Being an athlete, in general, is a big commitment in all scenarios of life. Here at BHS, athletic teams strive for greatness on the athletic surface, while attempting to succeed in the classroom. All sports teams have policies that make sure you are succeeding in the classroom, in order to play.
In the spring golfers miss more school than other sports because meets can take entire school days and are condensed later in the spring. When weather forces cancellations earlier in a season, some golfers can end up with events four out of five days in a school week.
This leaves the players to juggle the tasks of playing and study. Coach Paul Olson of the BHS Varsity Golf Team keeps great control of the players and makes sure that all assignments are up to date.
Senior John Russett has been playing high school golf since his freshman year and has always had trouble finishing out the year strong.
Regarding the balance, Russett said, “I have played sports all of my life, and I never had to make sacrifices until I got to play High School golf, this has challenged me with making sure that my priorities are straight, and doing what is best for my educational future.”
Russett says that the fourth quarter of our school year is the hardest by far, because being a varsity golfer, means that you are missing anywhere from two to four days of school a week. This is all due to our harsh winters in Minnesota that can delay the start of the season weeks, and possibly months.
This sends Mississippi 8 in a spiral to make up the meets that are being missed and cramming them together, an example of this was May 14th, having two meets in one day. The team left BHS at 8:00 in the morning and got back at 7:45 at night.
Russett has been in school for a total of 13 days in May, leaving him the hardest home stretch of the school year left to come, and all other athletes are struggling to find a balance to keep their grades up and show up ready to play at any time.
