Marching Band Loyalty

Tennis and marching band are two extracurricular activities that require both dedication and commitment. Prior to entering my first year of high school, I decided that I wanted to take my love for tennis to the next level and make the O’Fallon high school tennis team. In 5th grade, I committed myself to playing the alto saxophone in the school band and all that entails with lessons and practice, with an eye on playing in the high school marching band. During high school, I made a commitment to participate in the Rose Bowl Parade in California. After making that decision, I found out I made the tennis team. Practicing both these activities in the summer and playing during the fall semester put me at odds with my parents on what should come first tennis or band. The amount of time needed for both activities to succeed was monumental and would be an uphill battle compared to the actual time I had. This caused internal conflict knowing that one will not get as much attention as the other. At that moment, I decided to come up with a solution to my problem then put it into action. One way or another I had developed two answers. I realized to become good at band and tennis something had to change.
At first, I thought about equivalency. I would spend the same amount of time playing tennis as I did playing my
I knew the amount needed to succeed was monstrous and that I could not handle that with everything else. I also realized that this was going to be my final year of marching band. By the end of the year, my passion to continue both was lacking so I decided to go with tennis. I the flame I had for marching band had burnt out. The next year the amount of stress that I had voluntarily signed up for had been lightened considerably. Even though I missed some aspects of marching band, I realized trying to do too much at once of anything was never a good idea. I learned this the hard