Academic Athlete: Tiana Woolridge ’11 plays varsity volleyball and is also in the top 20 percent of the graduating class. Daniel kim/chronicle
SAJ SRI-KUMAR/chronicle
Staying on their ‘A’ games The top 20 percent of seniors qualified for Cum Laude. Of them, almost half are varsity athletes. These students face the daily task of managing work and sports. By Lara Sokoloff “Scholar athletes” who choose to undertake both challenging course loads while remaining committed to time consuming athletic teams, are faced with the challenge of time management daily. “I would walk out of the gym, get something to eat, then just really focus on my schoolwork,” Tiana Woolridge ’11, a volleyball player, said. Woolridge said “it was a struggle at times to get my homework done.” Although it taught her time management, Woolridge feels that her athletic commitments somewhat inhibited her from reaching her top academic potential, but that her overall experience at Harvard-Westlake has greatly benefitted from playing a sport. Alex Markes ’11 played soccer and ran track during his freshman, sophomore and junior years in addition to playing club soccer. In his senior year, he played Academy soccer, which does not allow athletes to play high school sports; Academy soccer trained every day other than Friday to rest for weekend games. An intense and rigorous athletic schedule, Markes was able to use it to his advantage, he said, using the rigidity of his soccer schedule to manage his academics. Markes also believes that a healthy relationship between the player and his coach is one of the keys to succeeding both academically and athletically. Danielle Salka ’11 played both club
and school volleyball. The school team practiced every day, and club practice met two to three times a week, plus weekend tournaments. Contrary to many of her classmates, Salka does not feel that playing volleyball benefitted her academic career. “Maybe volleyball helped me academically by teaching me discipline and forcing me to learn to manage my time, but in general it just made things harder,” she said. “Volleyball was not an outlet of stress…it created stress by reducing the amount of time and energy I could put into studying.” As for learning to manage her time, Salka said she “had to learn the hard way.” “It took a few sleepless nights to force me [not] to procrastinate,” she said. Jordan Bryan ’11, this year’s valedictorian, wrestles for the school team, which practices five days a week. Bryan credits wrestling for much of his academic success. Bryan found that wrestling helped him to manage his academics immensely. Getting exercise simply relieved stress, and wrestling minimized the mental stress from schoolwork. “Either I was far too exhausted to worry about work, I was more focused on an upcoming match or tournament, or I had so many things to do in what seemed like an impossibly small amount of time that the whole situation became laughable and wasn’t nearly as daunting,” he said.
Academic and athletic stars 25 of 57 inductees played sports at the highest level and achieved academic prestige. Chase Basich
Alex Markes
Melanie Borinstein
Katy Park
Jordan Bryan
Jennifer Plotkin
Nick Duckwiler
Danielle Salka
Melissa Gertler
Ben Saunders
Jessie Goldman
Chelsea Shannon
Christine Kanoff
Brian Shultz
Ben Kogan
Jake Sonnenberg
Erin Landau
Charlie Stigler
David Lehoang
Jamie Temko
Austin Lewis
Catherine Wang
Shawn Ma
Tiana Woolridge
Soccer
Golf
Wrestling
Swimming Tennis
Basketball Soccer
Wrestling
Soccer
Fencing
Cross Country Basketball
Academy Soccer Soccer
Softball
Volleyball
Track and Field Crew
Football
Wrestling
Cross Country Volleyball
Swimming
Volleyball
Graphic By Abbie Neufeld and Chelsea Khakshouri
BIG RED Year-End 2011 I 15