As an athlete, I exercise a lot. In basketball, I practice every day after school for two to three hours, including on weekends, one or two games a week, as well as tournaments on the weekends. Hours and hours every day spent exercising. I do all this then go to phy ed class to painfully jog around the track as my muscles are still stiff and sore from the previous games and practices. I understand for most people phy ed lets students get the necessary exercise required to live a healthy life. But for most athletes, phy ed is a waste of time and I believe that student-athletes should be excused from participating in phy ed and be given a study hall instead. Three things I am going to discuss are why student-athletes should get a study hall and not a phy ed class, benefits a study hall would have, and a way to provide student-athletes a study hall to help them academically.

First of all, student-athletes are very busy. Most after-school practices will go from either three to five, or five to seven resulting in athletes getting home very late. Also, away games or meets often don’t get done until late at night so students are forced to stay up late to do their homework. We all know the recommended time for sleep is eight to ten hours. So, how are athletes going to be well rested and ready for another day of school if they can’t start homework until ten? Giving athletes a study hall instead of phy ed would give them the time needed to start their homework early and give them more time to sleep at night. Lastly, a lot of injuries occur in phy ed class. According to Charles R. Guelij’s article titled Gym Class Accidents and Injuries: Proving school Liability about phy ed class injuries, “more than forty thousand students are injured badly enough in phy ed to end up in the emergency room.” Now imagine one of those students was a varsity athlete. The rest of his season or longer will have to be spent on the bench recovering from injury. With reasons given for why student-athletes should get out of phy ed, we have to look at benefits that study halls will provide.

Secondly, having a study hall allows a student to get their homework done before leaving school. This is perfect for busy student-athletes who don’t get home until late at night. There have been nights where I did not get home until ten o'clock but, I didn’t have to worry about homework because I had finished it in study hall during school. If students don’t have homework to work on a study hall can be a great, quiet place to study for an upcoming test. Some students and teachers are against study halls. They claim students only play games or watch Netflix on their phones. Now, this may be true for some study halls. But, I feel that a structured study hall can do wonders to some students' grades as proven with an experiment conducted at the University of Notre Dame John Paul II Catholic High School where student-athletes and coaches participated in a survey. The survey found that study halls helped student-athletes academically and coaches would prefer their athletes in study halls instead of phy ed. This brings me to my next point, my solution.

As I stated previously a structured study hall can be exactly what students need. Another perfect example of this would be at Cantwell Sacred Heart of Mary High School. The principle David Chambers made making up missing homework mandatory in a structured study hall. He helped raise the number of honor roll students from 32% to 50% and the average GPA up half a point. What I think should be done is something similar. A structured study hall for student-athletes during their phy ed period where they can do homework, finish missing assignments, and talk to teachers to get a better understanding of the material. For the students that don’t participate in sports all year, they would be given the study hall only during the season that they are playing in. Of course, there is still the health part of phy ed. Student-athletes would still be required to attend health class as usual then resume with study hall when the section is over. Other benefits of this system are that it would encourage more people to play school sports. Most people I know don’t enjoy phy ed class, so, if they know that they can get out of it by joining a sport they would. More people joining sports would support a healthier lifestyle for students.

I have listed a few reasons why student-athletes should have a study hall and not a phy ed class. How a study hall will help with the late night homework after games, my simple solution for getting student-athletes the help they need to get better grades, and to have a better understanding of the material. I hope that high schools start to see that these student-athletes don’t need the exercise provided in a phy ed class as like me they are constantly exercising every day after school and on the weekends too. I hope that schools start giving student-athletes study halls to help boost grades and give them the time necessary to complete homework.