Student-athletes focus on winning while graduating
Sports reporter
Editor's Note: This story is part one of three that will depict the final three weeks of Marion High School's class of 2008.
Part one will focus on athletes and their balancing efforts of school, work, family life, and their respective sports.
Eighteen days.
The members of Marion High School's class of 2008 have less than three weeks to call themselves seniors.
After that, they will be a freshman, rookie, grunt, newbie, rat, or whatever else their school, employer, or military affiliation chooses to call them.
But in these final 18 days many of the seniors at MHS have to balance, school, work, sports, and family life, all while preparing for graduation.
Balancing act
As the spring sports season winds down, MHS senior Keith Jones is practicing hard for a return trip to the 3A state golf tournament.
He has a full load of classes to worry about, not to mention keeping up with the activities of his three younger brothers.
This fall he will attend Kansas State University while majoring in aerospace engineering.
So, no one would blame Jones if he felt a little overwhelmed right now.
However, that doesn't seem to be the case.
"I'm just trying to take it one day at a time, and keep up on my grades," he said.
A seminar class, which is similar to a one-hour study hall, allows Jones to turn his homework into school work.
"I hardly ever have any homework," he said.
The seminar especially helps Jones because missing parts of the afternoons comes with playing sports.
"Spring sports are killers," Jim Versch said. "Especially the last hour of the day."
Versch, an art teacher and volleyball coach at MHS, knows this time of the year can be hard on student-athletes.
"We do have students who are very conscientious about telling us when they will be gone," Versch said. "But sometimes with rainouts, they might not know until that morning."
Lanna Carroll knows that all too well.
She is a senior catcher on the Warriors' softball team, which already has had two doubleheaders rained out.
And while softball is important to her, the helmet she wears while playing is only one of her many hats.
She also is a student, has a job after school, and is a big sister to her seventh grade brother Brody.
However, like Jones, Carroll isn't stressing out too much about preparing for graduation.
"I count down every day," she said with a laugh. "I'm ready to graduate."
But she didn't deny the final weeks of her final year of school can be hectic.
"It's hard sometimes with so much on my plate," she said. "But I'm not freaking out because I'm ready for it."
Jones feels the same way, although it's contrary to what some may believe.
"Everyone is telling me it's supposed to be stressful," he said, "but so far it hasn't been."
Fellow senior Lauren Helmer might disagree.
Helmer, who will attend the University of Kansas this fall, is Carroll's teammate on the softball team.
"I have no free time," she said.
Between classes, applying for school and scholarships, softball, work, school activities, and music festivals, Helmer sometimes can't even find time on the weekends to relax.
Brett Billings feels the same way as Helmer, but found some time Saturday to fill out his graduation announcements.
"There is just so much going on your senior year," he said. "You just have to try and keep everything in routine."
Staying focused
As Grant Thierolf plans for the final weeks of the track and field season, the veteran coach knows graduation is in the back of his seniors' minds.
But he tries to keep everything, as Billings said, routine.
"We try not to make it a big deal," Thierolf said. "Our kids stay pretty focused."
He knows it is a big deal, but hyping up the stress of it could cause the student-athletes to worry too much.
Graduation, Thierolf said, is one of many stops along the way for the seniors.
"It is a huge milestone for every one of our students," he said. "But we try to prepare them for even more. It doesn't stop there."
One of the reasons the student-athletes don't feel as much pressure is because coaches like Thierolf and Versch keep them in line.
"We keep them informed," Versch said of graduation. "They know what they need to do."
In Carroll's case there is no pressure at all because she is focused on softball.
"I have to be a leader out there," she said.
But when the season is over and graduation comes and goes, Carroll's attention will turn to post-secondary education.
She wants to become a state trooper or parole officer, and doesn't have to go to college, but she isn't ruling it out.
"It would help if I go," she said. "Especially if I decide to become a parole officer."
College is what is keeping senior Chase Carlson involved in athletics.
He will attend Bethel College next year as a member of the football team.
As a member of the track team at Marion, Carlson said this season is much different than earlier sports such as football and basketball.
"Things come up a lot faster now," Carlson said referring to the end of year. "You have to think about what you are going to do after it's over."
But he still is laid back about graduation and everything that comes with it.
"I haven't even started anything yet," he said when Billings mentioned his graduation announcements, "but I'll get them done."
Track teammate Kalaya Jackson is so focused on her team, at this moment graduation day is an afterthought.
"Track is what's on my mind," Jackson said.
But when graduation comes, she will be ready, especially because she plans to attend Hutchinson Community College in the fall.
"My mom is in tears right now," Jackson, the youngest of two children, said.
But for the six seniors and their classmates, tears are being replaced by focus.
Whether it's sports, their jobs, or the final days of class, the MHS senior-athletes are doing their best balancing act between the field and the classroom.
And that sometimes can lead to no free time or at least a little stress here and there.
"It's worth it," Billings said.
"I agree," Jackson said.
In 18 days, they'll know for sure.
