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They’re Fit Enough to Throw a Fit

Theyre+Fit+Enough+to+Throw+a+Fit

Fellow athletes, can you remember the last time you were sore from gym? Or how about the last time you were so tired after gym class you could barely move?

Yeah, me neither.

However, at gymnastics practice, I train until the sweat slides down my neck, and my face turns so red it radiates heat. When I get home, every muscle in my body begs me to lie down.

But I can’t. The awaiting piles of homework pull me to my desk for a long night of studying.

Athletes who play school sports, like me, spend at least two hours every day after school training. That’s two hours fewer to do our homework and two hours later that we’re forced to stay up.

Instead of gym, athletes who play a school sport or spend the same amount of time at sports practice outside school, should get to take a study hall or free period to make up for the time spent training after school. MontclairPublicHigh School in New Jersey, as well as several other schools across the country already have a policy where athletes can opt-out of gym.

Let’s be honest, those of us who play sports are undoubtedly physically fit, which is the goal of gym class in the first place. The intensity of a two hour gymnastics practice where I am constantly flipping on the floor, muscling through a bar routine or sprinting towards a vault cannot even be compared to lazily flopping my arm once a minute to absent mindedly tap a birdy two feet in the air and over the net during a riveting game of gym class badminton.

As much as I love modeling my Staples High Fitness T-Shirt, I don’t find my health benefitting from gym. I’d much rather have the time to do my homework and go to bed at a reasonable hour than burn a few calories in kickball.

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About the Contributor
Kacey Hertan, Business Manager
After reluctantly enrolling in Journalism as a freshman, Kacey Hertan ’16 knew that it would become a passion of hers, “as soon as I wrote my first article I knew Inklings was something that I wanted to be involved in,” Hertan said. This Massachusetts native has spent her three years in Inklings as a business manager, where she sells adds and manages the budget. In her free time, Kacey stays busy as the captain of the Diving team, which she started participating in freshman year after never being on a diving board before. Aside from being an impressive athlete, Hertan is the president of the Key Club, the oldest community service club at Staples. While she enjoys covering a variety of stories, her favorite to write is features. More specifically, the unique people that she has met writing her Humans of Staples piece has been her most rewarding Inklings experience.    

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