There are many great athletes here at Lake Braddock. Some are graduating this year and will continue to play in college. It would be interesting to see how senior athletes at LB will deal with playing a sport and having a lot of school work as a freshmen in college.

“In the spring, I committed to play at UVA.” varsity field hockey captain senior Haley Hopkins said. Hopkins also got a scholarship to play at UVA.

Some issues of being a student athlete could be the amount of work you get while playing a sport all as a freshmen in college.

“It takes up so much time and it’s just a lot of my effort,” senior Haley Hopkins said, “but they have really good programs at UVA for athletes to help keep us on track.”

It is important for athletes to come to the realization that playing their sport won’t last forever and they need to think of different job ideas.

“I wanna play field hockey for as long as I can and then when I can’t anymore then I probably just wanna settle down in a different job, maybe still stay with sports and be an athletic trainer,” Hopkins said.

Varsity football player Lamont Atkins got a scholarship at UVA and is trying to balance out his study habits that might be affected.

“I’ll try just as hard as I do in high school,” Atkins said.

Atkins’ dream is to play in the NFL, but he’s also going to UVA to get an education.

“If I don’t go to the NFL I’ll have a good job as well,” Atkins said. “I’m going to get a major in business with concentration I.T, I.T management.”

Atkins is also graduating in the spring to start playing football earlier.

Senior Zach Silva on the LB varsity lacrosse team plans on playing in college.

“I’ve been talking to West Lee college, Bridgewater, Shenandoah, Sierra Nevada, and Marymount,” Silva said, “right now I have a scholarship to West Lee.”

Silva is confident that his study habits won’t be affected which playing lacrosse.

“I feel like I can put my academics as a priority over my sport,” Silva said.

Silva wants to have a different job while balancing out his school work and lacrosse.

“I wanna do something else, just playing in college is the highest I can go.” Silva said.

Not all senior athletes at LB are continuing to play in college next year but the students who are have a lot to think about before all the stress begins.