Handling sport and studies: is it possible?

You arrive at Sportsmart with a spring in your step. You’ve just started first year and have every right to contemplate taking up a sport. Hell, maybe even two. You juggle a stint of swimming Tuesday, a game at Colney Wednesday, and you’re writing essays by Thursday. Craig David would be impressed. But come second year and beyond, how easy is it to keep up your sporting commitments?

It really is hard enough worrying about essay deadlines in the last two years of university. Credit has to be given to those who regularly play for their respective sides at UEA. however, is it possible to commit to a sport week in week out and still have time to give your academia the necessary attention?

    It appears so, considering most sports clubs find additional time to fill their bodies with Tequila and Jagerbombs come Wednesday night at Lola’s. How come the rest of us can’t do it? While bodies are being battered and bruised on a waterlogged pitch next Wednesday, most of us uni students are settling down to our afternoon nap.

There’s a good possibility that actively participating in a sport each week helps your academic life. A number of studies have suggested that regular participation aides concentration and determination. Besides, sport gets you into some good habits. Runners are up for their daily jog at 7am. They get set in their ways, they establish a routine. They’ll find it far easier to get up and go after a night on the lash.

     Is there a pressure to make up the numbers though? The captain of any team is the person who rushes back from injury to make Loughborough away. But you then set yourself and your teammates’ expectations very high. Do the respective UEA captains believe they’re able to put their hand up and say ‘I’ve got too much on this week, sorry team’?. It would be interesting to know.

Still, sport is the ultimate release. If it can be managed with studies it’s the perfect antidote. When cooped up in a stuffy room on Unthank, sweating over an ever-changing reference system, a couple of hours at training clears your head. What’s more, the bonds and friendships made while playing at UEA are likely to continue well after your academic days.

     It’s essentially about finding that happy medium. The UEA sports clubs which The Tab has spoken to seem to accommodate the possibility of playing a sport at university very well. Stressed is the fact that no one is under any pressure to turn up every week. You work sport around your schedule.

     Yet every Wednesday the sporting mobs are out in force. Work hard, play hard personified. Here’s to UEA’s sport clubs. The individuals who dedicate their Wednesday to sport and booze. To those who put up with Colney Lane’s changing rooms, to those who hop on a minibus up north knowing there is every chance of getting hammered. And if you’re leaving the HUB with a 1^st in your hands, even better.

The next BUCS fixtures take place on Wednesday the 5^th of December. Check out The Tab Sports section next week for the ‘Sporting Advent Calendar’.