We watch sports games and witness their outcomes, but do we ever stop to think about what happens behind the scenes before the season starts? Fieldston has many sports that take place throughout the year such as tennis, field hockey, soccer and football. During the winter, swimming, basketball, table tennis, ice hockey and indoor track take place. Here is a glance at what the athletes and coaches go through to perform well. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Form IV athlete Sarah Weinick explained what her preseason training for varsity basketball consists of: \u201ca lot of conditioning to prepare for the season. We also focus on a lot of team-based drills, like layups. We also do team-bonding drills such as running the stairs in the athletic building. Basically a lot of running.\u201d The physical conditioning and drills that the female basketball athletes do in the winter preseason allows them to properly prepare for the season, and demonstrate their stamina and athletic abilities. Layla Finn, a year-round Form IV track athlete, described her winter-preseason workouts: \u201cIt\u2019s indoor track, but we run outside. It\u2019s cold, but we do some sort of running workout, whether that\u2019s long-distance, or speed-work. After about an hour\/hour-and-a-half of that, we do an ab workout or we lift weights.\u201d Such rigorous training can benefit athletes physically and mentally. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
When asked about the mental aspect of the sport, Weinick explained what goes through her mind. \u201cAm I doing the right thing? Basketball is a competitive sport, you\u2019re playing girls from all over the city and you get bounced around a lot.\u201d Weinick plays against many competitive players that challenge her mentally. The challenge only improves her game, as challenges cause physical and mental growth. When asked about the physical and mental aspects of the game Finn responded, \u201cIt\u2019s challenging both ways. Physically, it\u2019s a lot of hard work at high intensity. Especially if you\u2019re not used to high-intensity running every day, it\u2019s really challenging. Mentally, also, you\u2019re doing so much running and working out, it\u2019s hard to go back the next day and do it again and put your body through that again.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
To perform well during basketball season, Weinick prepares year-round. \u201cI practice three to five days a week in the offseason, and I play other sports at Fieldston. This in some way helps me prepare for basketball.\u201d Weinick focuses on the intensity of basketball during the winter season at school, as it\u2019s a rigorous five-day-a-week program. When asked about the overall dynamic and competitiveness of the team, Weinick remarked, \u201cIt\u2019s really competitive. As a team, we\u2019re really focused on one goal, and that\u2019s becoming a team-bond and winning. We had a successful season last year and we\u2019re looking to build on that this year.\u201d This team focus allows her and her teammates to bond and prepare for success. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I checked in with Coach Danielle Gabriel, also known as \u201cCoach D,\u201d for a different perspective. She shared her experience with the 2024 winter preseason and season. Gabriel coaches table tennis and has been for several years. Gabriel described table tennis as a more unique sport; \u201cTable tennis in general is a little different because it\u2019s non-traditional. We only practice three days a week; Monday, Wednesday [and] Friday.\u201d Gabriel also explained that table tennis is not in the Ivy League, as not all schools play. Gabriel dived into what the practices look like. \u201cWe do a lot of game-like situations within our practice. So a lot of time we have our kids face each other in mini-matches, with doubles and singles. We also kind of talk about things we\u2019re going to see from other teams, and how to capitalize on our opponents\u2019 errors. We also try to identify our own strengths and capitalize on those as well.\u201d Gabriel\u2019s table tennis team focuses on strategy, and how to make the most out of their opponents\u2019 strengths and weaknesses as well as their own. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
As a Fieldston athlete, I can attest to the fact that you have to dedicate yourself and contribute to your team wherever in order to succeed. Finn had a similar observation when asked about the audience\u2019s recognition of the time practicing to perform well in a sport. \u201cI think it\u2019s easier for them to think about it if they do a similar sport as well. A lot of people think of track as just running, but so much more goes into that, and people need to recognize that. Everyone at track meets has built up to where they are.\u201d Gabriel agreed with Finn when she explained, \u201cI think it has definitely grown over the years, as table tennis has grown in the years. It is a non-traditional sport, so it definitely does not have the same support as say basketball, but the success of the sport has allowed the students to see that athletes are putting in the hard work and it really is a competitive sport.\u201d Gabriel notes that appreciation and recognition of the time and effort spent on table tennis has grown over the years. Listening to what our athletes and coaches have to say, it is evident that we need not just watch athletes\u2019 performances but appreciate the practice, time and effort put into the high level of performance.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We watch sports games and witness their outcomes, but do we ever stop to think about what happens behind the scenes before the season starts? Fieldston has many sports that take place throughout the year such as tennis, field hockey, soccer and football. During the winter, swimming, basketball, table tennis, ice hockey and indoor track take place. Here is a glance at what the athletes and coaches go through to perform well. Form IV athlete<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":410,"featured_media":10895,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[347,318,317],"tags":[],"coauthors":[677],"class_list":["post-10894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community","category-news","category-sports"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/Screenshot-2024-12-13-at-10.07.58-PM-e1734145711566.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/410"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10894"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10894\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10899,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10894\/revisions\/10899"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10894"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=10894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}