The Effects of the New Sports Schedule in ISB

In the 2022-23 school year, ISB has changed its athletic training schedule from one and a half hours daily to 2 hours on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, with 1 hour a day on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Since the start of season 1 sports this year, ISB has received mixed feedback from students about the new schedule, with some saying that it is unnecessarily excessive but at the same time it is providing a larger array of opportunities to students. Knowing that the new sports schedule has its pros and cons and is a noticeable change from last year, has resulted in many Panthers asking the question: To what extent is this change effective?

U14 Cross Country coach, Mr. Barnwell, told PantherNation in an interview that the new schedule compared to his experiences outside of ISB is one that is impressive. It helps provide students with the ability to come to practice twice a week. This has resulted in reduced absences at practice, and the ability for students to explore other avenues after school such as clubs and arts. Moreover, he believes that not forcing students to come daily to practice has helped to instill the love for their sports within younger Panthers. In an interview with Mr. Mott, the ISB Athletics Director, he said that the new schedule is also made for a more inclusive athletic program for younger athletes, so that their athletic careers can be developed from younger ages and that they can get the same feeling as Varsity players, when playing in the Rajendra, the main gymnasium for volleyball and basketball.

The new schedule allows younger athletes to attend clubs on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, whilst JV athletes can attend clubs on Tuesdays and Thursday with no sports after their club. Furthermore, varsity athletes can still effectively attend a club after school on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Panther Block, with training afterwards.

Nathan Chan, a boys Varsity Soccer player suggests that the new schedule has its benefits, he says, “I like how we get 2 hour sessions so we can play more.” When asked whether the new schedule is better or worse than that of last year however, he states, “it’s more or less the same for me,” and that there is “no big difference.” Furthermore, in an interview with Julien Steingens, a girls Varsity Soccer player, Steingens says, ”I think it’s beneficial as it’s quality time for the girls to use this time to build stronger bonds as that’s what a team needs, and the training overall helps us get better at what we need to”, when asked about the increase in time of the new sports schedule. When asked about if the new schedule allows more time for training and strategy, Steingens says, “I think the new schedule works with having your warm-up done and having your training done,” and, “We have days where we want to focus more on the warm ups, trainings where coach finds areas of improvement for our players and we work on those.” This shows that the athletic schedule has actually brought forward a better outcome in training, allowing more time for warmups and strategizing. Furthermore showing that the new schedule has created more healthy training environments for athletes.

Additionally, an ISB athlete would be giving up a fair amount of time to school in their everyday lives. As it is, a regular school day is 7 hours. Moreover, a varsity athlete would spend another 2 hours at school in addition to which they would spend approximately one hour and thirty minute on homework a day, meaning that they would spend a staggering 10 hours and 30 minutes each day on school. In order to understand the commute faced by downtown athletes, I conducted an experiment taking the late bus a few times. When taking the late bus which is taken by downtown Varsity athletes, I recorded that it takes approximately an hour and thirty minutes for a downtown athlete to reach the Prom Phong BTS skytrain station, on an ordinary day. However, the downtown bus is not often taken by downtown athletes. According to Mr Mott, about 10 of all downtown season one athletes took the late bus home, which could mean a reduced or increased commute time based on where the athlete lives. In addition to a 40 minute drive to school, downtown athletes spend approximately a total of 12 hours and 10 minutes in school or doing something school related.

This shows to the ISB community that the new schedule has created a lot more opportunities for a lot of panthers but has also introduced challenges to some. The nature of these challenges seem to be minor as compared to those faced by certain athletes previously. Mr Mott informed PantherNation that the new schedule was made to bring a balance to the opportunities provided to students in various grade levels, but also to add a greater level of effectiveness to the training of all ISB sports teams.

Written By: Ahren Dutt