

I’ve had some people talk to me about some similar stuff to this. I listened to them and let them talk for as long as they needed. I didn’t really know what to say or respond, but I said somethings that I thought would help me if I were going through the same thing. I never thought some of these people would have these kinds of things going on in their personal life. They act completely normal most of the time and if they’re acting a little different one day I just assume they’re not having a good day or something. You would never guess these things from people, but I feel like there is more going on in a lot of people’s lives than they let on.

My point is: be kind to EVERYONE. You never know who is going through what.

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