After starting the fall morning with a Mustang Mentoring meeting, selling cookies to raise money for DECA, and planning school fundraisers for the Student Council, senior Ava Hollingsworth ends the school day by heading on over to the track to run for cross country and later heads home to finish mountains of homework for AP and honors classes. 

After a day filled with nonstop work, Hollingsworth finally goes to bed.  This routine goes on all year as Hollingsworth participates in three sports at Millard North: cross country, swimming, and track. 

“Honestly, my freshman year my mom forced me into cross country. She told me like a week before the season started, ‘You need to do something.’ She was like, ‘Just start with cross country you can always quit,’ Hollingsworth said. 

There are few students at MN who take part in three sports, and a handful of those who became tri-athletes never truly intended to do that many sports going into high school. Hollingsworth only planned on doing two sports going into high school before her mom convinced her to join cross country. 

 “And so, I started cross country with a total sour attitude because I was like ‘I do not want to be here,’ but then I found a really good group of friends and everything and so that was super cool. And I discovered I really actually love running because I had never had that sense of community before,” Hollingsworth said. 

This is Hollingsworth’s fourth year playing three sports at MN. Her busy schedule keeps her motivated and being a tri-athlete has taught her incredible time management skills. 

However, although Hollingsworth is able to balance all of her activities, Hollingsworth is a firm believer that grades and extracurriculars should take priority over sports. 

“My number one priority is still my grades, but probably close to number two is my academic extracurriculars, and then comes sports. But I like to balance them all, and I still like to dedicate myself to all of them,” Hollingsworth said. 

Sophomore Peyton Omer takes part in three sports as well. Omer began to participate in cross country, swimming, and track beginning his freshman year, and unlike Hollingsworth, Omer believes that as long as you know what’s going on in class then the workload for missing school isn’t that bad. 

“There have been times I have been able to tell that I haven’t been paying as much attention to school as I should have because I am so busy after school. You just have to remind yourself ‘Yeah, I have to stay on top of this too,’” Omer said. 

Sophomore Ramtein McVay participates in cross country, wrestling, and track. Cross country practices and wrestling weightlifting overlap and McVay could end up going to both practices on the same day. 

“I try to get my homework done in my fifth period guided study and if I have work to do at home I just have to not get distracted and get it done,” McVay said. 

These athletes spend their after school hours dedicated to sports all year. Through every sports season at MN and off-season conditioning, these tri-athletes stay involved and busy. 

“I think that might be the biggest downfall of doing three sports a year is not being able to do like other extracurriculars very easily,” Omer said.