Photo Illustration by Bryce Owen ’17 | Junior and senior athletes often face difficulty when preparing for ACT and SAT tests due to a lack of time from athletic activity.

By Juan Carlos Ramirez ’18
THE ROUNDUP

Student athletes, mainly juniors and seniors, who participate in winter, fall or club sports are presented with the difficulty of preparing themselves for the ACT or SAT while also practicing and competing on the field or court.

Ian Burke ’18 said that time management is definitely an issue, but he uses outside sources to help him.

“It is hard to keep everything organized, but I took a PSAT prep course and currently taking a ACT prep course with Pimentel,” Burke who plays varsity basketball said. “It’s hard to get everything in, but it’s doable.”

Burke said that the best advice given to him was that he needed to prepare academically before basketball season.

“Really prepare well before the season starts, because inevitably your grades are probably are going to drop as much as you don’t want that to happen,” Burke said.

“You just can’t be on top of everything at the same time,” he said.

Head varsity basketball coach and Social Studies Department Chair Mr. Matthew Hooten said that academics come first. 

“We always tell our students that they are scholars first and athletes second,” Hooten said. “It’s really important to me that they are taking care of their academic responsibilities and ultimately they are challenging themselves as students. In reality, they are going to be students for the rest of their lives, and they are building those habits right now through that process.”

In the case of a student being academically ineligible, Mr. Hooten said that there are so many people who are a stakeholder in a student’s experience at Brophy and that a student should be able to recover with the help of these people.  

Head baseball coach and college counselor Mr. Thomas Succow said that a student athlete can be recruited to play their respective sport collegiately, but they must also excel academically and be involved in the community.

“I had a conversation with a university recruiter of a highly selective university who called about a student athlete here at Brophy,” Mr. Succow said. “One of the most important factors that they mention is that the student must be admitted by the admissions department at stanford. It isn’t just because that student has this ability to play this sport that he will be recruited by Stanford. He needs to fulfill all the requirements that an admission committee, like at Stanford, would require to accept that player.”

Mr. Succow said he also recommends student athletes to create some type of testing plan to prepare themselves for their SAT and ACT exams.