The way we approach fall preseason practices at Parker is flawed. In most sports, student-athletes who neglect to show up for any amount of preseason are required to make up the missed practice time before they can be played in games.

On top of that, they are often looked upon unfavorably by coaches when selecting varsity players and a starting squad, as I was explicitly told by my volleyball coach. This is on purpose, to create an incentive for players to attend preseason practices as much as they possibly can.

This strategy, however, is unfair to many athletes. High schoolers, by virtue of being children, are not in complete control of their schedules. Parents often schedule vacations during August and leave Chicago during preseason. While parents might be advised to consult the sports schedule before planning their vacations, many will not.

Given that their child is already on a break, they are probably more concerned with aligning their vacation with their employer’s needs. They want to miss work when it is most convenient for them and their boss rather than when Parker’s athletic department thinks they should. Punishing students for the choices their parents make in this situation doesn’t make sense.

Alternatively, many students work summer jobs or attend summer camps that extend through the final weeks of August. These students aren’t just sitting around, binge-watching Netflix or swimming in Lake Michigan––their time is being occupied productively. To insist that they miss up to a month of work or do not attend or work at their favorite summer camp that they’ve been going to since they were eight so that they can play a sport for two hours a day is nonsensical.

I understand the urge to reward students who put in more work and discipline those that don’t, but the preseason system we currently have in place is not effective. Too often it penalizes students for things that are out of their control or for wanting to spend their summer break on an actual break, rather than punishing the athletes who are just skipping out on practice because they don’t feel like going.

Personally, I think preseason should be optional. At Parker, we constantly emphasize that athletics need to come after academics, and yet, of all the aspects of school that we emphasize just before the start of the school year, it’s the two hour sports practices.

We set up the school year by telling students that athletic practices are incredibly important, and that if they are missing one, no matter how valid their excuse, they will be penalized. This sends the message that during the school year missed practices will be punished as well, even if there is no formal policy in place for that situation.

What we should be implying is that if students have a valid reason for missing practice, such as a meeting with a teacher or an incredibly important term paper, they should feel comfortable insisting that their success in academics is more important than their sports practice. This will send the right message to both returning players and new freshman: nothing comes before school.

If serious athletes want to attend additional practices and improve their skills, the school can still offer optional practices in August. Those athletes will be better at the sport once the game season starts and so will be more likely to play in the starting lineup and get more playing time overall. This removes the aspect of unfair penalization from preseason and allows squad creation to be entirely skill-based. As such, attending preseason practices will reward players who are dedicated to the sport without explicitly punishing everyone else. Attending preseason will still be obviously beneficial for players but not required.

It can be said that, because many other schools have mandatory preseason, our teams would be at a competitive disadvantage without preseason. However, this is just another incentive for dedicated players to voluntarily attend preseason practices if they care about winning their games.

You can’t force players to care about winning, so forcing them to go to preseason won’t do much. If the team wants to win the state championship, they will put in the extra work without needing a rule that unfairly disciplines students. If they are just playing for fun and exercise, then who cares?

For those who still believe that preseason should be a requirement, perhaps there should be a way for students to prove that they are genuinely unable to attend practice. They can report that they are on vacation or at work and get a slip signed by an adult to prove it. Sure, some parents might sign the form when they shouldn’t, but generally, they won’t.

These forms could be emailed to the Athletic Director, who could keep running lists of athletes who should and shouldn’t be at preseason. Then, athletes who just skipped practice without an excuse could still receive the same penalty we currently have in place and be barred from playing in games until they made up for missed practices.

It is clear that the preseason system requires some type of reform, even if it is not the one I have suggested. In its current state, it punishes students who are not at fault to far too high of a degree. We need some system of determining which students are able to attend practices and which are not. Once we know who should be at practices, we can create a more equal playing field for all student-athletes by enforcing a fair set of rules.