Though UHS offers a variety of team and individual sports for students to participate in, some sports still are not represented in high school leagues. As a result, student-athletes who participate in sports such as gymnastics and archery do so outside of school.
For the beginner athlete, it can seem challenging to compete in a sport besides school. But for some students, participating in a sport outside of school is a long-standing routine. Junior Minnie Li has practiced her sport, gymnastics since she was seven years old.
“I started in an academy [where] you don’t compete,” Li said. “You’re just there to do gymnastics. Then I made it down to the gym team, which is . . . fun competition. Then, when I turned 10, I moved to South Coast [Gymnastics Center], and they put me in the actual real competition.”
Now, Li competes in Level 10 gymnastics, the highest level a gymnast can reach under the USA Gymnastics Junior Olympics Program. As a Level 10 gymnast, she regularly attends competitions with her team.
“[Last year,] I made it to Western [Championships],” Li said. “At this competition, you compete with four regions, so half the states, and I got second on bars.”
Like Li, many out-of-school athletes have practiced their sport since childhood. Others, however, started competing just recently. Sophomore Amber Chui discovered her sport during the COVID-19 pandemic and has participated in it for just a few years.
“I started at a recreation complex, and then I switched to a club about 30 minutes away,” Chui said. “I’ve been going 2-3 times a week for a few years.”
Since then, she’s significantly improved the competitive archery system for high school students.
“There’s a pin system where if you meet a certain score, you can get . . . points,” Chui said. “A few months ago, I hit 285, which meant I qualified for the silver pin.”
Chui attributes her success to consistent practice.
“It’s really rewarding because if you score consistently, you can see that your practice actually makes an impact on your score,” Chui said.
Like Chui, most out-of-school sports participants have rigorous practice routines. They can request independent P.E., allowing them to receive credit for time participating in out-of-school sports, which commonly spans several days a week.
“We get there at 4:30 most of the days and warm up for 30 minutes,” Li said. “Then we start our . . . events for an hour [each] . . . and then I end at 9:15, five days a week.”
Balancing such commitments with schoolwork and extracurricular activities can be a daunting task. Athletes have to adopt a strict daily routine to maintain excellence in their sport and schoolwork.
“I treat it as part of my schedule,” Chui said. “I’ll just do everything around it and block off that time. It’s time [that] I know I can’t be doing anything else, but, for example, on the way there or on the way back, I’ll do my homework in the car so that I’m not just wasting time.”
Besides managing their time more closely, out-of-school sports participants must contend with the same challenges as other athletes.
“I get a lot of mental blocks,” Li said. “Basically, your body can do the skill, but your brain stops you.”
Chui reflected the same sentiment, illustrating how mental problems like stress affect athletes’ performance.
“It’s pretty easy to let stress affect you,” Chui said. “I normally talk to my coaches or my parents about it, and . . . sometimes I’ll focus less on the form intentionally just so that I can let muscle memory take over instead of stress.”
With a combination of endurance and advice from coaches and friends, athletes can persevere through all their struggles.
“My coach told me once that life is a roller coaster,” Li said. “You’re going to go downhill sometimes, and you can hit rock bottom. But after you hit rock bottom, there’s nowhere to go. You can only go up from there because the sky’s the limit.”
