Before Thanksgiving

            This week in study hall at the Multon Center, the students were coming off of their homecoming weekend. Basketball season had officially begun with away games for both the men and women’s teams, and football was slowly approaching the end of heir season. Thanksgiving break was around the corner by a week, and anticipations were high for many of the student athletes. Everyone could literally taste the Thanksgiving dinner on the table of Thanksgiving Day. For some of the athletes unfortunately they would not have a Thanksgiving break due to the fact that they will be here for athletics, which pertained particularly to basketball and football. And for some of the international student athletes they would not be going home due to the fact the for one Christmas was right around the corner and they do not celebrate thanksgiving in their countries, for example in Canada, many of the student athletes from Canada missed their Thanksgiving celebration due to the fact that it was earlier in the year. And for many other student athletes they simply would not be going home because of how close Thanksgiving break and Christmas break were financially it didn’t makes sense to go home now only to go home two weeks later, especially with how far they lived.

 Energy levels were at an all-time low, as the struggle to focus on the simplest things such as the page of a book, was even a hard task. The student athletes weren’t even engaging in the use of their phones like they normally do, it was almost as if they were non existent other than to use for music, to help focus more on their work and to keep them up. This week was the week where the most books had ever been used in study hall this year, and to be honest it might have been the first time some of the books were used all year long. Student athletes were continuing to slip off into a sleep/nap, due to all the exhaustion from practice and school itself.

            Even with this being a common issue this week in study hall, many student athletes managed to go over the necessary hours needed for study hall, which could be because of oversleeping in study hall, or just the excessive amount of time spent in study hall this week, with final projects and finals around the corner. The theme of maintaining grades and increasing those that needed to be increased continued to be a common motivation for student athletes this week. After Thanksgiving break many of the student athletes realized that they would only have less than two weeks until the semester was over so time was of the essence.

            Along with energy levels being low this was the quietest study hall had been, student athletes were heavily focused in their studies, even through how tired they were. As the week came to an end Thanksgiving was even closer, and the end of the semester was even closer as well.