The high school’s sports teams often find success in their seasons, with a majority of this year’s fall programs making the playoffs. Many student athletes find further success in club and college sports programs. However, it’s not just the students who are committed to school and their sports; many teachers at the high school belong to their own sports leagues.
Teachers play a variety of sports for different reasons, just like students. For some, their sports leagues are a social opportunity. For others, they offer a break from work and home life, motivating them to stay active and return to an activity that they enjoyed prior to teaching.
While there are many clubs, teams and inviting opportunities for students, it can be a challenge for adults to find a league. Depending on the sport and intensity they’re searching for, some teachers have found success through Brookline Recreation, the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) and the Boston Ski and Sports Club (BSSC).
Bridge for Resilient Youth in Transition (BRYT) Academic Coordinator and head coach of the girls junior varsity soccer, hockey and lacrosse teams, Jillian Kelley participates in BSSC’s women’s lacrosse league. Sports were always a big part of Kelley’s life growing up, and it was difficult to stay connected with them until she heard about the lacrosse league, where she participates in their weekly games.
“I graduated high school playing three sports. I went to college and went to go play club hockey and then things didn’t work out. So, going from three sports to injured and no sports was really challenging,” Kelley said. “Trying to find balance has been hard for me because it’s such a large part of my identity and part of my life. So, once a week on Tuesday nights, even though it’s now just once, it has been really important to me to make time for it in my schedule.”
Spanish teacher Kevin Whitehead had a similar experience with playing sports past college. A friend introduced Whitehead to a basketball team at the YMCA after he returned from Spain and was new to the Boston area again. He has been playing for the YMCA basketball team for the last seven years. Before finding the team, Whitehead said he also struggled with staying active in his sport and finding somewhere to play.
“What I do think is hard when you get out of high school and college is finding people to do sports with, because you have this massive community in high school, and then in college, intramural sports are massive,” Whitehead said. “When you get out of that environment, it’s harder to find people, and that’s why I’m really happy that I found this basketball league.”
While it’s harder to start playing for some teachers, being on a team helps them commit to physical activity that’s harder to find in a gym membership or daily runs. Similar to students’ experiences, some look forward to their workouts because it’s a social opportunity, and some are motivated by their commitment to a team.
Spanish teacher Kristina Tobey plays for the Pierce Penguins as a part of Brookline Recreation’s co-ed adult soccer league. She said the league’s rules motivate her to show up to weekly games.
“If you’re [exercising] on your own, you can be like, ‘Oh, I’m gonna skip a day’. [In my league], you have to have three females on the field to have a full team,” Tobey said. “You play down if you don’t have enough females, and there are way fewer females than males that play. So that makes me feel like I really have to go.”
Kelley said she is drawn in by the social aspect of her league, which has allowed her to make friends and connect with women across Boston.
“I use it like a social event. I’m going there to play lacrosse, but more so to see my friends and have a fun time and stay active,” Kelley said. “Even when I was a child and a high schooler, the people that I met for my sports were such an important piece of my life rather than the sport itself.”
Kelley said that being a teacher has helped her as an athlete to make the most out of the social opportunities presented by her league.
“Really developing the relationships from teaching has helped me in sports to continue developing social relationships with people,” Kelley said. “The social-emotional piece of empathy and kindness and understanding that you learn from teaching, it’s super important to bring that into playing sports and being an athlete.”
Though Tobey, who is a mom to three kids, often views soccer as a break from juggling many responsibilities, she also brings her job and sport together by telling her students about her games in order to socialize with them.
“I think it’s fun to [tell them] because I have students who play, and then this is particularly fun to talk about because it’s the elementary schools [that] play each other, so then I’ll talk to them about, ‘We played Runkle, we played Hayes,’ and then they like to hear who won, so we often talk about it a little bit,” Tobey said.
Tobey also finds that her team keeps her from getting burnt out, allowing her to balance and fulfill all of her roles.
“It’s good for my mental health besides just physical exercise,” Tobey said. “You get run down and you might not even realize it until all of a sudden you’re like, ‘Oh, my gosh, I can’t do this anymore.’ So I think [a sport] helps create a sense of balance in your life.”