Do you play sports?

[LilySmash]

I always wanted to but my stamina is so bad and I normally get cramps while running . Haha, used to be like the fastest runner in 3rd grade... Means nothing now . Now, the sport I most closely associate myself with is tennis but even then I really suck at it. Strict parenting didn't let me do any clubs, only until I finally fought for it a little bit in college. What did I do? I jumped straight into the the tennis club. Didn't end well for me, I stopped showing up after like 4 visits . The next semester, I tried Intramural tennis...that still didn't end up well for me because 80% of the matches were cancelled due to rain in the Summer. Why did I pick Summer -_-. Then, my final semester of my first bachelor's, I took Beginner Tennis...I kinda got better, but not really. Since then it's been 4 years now since I've played. Oh boy, I should've just took Beginner Tennis to begin with, but I didn't even know that class existed, ahhhhhh!

Also for anyone who could help me with this question since it relates to the comic I'm writing xD...
- In high school, how do sports club competitions work? I read online that Division 3 is more competitive than club sports or something like that (or is this just college?). For a high school sports team, is there a national level? And if there was a reward, it was either the school or the clubs themselves who paid for it, is this true? In my comic, I have this "sports club" and I'm not sure how far competitions would go. If you want the specifics, it's a Track Club, but I put my twists and turns to it and it's not exactly how a real track club would work xD. So if anyone could answer for how a real popular sports club plays competitively vs a new sport that isn't that popular, that would be nice :D.

[Blueycrab]

High school sports, not really sure if it works differently in other states/countries. But normally the track team would have practices every day for around 2-3 hours after school. They wouldn’t run if it’s raining cause it would be slippery and people would fall XD

They compete against other schools in the area, and even when there’s a high school in the same district. The schools are ranked by how their members do in their individual events.

There’s usually a varsity team and Junior varsity team. Varsity would be the top people on the team, who excel in their events. And everyone else is considered JV.

I believe there are state meets, in which schools come in from all over the state, not just the county or few surrounding counties. At this point not everyone would get to go, only the people who are the top in their events to represent the school in JV and Varsity. I haven’t heard of a national meet yet, but I quit track a while ago so I may not be correct. Hopefully someone can give you more insight.

As for non popular sports, it all depends on the sport itself, there could be many factors, and some sports don’t even get competition because not many schools have them.

Hope I was at least a bit helpful XD

[LilySmash]

• does this mean a relay race does not count toward the school ranking?
• and you're also saying that the junior varsity team has its own competitions? o_O Soooo, unlike in basketball where only a specific number of people get to play competitively, all of the track team can? :00000000

Thank you for the info.!!

[Dizwikz]

I used to play baseball, then soccer and then I started boxing afterschool for fun when I was a teenager. Then I got into a pretty bad accident so I had to stop doing physical stuff for a while. Then I got back into boxing a bit later just to work out and spar occasionally and now I'm doing more running.

[LilySmash]

Wow, that's quite an experience you have :0. Glad you're doing better now, though!

[Blueycrab]

I believe the relay does, isn’t that 4 person event? Group events still count. let’s say that there were 2 teams. Team A and B. My school is team A and we won 1st place. That goes into the final consideration as well. Usually for group events, you would take the fastest team you had.

I think I forgot to mention heats. Each event has a certain number of waves. And let’s say I had 4 people from my school in JV doing hurdles. Only if there are 4 positions in the 1st heat, then the two fastest from my school would be in that heat, and two from the other. 2nd heat, same thing except it would be the two people who didn’t go first heat.

(It’s all coming back now XD)

Each person has 3 events. For example, my events were 100 meter hurdles and 500 meter hurdles. I didn’t do long jump cause it was too painful but sometimes I would sub for relay. (You honestly should research this more though, it may be different than I remember)

As for JV, think of it this way, tennis has JV and varsity teams. If my school is playing against school X then their varsity would be opposing my Varsity and their JV vs my JV. normally varsity would go to something like states. I believe JV has an event like that, not sure what it’s referred to as though

[KhanSpring]

I used to do competiteve marksmanship in school, but not many people see it as a sport

[pilot-obvious]

I was a very avid runner in high school! I did cross country in the fall, indoor track during the winter, and outdoor track in the spring! I'm not too familiar with club sports in schools, but in my state, there were 3 Divisions. Division 3 included the small schools like mine (I had a graduating class of less than 60). Division 2 are slightly bigger schools and Division 1 are the largest schools. I think if you were to go to a larger school, it would be harder to get on the varsity team because there are just more people participating.

I was on varsity all four years for cross country and track because there weren't that many kids who did it. (One cross country season I was the only girl on the team but that's another story for another day!) As for the meets, we had all sorts of different types of meets... invitationals which were larger, county meets with just the schools in my county, sometimes even dual meets at the beginning of the season! Towards the end of the season, you get to the conference meet which includes all the schools in your athletic conference. Then there are districts. If you place high enough in your event, you can qualify for regionals, and if you place high enough in the regionals, you can go to the state meet. The state meets were the biggest deal and we rarely had athletes qualify for state. There were national meets, but they weren't associated with high school athletic associations as far as I know. I think you just had to have a certain time to even qualify.

As for awards, at most meets, there would usually be ribbons (Sometimes medals!) I'm assuming whoever hosted the meet paid for those through their athletic associations. Once you got into districts, regionals, and state, there were medals for top 8 finishers. I'm assuming those were paid for by the state high school athletic association.

I guess our indoor track season was more of a club because it wasn't an official sport at our school. We treated it more as a conditioning time but would still go to high school meets that were hosted at local colleges. There were soooo many people at those meets. I remember one time the meet went on until 2am! We didn't get home until after 4am that night. lol

If you have more questions about track, let me know and I can help! I love track so I would probably really enjoy your comic haha. Those times in high school were probably the most formative in my life and really helped made me into who I am today. I'm still really into the sport and like watching track meets. My brother also ran in college for a NCAA Division 1 school so I'm familiar with college track/XC too.

[azzy-m]

I don't because I'm too skinny and weak for sports. Disadvantage of being an artist who doesn't go out often

If I did though, I'd try volleyball. It's the only sport that ever managed to catch my attention to some degree.

[domisotto]

Just general fitness here. I skate, swim, do a bit of weights. Can’t run anymore, cause knees, but I swap in elliptical. Love the gym, but sports never attracted me except as a fan (and even then I follow Figure Skating that is a super-niche sport)

I think competition tiers depend on the country a great deal, so which country are you writing about?

[R.n.P]

I've done every sport you could imagine happens in school n in the past 2 yrs in uni I've gotten into the martial arts aspect of it n currently train in jiu jitsu with boxing, mma, karate and wrestling on the side

[LilySmash]

@Rayzet Oh, I think you're right, this article says "For practical purposes, then, a relay team includes a maximum of six runners—the four who run in the first heat and a maximum of two substitutes." --> And I tried to make a relay team 10 people bwahaha! . But my version has its own twists and turns so I'm not exactly sure yet, ha. Oh wait, I also see there are 4 different relays (100m, 200m, 400m, and 800m) HMMM.

Also, thanks for telling me about heats, oh gawd how many should I have xD. This website says there's a max of 5 people per heat. So there's that. I see I see, I'm just wondering how much info. I want to put in my comic since this is my first one and my art is still amateurish. So doing a full shounen plot with all the events that Track has would be too much unless I somehow manage to make it successful O.O. That's the reason why I'm putting my twists and possibly naming it some club thing to reduce the amount of real knowledge xD.

@agunceto A Sport is a sport

@pilot-obvious You go girl! Glad to see some strong female power! I have never heard of an invitational meet nor a dual meet O.O. Looks like I got more stuff to look up. Yeah, for my comic I'll prob stay away from national level xD. Oh? I always assumed prizes were medals, but I see ribbons are more common here, good to know! ....and "indoor track season" ? Does this mean real track season is from Fall-Spring but indoor track was Summer? Sounds really fun you guys stayed up all night. Ahhh, wish my high school life was like this Thank you! I really hope you'll enjoy whenever I can dish it out. I wasn't able to do much sports in highschool but I'm very sure it was definitely a life changer for you and I'm happy you feel that way. And ahhhhh, Good job for your bro!!!

@azzy-m Oh, I feel you so much. I even get made fun of for my stamina Ah, volleyball. It's a fun one and it doesn't drain stamina as much as some of the other sports. I can't receive though xD. Whenever I do, the ball just flies in the air directly above me . If you ever do get to try it, let me know :DDDD.

@domisotto I live in the US. I'm asking about nationals even though I feel like I really should avoid writing up to that level, ahhh why is researching like this xD. General fitness is great! Get to feel good without overexerting yourself. Hope your knees get better though!

@R.n.P that's a lot How do you have time for all of that? I imagine maybe that's 1 hour per club, 5 times a week or something?

[domisotto]

No worries, it shouldn’t be too difficult to find the progression in your sport, but also, you can take some liberties. For example, Yuri on Ice takes tons of liberties with how Figure skaters compete, and even the structure of the Grand Prix itself for the sake of the story.

[Blueycrab]

Glad I could help out!

[LilySmash]

Oh, that's good to know. Glad actual anime actually do this too :0

[pilot-obvious]

@pilot-obvious You go girl! Glad to see some strong female power! I have never heard of an invitational meet nor a dual meet O.O. Looks like I got more stuff to look up. Yeah, for my comic I'll prob stay away from national level xD. Oh? I always assumed prizes were medals, but I see ribbons are more common here, good to know! ....and "indoor track season" ? Does this mean real track season is from Fall-Spring but indoor track was Summer? Sounds really fun you guys stayed up all night. Ahhh, wish my high school life was like this Thank you! I really hope you'll enjoy whenever I can dish it out. I wasn't able to do much sports in highschool but I'm very sure it was definitely a life changer for you and I'm happy you feel that way. And ahhhhh, Good job for your bro!!!

Yes!!! I should really get back into running but it's hard with a busy schedule! I guess the ribbons were a cheaper alternative to medals. For our sports awards, they would give us an award for each year we were on the varsity team. The first year we got a certificate, the second year we got an emblem keychain, and then 3rd and 4th years we got a trophy!

Outdoor track was spring only! Cross country was in the fall, which is a 5KM race on an outdoor course. On my team, every kid who was on the cross country team also did track (usually long distance events.) Indoor track was only in the winter! My summers were actually cross country conditioning!

[LilySmash]

Adulting hard.

That's quite a jump, keychain to trophy Hm, so I take it even a senior in the school would get a certificate only since it was their first year in the team. I wonder if all high schools had those different track clubs exactly in those same seasons. I would pass out in the 5KM race for sure! Seems like I gotta plan out my seasons carefully, woo.

[DiscountedArtist]

I play soccer and I'm in middle school. I think I'm pretty good since I'm in EDP (Eastern Development Program) and that's the highest you can go in the area I live in. There's ODP (Olympic Development Program), but the practices are far away, so I don't want to do that.

I'm not too sure how highschool soccer teams work. I know that there's the freshman team, junior varsity team, and varsity team where you have to dye your hair blonde. I think the school team plays against other school teams in their district, so I don't think there's a statewide competition for the schools.

If you want to so write about something that's a statewide competition, here in New Jersey there's a thing called the "State Cup" where the travel and EDP teams in your state compete in a tournament.

[MorganaMevil]

I’m a scholarship athlete at an NCAA Division 1 university (which means I live and breath sports 365 days out of the year). I do rowing now, but I’ve done pretty much every sport since I was a kid. (I did varsity softball, basketball, and track in high school.) If you have any questions related to sporting events, athletes, the the student-athlete struggle, I’d be more than happy to help.

[pilot-obvious]

Yep, if a senior decided to join their senior year for the first time, they would only get a certificate at my school! I believe all public high school athletic associations follow that schedule across the USA.