From fall to summer, student-athletes practice and compete while balancing school and sports. At the end of the year, as a way to celebrate, many of them attend the Archer Athletics Awards Night — an event aimed to recognize student-athletes at Archer.
The Archer Athletics Awards Night took place at Archer Tuesday, May 5. The event was hosted in the Zeller Student Center and included music, food and a DJ. During the ceremony, student-athletes were presented with major awards, including Rookie of the Year, Scholar-Athlete of the Year and Athlete of the Year. Each team also recognized three athletes in a given sport: Most Improved, the Panther Award and Most Valuable Player.
Director of Athletics Kim Smith planned and organized the event. She said she hoped to bring the entire Archer Athletics community together and celebrate every team, individual player, coach and support staff.
“It’s an amazing event,” Smith said. “It’s one of the highlights for me to see all of the athletes together in one space and getting to appreciate each other’s efforts and achievements.”
Junior Sophie Cousens is a sprinter on the track and field team. She said that, to her, the phrase “student-athlete” means knowing how to balance her academics as well as apply discipline to her athletics and extracurricular activities.
“It’s about learning about how to understand yourself,” Cousens said, “and the capacities that you can work and how much effort you can put in for an amount of time.”
Cousens said she thinks that athlete celebrations, such as pep rallies and the Awards Night, help her destress from the constant work of balancing school and sports.
“I think especially with pep rallies and stuff, where we get to culminate everything,” Cousens said, “athletes definitely get a period where they get to rest and just celebrate.”
Freshman Avital Eisenberg participated in cross country and track teams at Archer. She said athletics are a big commitment for her, so she makes sure to put a lot of work into the sports she competes in. While Eisenberg said keeping a balance between practicing sports, completing school work and having fun can be hard, the work is extremely rewarding.
“It means being a part of a team,” Eisenberg said. “I get to meet a lot of new people, which is really fun — and then committing to something new, which is hard and putting a lot of work to something.”
Eisenberg said she looks forward to seeing everyone on her team together at the Athletics Awards Night and learning more about the other sports teams and their achievements. She said the event was a great way of culminating the year and celebrating all the work that every player put into their sport.
“Everyone at Archer works so hard, and they put in so much effort in everything they do,” Eisenberg said, “and this event highlights all their successes throughout the all the year as being a student-athlete, balancing all their schoolwork and all their academics and the athletics and the arts and everything in between.”
Smith said celebrating student-athletes is important to build community as well as commemorate all the achievements and growth within Archer Athletics collectively.
“It’s creating a sense of belonging for all of our athletes to be seen and to be celebrated,” Smith said. “A lot of our sports are off campus, and so swim doesn’t necessarily get to go see volleyball, so it’s a great opportunity for everyone to come together and to have it be a community experience because we don’t neccessarily get that during the school year.”
